I've been on vacation with no internet for aweek. Slightly differetn twist; last year at a garage sale of a guy who has a great shop and was selling off his "junk", he had a couple of Clark (or Clarke?) metal cutting 7.25" saw blades still new in package for cheap. Five bucks each if I recall. They sat on my shelf until this spring when I did my mower project of cutting 1/4" plate steel. I put one of those blades in a cheap garage sale WOOD cutting skilsaw. It cut GREAT! Beware that the saw us underpowered for the task, the HOT metal chips fly everywhere, and the saw is mostly plastic.

I think the retail price of the blade is $50, and I have not shopped for the proper saw to hold it, so I don't know if the wood saw is too fast or slow for the proper speed of the metal cut blade. Just hate plopping down $50 bucks for something I had not seen proven!

fabber Homer is close but that ferry ride is a little hard to take some times. I only do it if I have to.

got the motor mounted today. I used a piece of aluminum that I bent in the press then bolted to the saw body.

The metal cutting saws operate at about half the speed of a wood saw. The higher speed causes too much impact on the carbide teeth and the teeth are quickly shed. My son has a proper metal cutting saw and the blades work quite well in it.

A counter weight will probably be in order:)

it doses have the potential of flipping over backwards. I will keep that in mind.

I have a Milwaukee chop saw. It cuts really well. My only complaint is its a pain in the but to adjust any angles. I wish they made a chop saw with an easily turnable table. Kinda like a miter saw.

went to town to find a set of double pulleys they only had singles. so it is build time. I got the mandrel done.

got the pulley blanks with key ways made.

got the pulleys done. I had to dog the mandrel to cut the grooves. when cutting the taper I set the compound rest at 18 1/2* then cut two of the sides then turned it around to cut the other side.

The ferry from Homer to Kodiak is pretty slow and expensive isn't it?

Once again, superb craftsmanship Tom

I noticed there's quite a lot of "overhang" of the driven pulley.
Is there any reason you didn't want to off set the motor so you could put the driven pulley much closer to it's bearing?

fabber the ferry ride is 12 to 14 hours. it is $500.00 ROUND TRIP FOR A PU TRUCK. walk on's are a loot cheaper.

Lincoln glad you like the pulleys you order.

steve I was keeping things in line. so it looks like I need to add a bearing now that I know were the pulley rides.

I got the bearing done, I cut a bearing landing in heavy wall tube then welded it to a piece of plate. put it back in the lathe and bored the hole and faced the plate true with the tube. I enlarged the old bolt holes to 1/4 then used a set screw that I put a point on to locate were to drill the bolt holes. I also add a 1/2 NPT coupler to use as a handle mount. I think this saw needs a stand so that will be next.

Top Job Tom!!

So..
It looks like the hinge and the blade guard are the only things HF would reconize?

What rpm are you aiming for? The pulleys look similar in size.

I keep every thing less the motor so I am just adding a motor with a few modification.

gator The pulleys are 3" the motor is a 5HP 3650 RPM, on the test run it cut fine that was before I add the outer bearing.

update on the stand, building a stand really changes the look of the chop saw.