Just about done. I did a little clean up and drilled a few holes after the picture was taken but here are the parts basically done. (I don't know why it's rotated blogger keeps spinning it)

I am waiting for larger shoulder bolts to come in. I accidentally drilled the holes in the link arm a little to big so instead of 1/4" shoulder bolts I need 5/16". Not a big deal but a few days of waiting. I took all the parts home last night and will clean them up tonight and paint them. I need to mic the riving knife and the table saw blade to make sure the knife is not to thick. If it is I plan to run it through my drum sander a few times to thin it out.

I'll snap a few pics tonight as I work on it. I hope to get it installed this weekend. If everything goes as planned I'll have a working riving knife by Saturday evening. If not well...

I'm still working on it.

I've still been chugging along. I am almost done, the two mounting blocks are left and a few holes to drill. I hope to be done by the middle of next week.

The one thing I definitely learned while doing this is metal work is so much slower that wood work, and only getting about an hour and half a night makes for slow going. I've made a few mistakes none that really affect to much, but I'm getting more familiar with the machines and the techniques.

I have gotten a few emails asking about the sketchup model, and for a copy of it. I will be happy to post it for anyone who wants it. But I need to clean it up first. Look for it in a week or so.

And also the thing to remember is that this is for a 12"-14" (34-350) table saw. For the most part it's the same as the 10" unisaw, but the parts for the 10" are smaller, so if you decide to make one of these you'll have to scale the model down.

If someone does make one of these for the the 10" and wants to share their model I would be happy to post it here or link to it.

Progress is happening

A lots been happening in the last few days. I've been busy working on the knife, so I haven't been posting, but here are the video's I promised of the prototype in action. The first with everything in position.

The second with the blade (temporarily in place)

The work in the machine shop is going well. I don't have metal working equipment in my shop so I have been using the machines at work. I've been staying late after the machine shop guys go home and using the equipment then.

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, I tend to get working and forget to take pictures.

I bought a rotary table to make the main plate that the pivot disk will mesh with.

(I took these pics with my phone, sorry for the quality)

Here it is lined up on the table.

Here is a pic of milling the final size.

And a close up of the ring (with the bottom milled).

After I was that far there I made the ring.

This was a 4" piece of round stock chucked in the lathe and turned down. The machinist suggested that I turn the end over sized and turn down a post that will fit in a collet. He said this would be safer and give a better level of accuracy. This is after initial turning, before cutting the chunk off.

Here is the piece cut off and mounted in the collet and turned down to size, ready to be bored out.



It Fits!

More to come in the next few days!

It's been a few days since posting but things are moving along well. I made the wooden prototype. and found a few problems that needed addressing. After building the knife holding block I found that I needed everything to be adjustable. I needed to be able to tweak the knife this way and that. So I split the arm and added two blocks face to face to hold the arm, but the one block will have over sized holes (by 1/16") that will allow for tweaks.

The next problem was with the knife, I can put in slots to mount the knife forward and back, but I needed to add a stop to adjust the height of the knife. So in the block I added an allen head bolt that will sit between the legs and hold the knife up.

Here is a sketchup pic of the modified design.

I was able to build this and put the arbor in place and adjust everything. Worked beautifully. So I brought everything to the machine shop at work and will start the actual metal work this week.

I'll try to get a video or a few pics of the wooden proto up this week, as well as a few in process pics.

Riving knife proto 2

So I made a few changes to the prototype in the shop. Not to much but I did lower the parallel arm 3/4". about as low as I can get it. The further apart the arms are the more they stay in parallel. To mount the arm to the trunnion I decided to go with 2 1/4" blocks. I can mount one to the saw to give left right adjustment. and the other mounted at 90 will have up/down/front/back alignment. So I can tune in the position of the pivot. I also increased the size of the ring 1/4. and shortened the overall length of the arm.

The plan is to try and make a new prototype this weekend. But first I am going to mock up the knife and it's mount.