I forget what it's called, the throat plate, insert, etc? The part of the platform with a slot in it for the blade, remove that to see what's going on underneath.
Rat poop in miter saw?
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I get all kinds of poop in my shop. Anything from rats to cats and raccoons and once cow pies. Neighbor ranch across the road is too lazy to fix his fence.
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Nothing. There is clearance for the blade every inch of the way. Im honestly starting to think it really is elves and this is like their version of pixie dust.
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Since cleaning with compressed airIve really only cut thin piecesnof sycamore. Just two or three test cuts with some old 1/4 ply.
But... i am thinking through the homemade drum.sander idea and have an old radial arm i never use (could never get the thing cutting square anyway) so figured Id see if I can use that motor. Started.to disassemble and found more of it in the radial arm! So either real prolifix rats or motor residue?
Notice the piece circled in red. Thats that shape that made me think rats when i saw it the other day. But this was a closed housing on the radial arm. No way anything living got in there. I suspect that whatever this is, its the same thing from the miter only with the miter its getting chopped up? Still seems odd.
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@kindanewbie
Take the sample or send a picture of it to the local County Extension Office entomology specialist.
Take the sample or send a picture of it to the local County Extension Office entomology specialist.
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217 Posts
It cant be from an animal, could it be? This was a fully closed housing on a saw.
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Not familiar with saw but many miter saws have a short drive belt from motor to saw arbor. With the age of your saw this could be deteriorating
Roach droppings? We get these gigantic "palmetto bugs" here in the Palmetto state. Luckily they don't seem to like the wood species I have a lot of.. Cedar and cypress..
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I dont know. From the miter saw, I could believe anything because its so open. But from the radial arm? It was in an enclosed housing. Mold makes the most sense there but.... its the same from both tools.
I just dont get it.
That’s why I suspect mold: It’s the right color, the right shape/size, powdery, and the only thing common to both machines (which are basically inert) is that they are covered with the food that certain molds feed on (wood fibers).
Did you blow compressed air through all the vents, working in all directions to break debris free and move it out? Try a good wipe-down, and then run them again. Hopefully you’ll see less debris. If not, then it could be the brushes, but I doubt it would be a belt because that would shed chunks, not dust and you would smell burning rubber.
In person and in photos I don't recall seeing black mold with the definition shown in post #25, zoom in on it.
Seems there should be an online forum for asking what it is, but I haven't found it.
Maybe ask the biology department of a local university etc?
Face it..It's a completely unsolvable mystery that will stump the greatest scientific minds of our time or maybe some complete schmuck will walk up to your place and tell you exactly what it is the first time.. One thing you can be confident in is the answer is somewhere in between the two.. I hope that helps..
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