Stuck Table Saw Blade

[mike_wood]

I've been working on gardening for awhile so spent little time in the shop. Quit a little early yesterday went to my workshop to glue up some boards thinking it would take me 30 min or so. Have a thin kerf glue line blade on now. When I tried to take it off the nut would not budge. I've had this saw for >15 years (Delta Unisaw) and have always easily remove nut. Normally I wedge a piece of scrap wood between teeth and take it off. The problem is the teeth are close together so I have to use a thin piece of wood which just breaks as I am putting so much pressure on it. Put a vice grip on the blade (at this point I don't care if I ruin it as I may never use it again) After a few tries I marked the nut and the arbor & found I am turning both. I have noticed in the past when using this blade the nut is always a bit harder to remove. Never had a problem but it always takes a bit more effort to remove.

Wondering if anyone has run into this & has a solution. Really don't want to spend the rest of my life using one blade.

 

[ScottM]

Since you don't care about the blade can you lay a piece of angle iron perpendicular to the blade to hold it?

 

[Wilsoncb]

Have you ever had a thin kerf blade on it before? If you have not, I wonder if you hit the end of the threads and it’s jammed on the arbor instead of clamped on the blade. That’s why holding the blade isn’t helping.

Either way it sounds like you might need to do whatever you can to hold the arbor.

 

[Cuthriell]

Stupid question, but are you turning the nut the right way?

 

[1075tech]

Do you not have a wrench to hold the arbor?

My Unisaw has a flat on the right side of the blade for one wrench, the other wrench on the nut

 

[Oka]

If you are going to trash the blade, crank it up high enough to allow you to drill a hole in the blade, then just Lunn it to the table and loosen the nut

 

[JNCarr]

I would suggest a squirt of your favorite penetrating oil + 6 to 8 hours of time in addition to the left side wrench as mentioned above.

 

[Graywolf]

The next time you use a thin blade add an extra washer. This will prevent the jammed up situation you are in.

 

[Craptastic]

The next time you use a thin blade add an extra washer. This will prevent the jammed up situation you are in.

Even if this isn't the cause of your current problem it's a good practice to follow (as I found out a few years ago).

 

[junquecol]

Put a 7/8" box end wrench on nut. While holding blade, strike the wrench with a hammer. This should free up nut. If you get one on the nut, an impact gun would make quick work of this job. From under saw, can you hold belts so as to keep arbor from turning?

 

[zdorsch]

I almost had this happen on my Unisaw then other day when I went to use a thin kerf blade without the washer. The nut started to get right to turn without touching the blade.

My suggestion is to raise the blade and wedge something like a piece of metal in a blade gullet (and double check you’re turning clockwise to loosen—I still have to think about it if I haven’t used my saw for a bit).

 

[pop-pop]

Remember that right tilt saws have left-hand arbor nut threads and vice-versa.

A rule of thumb:
To loosen an arbor nut (or cap screw), turn it in the direction of normal rotation.

 

[bob vaughan]

Put a 7/8" box end wrench on nut. While holding blade, strike the wrench with a hammer. This should free up nut. If you get one on the nut, an impact gun would make quick work of this job. From under saw, can you hold belts so as to keep arbor from turning?

This is my go-to method for getting stuck nuts loose. Instead of a hammer, I'll use a wood mallet or a hefty stick of hardwood and strike the wrench as if I'm hitting a baseball. That sudden shock load usually loosens things. If that fails, I'll work a handscrew clamp around the motor pulley from underneath but that's a real annoyance to do.

 

[junquecol]

OP says arbor turns with nut, so holding blade doesn't work. As for whacking wrench, that's Newton's third law at work.

 

[mike_wood]

I've been working on gardening for awhile so spent little time in the shop. Quit a little early yesterday went to my workshop to glue up some boards thinking it would take me 30 min or so. Have a thin kerf glue line blade on now. When I tried to take it off the nut would not budge. I've had this saw for >15 years (Delta Unisaw) and have always easily remove nut. Normally I wedge a piece of scrap wood between teeth and take it off. The problem is the teeth are close together so I have to use a thin piece of wood which just breaks as I am putting so much pressure on it. Put a vice grip on the blade (at this point I don't care if I ruin it as I may never use it again) After a few tries I marked the nut and the arbor & found I am turning both. I have noticed in the past when using this blade the nut is always a bit harder to remove. Never had a problem but it always takes a bit more effort to remove.

Wondering if anyone has run into this & has a solution. Really don't want to spend the rest of my life using one blade.

Got it loose today. What worked was the suggestion to use a wrench on the back side to hold it and another on the nut. The space to get to the back side was really narrow so I used the OEM wrench and a standard 3/4" wrench on the nut.

As y'all said the blade was thin enough the nut was jamming on the non-threaded part of the arbor. Since there are 1000's of DU out there it would seem Freud would check closer. But I have run into problems with my saw & Freud blades before. 4-5 yrs ago I bought a 8" dado set to replace my very old 6" set. It was a giant pain to get the blades & chippers on an off. Just too tight a fit. Sometimes I had to take a large flat blade screwdriver to help get them off. The shims were completely impossible. I bought a set of 3rd party shims and tossed the Freud. After a year or so of this I was tired of it and sold the whole set with a warning about the fit. But the buyer did not have a DU. Not sure what is going on but I will be reluctant to buy Freud in the future. And I will buy a washer as I have a few more thin kerf blades.

I was wondering if someone would suggest I was turning in the wrong direction. Believe me, I was wondering the same thing!

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[bob vaughan]

I had forgotten that the newer Unisaw arbors had that flat on the back of the flange. Yes, the OEM service wrench was designed for that specific purpose. I think the Unisaw arbor is unique in that it has that flat.
Beats the heck out of vise grips on the arbor threads.

 

[Canuck]

I had forgotten that the newer Unisaw arbors had that flat on the back of the flange. Yes, the OEM service wrench was designed for that specific purpose. I think the Unisaw arbor is unique in that it has that flat.
Beats the heck out of vise grips on the arbor threads.

I have an 18 year old Craftsman 152.22124 ("zip code saw") and also has an inner flat on the Arbor and I use two wrenches for blade changes.