Before Papaw's site was so rudely interupted by hackers or a vurus or what ever, there was a thread running for a couple of years about old Craftsman table saws.  My last post was in reference to a Craftsman saw I was going to restore for an college professor of mine.  Well, its done and here is the whole story.

In 2001 I was finishing up my Master's degree and only had the thesis paper standing between me and graduation.  A good friend of mine, Dirk, had just completed his with the help of a professor by the name of Bob Hendricks.  Dirk recommended I ask Bob to be my paper advisor as well.  Bob agreed to advise me through the writing over the next 9 months.

One potential issue was that Bob and I were 250 miles apart.  I had a young family at the time and was not very mobile.   Bob arranged a number of trips to come over to my area to work on the paper.  We would often meet at Dirk's house, drink some beers and discuss the work at hand.  In May of 2002 the paper was completed and I graduated thanks to the help of both Bob and Dirk.  Since that time I have had a number of occasions to see Bob and get to know him more on a personal level.

One day about a year ago Dirk had just returned from a fishing trip with Bob.  Dirk and I have been collecting and restoring OWWM and told Bob about it.  Bob mention he had an old saw that belonged to his grandfather sitting behind his garage deteriorating and didn't know what to do with it.  Dirk looked at the saw and indeed it was in rough shape.  However, it was nearly the same Craftsman saw my grandfather had that I recently restored.  Dirk and I discussed the possibility of taking Bobs saw and restoring it as a gesture of thanks for helping both of us finish our degrees.

We made arrangements to get the saw and spent the winter working together, taking turns at each other's shops, to restore the saw.  Recently we delivered the saw to Bob and were able to partake in some northern Wisconsin fishing as well.  Bob was very pleased with the saw and is looking forward to being able to hand the saw down to his son someday.

All together this has been a very rewarding restoration.  I feel we were able to show Bob how much we appreciate his efforts in helping both of us by restoring the saw.  Hope you enjoy the before and after pictures!

Tom

That's a very pretty job, and a fine story behind it.  Thanks for sharing both.

That's what it is all about! People with common interests helping each other and preserving history!

Wow!!!!

Nice work!!!! You would have never guessed those two pictures were the same saw!!!!! Wow!!!! That resto is stunning!!!!

Very well done! I like the add ons, the wheels, deluxe on/off switch, optional cast wings, fence, and the original blade guard!

I have a saw very similar to that one. I don't have any pictures of it handy, but it's very old. I remember dad having it when I was just a pup. It still works good, I use it all the time. I'll get some pictures of it and post them up.