Burning on right side of blade only... why?

[Matt Armstrong]

My first thought was that the fence isn't true to the blade. It is, at least within 0.01" or better. If anything, the distance is slightly greater at the back side of the blade as it is at the front side.

Second thought... blade just dirty? Cleaned, scrubbed, rinsed, dried... put back in place... nope, same problems.

Third thought... underpowered saw? Well, maybe... but that doesn't explain the burning only on one side, does it?

Fourth thought... dull blade?

I haven't done that much with it, at least not as far as I could tell. It seemed to go downhill pretty quick once I started ripping 8/4 purpleheart and maple. Prior to this, I did crosscut and rip a bit of ipe, which has silica in it, and I've cut my fair share of MDF which I know can dull cutters... but I thought my WW II would hold up a little longer than this.

As far as feed rate goes, I'm applying a pretty significant amount of forward pressure... it makes me uncomfortable because if the problem doesn't relate to feed rate, I've got enough tension to snap my hands right into the blade if kickback were to occur.

How long do blades typically go before needing resharpening, anyway? I mainly woodwork on weekends only and it's been about 3 months since I purchased the blade. 10 weekends or so does not seem like enough time to warrant a blade sharpening, but I'd be curious to hear others thoughts on this.


My last and final thought is that runout in the blade, arbor, or just vibration in combination with all of these things may be leading to more of a pinching effect on the right side of the blade (next to the fence) that you don't see since the fence doesn't exist on the left. I don't know, but I don't tend to burn anything when crosscutting without the fence... so it's possible I suppose?

[Mark Norman]

FWIW, it only take one or two cutters with a bur to cause burn.

Does the saw do it only with this one blade?

[dan sherman]

same question as Mark is it all blades or just that one?

additionally:
when does the burn happen start, middle, or end of the cut, or the entire length?

is the fence strait? if it bows out or cups, that can cause burning.

[Matt Armstrong]

same question as Mark is it all blades or just that one?

additionally:
when does the burn happen start, middle, or end of the cut, or the entire length?

is the fence strait? if it bows out or cups, that can cause burning.

Good point about the blade... it happens anywhere in the cut. I dont' think the fence is bowed but I could check...

[Tom Walz]

Are fence and blade parallel?

You should be able to cut a mile of material as a rule of thumb. Less with Ipe and more with dry fir. There are an awful lot of factors but a mile seems to be a pretty good rule of thumb.

[Darius Ferlas]

Your alignment is likely out a tad. From my limited experience, if the distance between the fence and the blade widens towards the back of the table then the blade will tend to burn on the tighter side - left of blade. I also got some burnings on one side only when using a miter guide that wasn't exactly true to the blade.

[Lee Schierer]

Maybe it is just the wording you used, but just to clarify. Your blade alignment should be to the miter slot AND your fence alignment should be to the miter slot. The most accurate way to check this is with a dial indicator mounted to your miter gauge. You can buy a dial indicator for $20 from Harbor Freight. The mounting can be a block of wood with a couple of wood screws to hold the indicator to the block and the block to the miter gauge. You want to measure to the root of te tooth, not the tooth itself.

Your burning on the right side during a rip cut indicates that the wood is being pinched between the blade and the fence, whihc can either be a fence problem or a blade problem. If it is the blade alignment, you would also see burning on that side of the blade when doing wide cross cuts. If a wide cross cut doesn't produce any burning then your fence is misaligned.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Being within 0.01" isn't close enough. Your fence really needs to be within a few thousands of parallel to the blade.

As Lee said, get the $20 HF dial indicator.

[Matt Armstrong]

Being within 0.01" isn't close enough. Your fence really needs to be within a few thousands of parallel to the blade.

As Lee said, get the $20 HF dial indicator.

I was thinking as a test, I could just keep turning the fence outward until burning starts occuring on the left side of the blade as well... right? If I'm still getting burning on both sides then it's probably a dull blade or warped fence. If there's a happy medium between the two, then it was probably misalignment right?

[Matt Armstrong]

For what it's worth, I recognize that using a 40 tooth WWII blade to rip 8/4 hardwoods is a tall order...

I ordered some 17 dollar dial indicator from amazon... oshlun? it probably sucks but it's better than eyeballing it, and I can get it with free shipping by friday.

[Walt Caza]

Sorry Matt,
It's not much help at all...
more like a trivial diversion,
but after Zeppelin, Robert Plant's first single off his first
solo effort, was also named: Burning Down One Side.

I was momentarily amused,
good luck solving your problem,
Walt

[Matt Armstrong]

Sorry Matt,
It's not much help at all...
more like a trivial diversion,
but after Zeppelin, Robert Plant's first single off his first
solo effort, was also named: Burning Down One Side.

I was momentarily amused,
good luck solving your problem,
Walt

:D

I prefered Fate of Nations.

[dan sherman]

For what it's worth, I recognize that using a 40 tooth WWII blade to rip 8/4 hardwoods is a tall order...

not necessarily, if everything is aligned properly it should do just fine, with a slower feed rate of course.

[glenn bradley]

Being within 0.01" isn't close enough. Your fence really needs to be within a few thousands of parallel to the blade.

I started to say this and backed off. Thanks for getting me back on track Dan. I will accept .002 or .003 along the length of the fence relative to the miter slot on my saws. Over that and poor results are pretty much guaranteed.

[Matt Armstrong]

I started to say this and backed off. Thanks for getting me back on track Dan. I will accept .002 or .003 along the length of the fence relative to the miter slot on my saws. Over that and poor results are pretty much guaranteed.

Really? This precise? I find this hard to justify but maybe I'm wrong. Wood stresses naturally anyway in the middle of a cut and I'm guessing more than a couple thousandths of an inch, right?

[Zach England]

I don't have the same amount of experience as others, but I know I had this problem and adjusting the fence and changing blades did not help, so I adjusted the splitter, which had been pulling the cutoff piece away from the blade just slightly, and the problem went away.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

[QUOTE=Matt Armstrong;1163014]For what it's worth, I recognize that using a 40 tooth WWII blade to rip 8/4 hardwoods is a tall order...

You may want to try a rip blade.... I think you'll get better results. The Freud glue line rip is a good blade.

[Matt Armstrong]

I don't have the same amount of experience as others, but I know I had this problem and adjusting the fence and changing blades did not help, so I adjusted the splitter, which had been pulling the cutoff piece away from the blade just slightly, and the problem went away.
Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a check.

I've pretty much ruled out everything else. I set the fence to point away from the blade a significant amount, the thing still started burning and became nearly impossible to push, so i shut it off midway through the cut. I could have easily slid 5 pieces of paper between the fence and workpiece, so it wasn't binding there... the thing was nearly impossible to pull off the blade though...

So if it's closing around the saw, I would blame the workpiece... but it's actually seeming to get stuck on maple, purpleheart, jatoba... all in the same way. So now I'm just back to thinking that the blade is dull.

If that's the case, I might as well finish cutting some more MDF with it and send it in for sharpening.

I did the "clamp something straight to the miter gauge" test to make sure the blade was aligned to the slot (it was) and the fence to the slot (it also was)....

so yeah, I guess it's just dull? I can't think of much else at this point.

[Matt Armstrong]

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a check.

I've pretty much ruled out everything else. I set the fence to point away from the blade a significant amount, the thing still started burning and became nearly impossible to push, so i shut it off midway through the cut. I could have easily slid 5 pieces of paper between the fence and workpiece, so it wasn't binding there... the thing was nearly impossible to pull off the blade though...

So if it's closing around the saw, I would blame the workpiece... but it's actually seeming to get stuck on maple, purpleheart, jatoba... all in the same way. So now I'm just back to thinking that the blade is dull.

If that's the case, I might as well finish cutting some more MDF with it and send it in for sharpening.

I did the "clamp something straight to the miter gauge" test to make sure the blade was aligned to the slot (it was) and the fence to the slot (it also was)....

so yeah, I guess it's just dull? I can't think of much else at this point.

Alright, well, I used the similar method (stick clamped to miter gauge) and verified the splitter is a teeny bit *in* on both sides from the blade itself... so forcing the workpiece left or right is not possible here. I think the blade is dull or the wood is bad or some combination of a bunch of factors...

[Brian D Anderson]

I was going to say your blade is dull, but I'm no expert. I just replaced a Tenryu blade with a Forrest WWII on my saw. I was experiencing the same thing. Lots of burning. I aligned everything as best I could. I would clean the blade as well, but still got the burning. I put the WWII on and bingo, no more burning. I can almost feel the sharpness difference between the new and old blades.

I had the old blade on the saw for about a year and a half. And I cut a good amount of hard woods (purple heart, maple . . . etc.)

I didn't have enough experience to "know" that the blade is dull. I kind of wondered though . . .

-Brian