As my post from last week seems to have disappeared.  I shall try to recreate it although it may not be as humorous.

Cudos to who ever invented the shop vac,  It is such a versatile creation.  When cleaning out a saw, it does an amazing job.  Saves 3-4 hours of messy work.

In the past mucking out a saw consisted of moving all the sludge to this very small opening that was supposed to be a drain.  The first major challenge was always getting the cap off.  At the time, I was not very proficient with pipe wrenches and it would have to be a very large one at that.  This cap is in the front at the bottom of the saw.  When the cap comes off, I would always end up with my hands and arms covered with oily mud.

The next challenge was moving everything in the base of the saw to this small opening.  The residual oil would splash everywhere but the bucket and the true sludge would not fit through the opening.  messy indeed!

Now I just use the shop vac!  This consists of vacuuming up all the oil off the top of the sludge.  I start making a channel for it to flow into.  Yippee, all that is left is a layering of thick mud that is easily scooped out with a wide putty knife.

The unfortunate with this last cleaning there was a large piece of metal at the bottom of the saw.  After almost having to crawl into the base of the saw, I was able to determine that one of the thick bars that hold the carriage that feeds the rock into the saw blade had broken in 2.  Alan is unhappily replacing the part as I write.  It will be good to have both 24" saws up and running again.

Thanks for reading.......