Day Off and New Saw

We sleep in probably the latest we've ever slept in, until after ten a.m. Then we're up and we eat and shower and then head to Home Depot. It's finally new saw day.

We grab one of those big rolling carts and first go to the garden center. (What are those carts called, besides just cart?) We've got one of those panel carts, rather than the plain flat ones. We figure the saw box is going to be big.

I leave Dawn and head to the tool corral to get the saw. I grab a guy dusting the sanders on display and ask if he can find me a Ryobi BTS20R. He says that they're stored high up in aisle 13 and to give him fifteen minutes. So I go looking for garden hoses and sprayers in the meantime. After a while I figure out that they've moved them; they're outside now. I meet up with Dawn and we get what we need and a sprinkler too and then I head back to Tools.

The guy is just wheeling back a cart with what looks like two saws on it. I'm trying to figure out why, and then I realize this box is huge, about twice the size I was expecting. It's twenty-nine inches wide and thirty-nine inches long and fifteen inches tall. That's about ten cubic feet, if my math skills are still any good. Plus it weighs just a few ounces under one hundred pounds. And there's no way any plants are going to fit on the cart with it, so I go put it in the car. Thank goodness for the Jetta station wagon. It never woulda fit in the Taurus.

Oh, sadly, it's thirty dollars more than what I was thinking the price was going to be. The web site does warn, "Local store prices may vary from those displayed." Sigh.

Back with Dawn and we buy a lot of plants and potting soil and stuff. But, again, thank goodness for the Jetta wagon.

At home we pull the car around back, and then load the saw box onto the wheelbarrow to get it across the yard to the deck. Then we stand it on end and kind of push and roll it into the shop.

It has finally arrived.

And then one of my first orders of business is to go upstairs and type up an ad for Craig's List to sell the old saw. I'm a little sad to do this, not really wanting to part with it, for sentimental reasons. It'll always be my first saw, I suppose. Sniffle. I used it to make my workbench. Cut my first dadoes on it.

But, then again, I've replaced it because it's too small. So I type up the following:

Benchtop Table Saw

For sale: One lightly used Delta TS200 Shopmaster 10" Portable Bench Saw,
with Delta 36-541 Extension Wing,
atop a Delta 36-519 Steel Stand
on four McMaster-Carr 2368T61 2" Casters.

Includes a homemade feather board that fits in the miter gauge slots, using a toilet bolt actually, and another toilet bolt/washer/nut assembly. Also includes the homemade extension fence on the miter gauge itself. Also the original arbor nut wrench for changing blades. And a 10mm wrench for the blade guard/splitter/anti-kickback pawls assembly. Oh, and the original blade that came with the saw, that I mostly had hanging on the wall while I used a Freud thin-kerf blade, which I'm keeping. And includes of course the original fence.

Asking $75, but of course will consider any reasonable offers.

So that's it. The die is cast.

Dawn graciously allows me to store the Delta on its stand in the dining room, so I can have room to unpack and assemble the Ryobi in the workshop. I open the box and take out the loose parts, of which there actually aren't too many. The miter gauge is already assembled, as are the fence and blade guard. The rest of the parts are mostly for the wheels. The main saw assembly and stand assembly are already together, although way too heavy to lift out of the box. I have to stand the box on its side and slide it all out. Styrofoam is annoyingly squeaky. And annoyingly static clingy.

The axle for the wheels has to be secured while attaching the wheels, so I stick a little screwdriver in the hole that's provided for this very purpose, and I end up bending the poor little screwdriver. Not debilitatingly so. It's fixable. But kind of funny. The two ends of the axle are sealed with bolts, and at first I try using these same bolts for the wheels. But they're too short. After fumbling for a minute, I realize that the directions clearly state that these bolts are to be saved, if ever the saw needs to be re-packed or shipped or something, but the wheels actually go on with longer bolts provided. Then I of course put the wheels on but forget the outside washers, so then have to take it all apart are redo it. But eventually I get it right.

Then the bumpers go on and it's about done. I practice getting the hang of setting it up on the stand and then putting it back down into roll/store position. Oh, it's so great.

Then it's time to get ready for ballet class. And I feel like the complete renaissance man, being the workshop power tool guy as well as the ballet guy.