It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
I should try and remember to double check measurements before purchasing parts for old tools. But I probably won’t in the long run. A month ago I decided ripping hardwood by hand sucked, so I started using the tablesaw available in the shop next door. However the machine is old and the blades have been well used. I was starting to get burns on the wood I was cutting plus the blades they had were more geared for sheet goods and not solid lumber. I talked to the owner and he said I could put a new blade on the machine.
I looked the spare blades he had. They all were well used (the space had been a production shop for IKEA in the past, so no surprise that the blades had been well used). However the cases for the blades told me the size that (I thought) I needed. The blade boxes stated 350mm in diameter with a 30mm bore. The blades had been sharpened several times, so measured around 345mm in diameter. I stopped by the local woodworking store and picked up a 350 mm CMT rip saw blade.
However when I tried to put the blade on, it didn’t fit. I got the micrometer out and measured the arbor (and the actual blades that were on the saw). I needed a bore size of 35mm. The local woodworking shop didn’t have a blade in stock with that size (at least they didn’t online), so I had to do a search online. I found a company in Germany that had blades in stock. So that seemed like an easy fix. That evening I had one on order and expected it in late last week.
Shipping (or receiving packages) in Sweden has been a learning experience. Amazon deliveries are pretty consistent. The rest, not so much. The shipper website said it was delivered to a pickup point on Friday morning. However the website didn’t tell me what pickup point it was sent to. I looked through my previous orders and found one that had used the same company to ship from Germany. They used another company to do the final delivery in Sweden. That second company’s website told me to go to a grocery store in the southern part of the city to pick up my parcel.
On Sunday, Izzy and I drove to the grocery store. They couldn’t find my package with the parcel number that I had. So back to the internet to search for my package. Anyway, on Monday, I printed out the page with the shipping status and package numbers.
We’re still down a car, so yesterday I took the bus down to the grocery store and there my package was. A short bus trip back and I had the blade at home. This morning Hoagie and I took the bus up to Rottne and finally I have a new blade the tablesaw. And it fit, though I had to adjust the riving knife back as far as it would go.
With luck, tomorrow Susanna will have a new car and I don’t have to juggle the bus schedule every day. I still have 8 one-day bus passes that I need to use in the next month, so no matter what, I won’t be driving every day.
