dewalt radial arm saw 7770 manual muscle

The company DeWalt, now owned by Black & Decker and famous for quality power tools, had been founded by Raymond DeWalt, the inventor of the radial arm saw. Actually, 1959 had perhaps been the apex in the history of DeWalt radial arm saws. Over two hundred dollars for a fifty-year-old saw, is that really a bargain? But the saw worked, and it looked amazingly solid-certainly more solid than the 'made in China' circular saw I would have found in New Zealand for the same price. When I saw that my saw's engine was fifty years old, I was less happy with my purchase than I had been a couple hours earlier. The saw was an 'AMF 1030 round arm' model. I learned that the motor had been built in 1959 and had 1½ horsepower. On the Dewalt Radial Arm Saw forum, I read that you could find details about your saw on plates located to the sides of the column and motor. I don't know if I'm attached to my fingers, but my fingers are attached to me. Well, I certainly wanted to learn to use my saw properly, so that was a relief. And in the day of 'buy it now and start using it five minutes later', who gets trained on anything anymore? But if you learned to properly use your radial arm saw, I kept reading, it was as safe as, if not safer than, other powered saws. Probing deeper, I read that radial arm saws indeed carry some hazards in the hands of hobbyists who haven't received training on their proper use. But aren't all saws inherently dangerous? And what would be more dangerous, moving wood over a blade that you don't always see (as with a table saw), or pulling a blade over stationary wood? One reason for this shift, I read, was that radial arm saws had a reputation for being dangerous. It had been displaced by table saws, the very same saws that radial arm saws had once been slated to replace, and by the more recent sliding compound miter saws. From what I could understand, this kind of saw, once popular, had fallen into disuse with the general public. That evening, I read everything I could find on the internet about radial arm saws. We loaded the saw onto the pickup, and I took it home. I peeled off twelve twenty New Zealand dollar bills (US$ 185 at the time). When he showed me the arm that moved up and down and side to side, and the motor that could swing in two planes, I fell in love. I drove out to meet the engineer who was parting with his DeWalt for lack of space in his small shop. I had no idea what a radial arm saw was, but soon discovered that these machines have a strong following, especially older DeWalt models. At the top of the search results for my small town, there wasn't a handheld circular saw, but there was a massive machine. I had read strong reviews of a DeWalt circular saw, so I typed in 'DeWalt saw'. Late one night, I was looking for a used circular saw on TradeMe, New Zealand's version of Ebay. But the depth of knowledge on the forum is astounding, and it's perhaps the most helpful forum I've ever had the chance to frequent. As I learn more about my AMF DeWalt 1030, I plan to add material to this page, hoping that it may give a few pointers to others following the same track.īefore I start, I want to thank and recommend the DeWalt Radial Arm Saw Forum, from whose members I learned just about everything I know about radial arm saws. I am a complete newbie with the radial arm saw.

Dewalt radial arm saw 7770 manual muscle