DIY Ingenuity

The lads were working away when the main spring in their compound miter saw broke. For those of you who do not know, a compound miter saw is a circular saw on an arm that can be raised up or down with the help of a spring where the arm pivots.

Anyway… They took the saw to the Service Department, only to be told that a new spring had to come from down the line and could take up to a week to get in. WHAT TO DO? To hire a saw for a week seemed a bit extravagant and to purchase a new saw seemed even more extravagant.

“I know!” said one, with a smirk spreading across his face. “Let’s have a weeks holiday.”

“NO!” said the other. “I have an idea how to get it working temporarily.” And get it working he did.

How was it fixed?

They found an old trampoline leg, which is just a bit of u-shaped hollow pipe, and fixed it over the compound miter saw. It was held in placed by two bolts going through the workbench structure and up into the hollow pipe.

A piece of rope was tied around the compound miter saw handle and then thread through a pulley at the top of the u-shaped pipe and then tied to the handle of a 10 litre bucket (the counter-weight).

Water was poured into the bucket until the compound miter saw arm was raised. In this case the bucket was about 3/4 full, or about 7 litres or about 7 kilograms.

It worked perfectly.