Halfway through the construction of a basement door my chop saw quit this morning, an obvious burned wire somewhere. So I took the thing apart and located the culprit, shorted another wire on the re-assembly, took it apart again and generally familiarized myself with the machine and its construction on the next three or four disassemblies. Then it went back together and worked fine until I tried to cut a board. Damned thing was turning backwards. Tried reversing the polarity on the plug. Nope. Put that back.
The only thing that wasn’t the same as before was that the motor housing had gone on upside down. Off it all came and apart it went. The red wire gave me fits again as I re-routed it for the fifth time, and then the thing worked, as normal, but more smoothly than it has run in years. Nothing like a thorough cleaning to spark a motor up. Turning it backwards really lets go with a lot of dust.
Almost four hours lost, but it was fun.
the Walnut Diary 