Tolerance

[Ken Higginbotham]

I'm setting up my table saw and have a diff of about .015 between the front edge of the blade vs the back edge when checking parallel alignment against the miter gauge slot. What would be an acceptable limit? That seemed fairly close to me. I’m guessing I can tinker with it and get it to maybe .005…

[Joe Chritz]

I don't know what the "limit" is but .015 is a bit to much. I try to align my rip fence to within .001-.002 front to back and the blade is to the miter slots by under .001.

Joe

[Ken Higginbotham]

I don't know what the "limit" is but .015 is a bit to much. I try to align my rip fence to within .001-.002 front to back and the blade is to the miter slots by under .001.

Joe

Hum... I'll give it a shot. I may be able to get to that close. I guess if it was checked against the entire table (front to back) instead of the saw blade it would be real bad huh...

Any tricks you can suggest? I was going to put a pc of tape on the table and put a line parallel to the slot in the blade path the attach a straight egde to the blade.

[Joe Chritz]

All you likely will need to know.

http://www.thewoodshop.20m.com/calibrate_sled1.htm

You will need some tools but they are relatively inexpensive and very handy for other projects.

Basically the blade needs to be parallel to the slots and the fence needs to be parallel to the blade (some like the fence to "toe out" about .002 at the back) and the crosscut devices need to be set at a particular angle to the blade (90, 45, 22.5, etc.)

Be sure to check the blade at full height and just above the table as well as at a 45 degree angle.

Joe

[Lee Schierer]

Hum... I'll give it a shot. I may be able to get to that close. I guess if it was checked against the entire table (front to back) instead of the saw blade it would be real bad huh...

Any tricks you can suggest? I was going to put a pc of tape on the table and put a line parallel to the slot in the blade path the attach a straight egde to the blade.

You don't say what saw you have, but many of the saws attach the trunion assembly to the underside of the table with studs with nuts and lock washers. If you loosen things up so you can align the blade with the miter slot you may find the trunion has a tendancy to slide back to the original position as you tighten the nuts. You can prevent this with the P.A.L.S. or by changing the lockwashers from a tooth type to split ring type or the other way around. You may also be able to rotate the washer so the teeth aren't in the original divots in the cast iron. Tighten each one hand tight and then in sequence tighten them 1/8 turn at a time while watching you dial indicator. readings.

It may take a while to get the alignment to within .001 but it is well worth the effort. Yor saw will cut like a totally different saw. Once you get teh saw blade aligned, don't for get to align your fence to teh same miter slot.

[Ken Higginbotham]

It's a Steel City cabinet saw. I think the trunion assembly is mounted to the cabinet so the adjustment will be cabinet to table - ?

[Joe Scharle]

4 machine bolts hold the table. The setup is in the manual. Take care to keep blade centered as well as square. You can actually have the blade square to the miter slots, but off-center to the fence rails. That will mess up your sleds, etc.
There's a foot long piece of mdf for a gage. SC saws take less than 30 minutes to setup once you've done one.

[Ken Higginbotham]

Thanks for the input. After looking again at the manual it all makes sense. I finally got it together and thanks to John picked up the stuff to run my electrical outlet. Maybe in a couple days I'll get to cut some wood - :)

[David Christopher]

Ken, you didnt say one way or the other but make sure you use the same tooth on the blade ( just mark it with a sharpie ) and not just going from front to back

[glenn bradley]

I don't know what the "limit" is but .015 is a bit to much. I try to align my rip fence to within .001-.002 front to back and the blade is to the miter slots by under .001.

Joe


I'm with Joe.