For all of us setting up new table saws this Christmas

[Jim O'Dell]

What do you all recommend for set up tools? I have a dial indicator with a magnetic base. I'm sure I can attach that to my miter gauge to use for checking miter slot to saw blade for parallel, and also for the fence. What length straight edge do I need to properly set up the wings, then be good for also setting up a longer extension table? Is 3' adequate, or do I need one longer? What is a decent price for a decent one? And brands? I'll look at Lee Valley for sure, and Woodpecker. Who else?
I have a fair square from Rockler. It's not top of the line, but it's better than the roofing squares I've used in the past. :rolleyes: Do I also need one that is 45 to be able to check that setting also? By the way, what if the blade is set up well at 90, but at 45 goes away from parallel to the miter slot? Can it even do that? If it can, are there adjustments built into the saw to correct that? Just in case you are reading this and haven't seen me drooling on the threads talking about the Grizzly G0690/691 saws, I will be ordering a 691 in the next 2 1/2 weeks. I have downloaded the owners manual for this saw, but didn't see anything about an adjustment like that, so I'm thinking there shouldn't be a way it could do that unless something is wrong with the way the trunnion is made/cast. I will need to get a straight edge by the time the saw gets here, so wanted to get it decided on. Thanks for your advice! Jim.

[Rich Johnson]

Good Questions...I am in the market for one soon and really dont understand when people say "It was .03 off when I got it." Have not a clue how they measured it, over what distance there concerned about, or what they used to measure it. Looking forward in reading the post from your question. Any good books on the subject as well?

[Bob Borzelleri]

Jim...

I'm sure you will get replies stating that you don't need sophisticated tools to set up woodworking machines and they will be right. That said, I use a TS-Aligner Jr. I've it for several years and it allows me to keep things in spot on order. For me, it's the best thing available.

...Bob

[Bill Huber]

The mag base is useless on the table saw IMO.

To me and on my saw I used?

Digital Dial indicator in a super bar, but you can put it in any type of good miter slot mount.

A master plate, this way you do not have to worry about the blade warp or things like that. I guess I see all the talk about marking the blade and turning it and just can not see why people just don't go to a master plate and not worry about it.

A flat edge, I use the LV 36 inch steel, I like the steel for the weight.

A set of feeler gauges, I got 3 of them from HF and used them for shims on the wings, they are great.

Time.


Jim, I have all the stuff if you want to borrow it, just let me know.

[John Harden]

Jim, I've done quite a few of these. What you need depends on your saw. For any saw, I recommend spending the time to set it up extremely well. Table surfaces don't move and your fence won't move much at all, so calibrating them extremely well initially will pay immense dividends down the road. Once it's set, you're done.

I have a Lee Valley 50" aluminum straightedge, which is a bit too short for my Euro slider. For a cabinet saw, you only need one that will span the diagonals, including the extension wings. 36" may be enough and probably is.

My advice is to draw your rectangular saw top multiple times on a sheet of paper, then make copies as necessary. Recording all the measurements allows you to track your progress and make adjustments as needed. Record the settings, make adjustments, record again, and so on.

First off, install the wings, then determine the flatness of the diagonals, front to back, and side to side using your straightdge and feeler gauges. Adjust the wings with shims as necessary to bring the whole top into alignment as flat as possible. Record your measurements.

Soda or beer cans make good shims and you can cut them with scissors.

Some saws have adjustment bolts at the corners and even in the middle to raise or lower the main table to correct a hump or sag. Not all do. Your manual will help here. I had a pretty good sag in my cast iron top and had to use the center adjusting bolt to raise it up a bit. Go slow as a 1/8 of a turn is a lot here.

Once the saw top is as flat as you can get it, turn your attention to ensuring the arbor runs true. A dial indicator makes this easy. I'll skip the explanation, as it is intuitive. I like to measure both the arbor and face flange.

Record this measurement, then install a high quality blade and use the dial indicator to measure how flat the blade is relative to the table top. If it's way out of whack, it will adversely affect all your other settings. My Forrest WWII was less than .001 out of flat. I've heard Freud and other high quality blades are similiarly flat. This is important as its frustrating to discover later that your arbor runs true to less than .001, yet your saw blade is out of flat by .007. You'll be scratching your head trying to figure out where you're going wrong.

Next, is to align the left mitre gauge slot to the blade. A TS-Aligner or similiar setup with a dial or test indicator calibrated to at least .001 will make this very easy. On cabinet saws you typically have to loosen the bolts that hold the top to the cabinet and nudge the top on the diagonals until you get it dialed in as best you can. A blade out of alignment to the mitre slot .001 across the length of a 10" blade will give you .01 accuracy across 100 inches. That's pretty darn accurate.

Some folks like toe out of their blade to the mitre slot. If you do, now is the time to do this. .002 across the 10" blade is plenty.

Now, measure the right mitre slot to see if it is parallel to the left one. No adjustments here as you want to calibrate the left one. But, at least you'll know how well machined the right one is relative to the left one.

Done?

Now turn your attention to the rip fence. I use a Oneway guage to ensure mine has .002 of toe out relative to the blade. A dial indicator screwed down to a block of wood does exactly the same thing. This is easy and your manual will tell you how to adjust the rip fence.

You'll also want to ensure the fence faces are dead on 90 degrees to the table top. A small engineers square is your friend here. Adjust the faces as necessary. You may need another beer can to make shims. Be sure to check all across both faces, front to back. It is very common to discover twist in either the steel bar of the fence, the faces (be they BB, UHMW, or whaterver), or both. Make corrections as neccesary, but focus on the area in front of the blade.

Finally, your mitre gauge. I use a 10X18 precision Polish square (huge engineers square) and a test (not dial) indicator as it is very fast and repeatable. A five cut process to align the mitre gauge or sled works just as well, but takes more time and makes a lot of sawdust. Unless you already have a Polish square, I'd not recommend buying one. Five cut is plenty and is free.

All in all, you really only need a good straightedge of the appropriate length, dial indicator with arms and magnetic base, TS-Aligner or Oneway, and a small (3"X5" is plenty) engineers square.

Someone here will likely post a link to some pictures, which make this a lot easier to visualize.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John

[Barry Vabeach]

Jim, I am sure you will get some better answers. For me a 3 foot straight edge would be plenty - LV has a nice one. It isn't essential, since the wings don't have that much of an impact so they don't have to be that precise. If you have a 45 that can be nice in setting the blade angle and the miter gauge, though you can adjust both by cutting and checking scrap. I haven't looked at the Grizzly manual, but I would think it would have an adjustment to make the blade parallel to the slot at 90 and at 45. In terms of the magnetic base, you will want a peice of metal that you can screw to a scrap of wood that you have sized to just fit the miter slot that you will be using most of the time. (Rich - this is where the .003 comes in ) You would then screw the metal to the scrap, put the scrap in the slot near the front, and stick your magnetic base to it and set the indicator against the blade and mark that spot with a circle. Then turn the blade to the rear, and move the scrap with the dial indicator towards the rear, and see what the indicator reads. .03 out would generally mean the slot is .03 further from the blade at the rear of the saw - you would make the adjustment ( which just moves the table one way or another ) and check it again. Try not to get caught up getting it to within .001 - since you get can that variance just in measuring the same spot. The manual might suggest a tolerance that is acceptable. Once you get that done, make the measurements from the fence to the blade front and rear - a slight gap (.003) to the rear is a common target since it minimizes the risk of kickback. A slight toe in at the rear is bad for a number of reasons. Good luck with the saw.

[Paul Ryan]

Jim,

A dial indicator isn't that important if you ask me. They are really more trouble then they are worth when it comes to setting up these tools. I have a dial indicator and never used it. A good quality 24"+ straight edge (no squares or levels a real straight edge) and a set of feeler guages is all you need. A set of try squares come in handy to. But I have about 3 empire combination squares laying all around the shop that I use for everything. The feeler guage method is accurate enough for what we are doing, and are a heck of a lot easier IMHO. You should be able to get with in .001 acuracy with a set of feeler guages and that is all you need. Good Luck. And it is about time, congratulations to you, the day is almost hear. Will it be a santa claus present to yourself?

[Jim O'Dell]

Yes, I've read how you can do it with a piece of wood and a screw. That would work great for getting and checking the blade and fence parallelism to the miter slots. I've used a combination square with my contractor saw, and it did just fine. Same principle.
I should have placed more emphasis on the straight edges...that's is the one thing I don't have a way of doing. I've done some searching, and can get the Veritas 50" aluminum from Lee Valley for about $90.00 shipped. With a saw that comes with rails for 50" rip, I'll have to have an extension table to the right of the saw. And I may end up with longer rails for my Biese to go on this that would be 72". Still up in the air about that. But either way, I will need to be able to get all of that flat with the table, not just the wings flat to the saw. Can I do that with a 36", or do I need the longer 50"? (Yeah, I may have just answered my own question. ;)) Thanks! Jim.

[Justin Freund]

I think the dial indicators and even the straightedges are overdoing it. We are talking about machines that cut material that move whole tenths of inches on its own. When I set up my saw, I didn't use anything more than my Stanley tape, Empire level, and my two rafter squares. My cuts are effortless, clean, and square. They aren't glue line quality (very close though), but I don't think anybody else is expecting that out of even their dial indicator set-up saws either.

To make sure the wings were even with the table I used the machined face of the level. When I couldn't see light under the level when laid across the joint, I called it good.

To parallel the miter slots to the blade, I set the lip of my rafter square in the miter slot and tight to the blade. Then I took my other one, turned it the opposite way, and put it tight to the face of the blade. I adjusted the table until I got the two 45 degree edges tight to each other.

The fence got squared by measuring to the front and back of the blade, then double checking against the miter slots.

[Bill Huber]

It isn't essential, since the wings don't have that much of an impact so they don't have to be that precise.

I am going to disagree with this a little.

If your wing is a little high on the outside and you cut a 90 degree cut on an 18 inch board when you have set the blade to 90 with a small square the 90 on the board will be off.

Now if you set the blade with an 18 inch square then it will be right but if you cut a shorter board it will not be at a 90.

[Tim Cleary]

I find this guy helpful:

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

One thing I would echo is that when you get a TS to setup, the dial indicator is very valuable to test arbor runout, in fact it is the best tool to use for that. The reason I mention that is that most other problems (blade misaligned to miter slots, wings not flat, fence not aligned) can be fixed with a bit of time and effort, while a significant (say >.002) arbor runout is an issue you want to spot early and communicate with the manufacturer about - you don't want a lemon, and arbor runout can simply not be adjusted or fixed.

My 02

[doug faist]

Jim - One thing I'd like to add,... well, two things actually.

I always keep a set of drafting triangles (45 and 90) handy to set up a saw of any kind. They're cheap (maybe $1.50) at artists supply or hobby shops, and from my experience, they're dead on.

The other thing to keep in mind is to always do a dynamic test before you pronounce your saw "finished." All power tools change slightly under load and what may be dead on when sitting there could well change several thousands under load.

Have fun with your Christmas present!

Doug

[Jim O'Dell]

Good point, Doug. That would probably be a good time to do the 5 sided cut test I've read about, but never done.:o Jim.

[Heath Brandenburg]

I caught a couple of episodes of The Wood Whisperer on TV the other day that dealt with setting up a table saw. It all seemed fairly straight forward and simple tools were used...the dial indicator was not used, just a fine ruler and a mallet.

The episodes were numbers 55 and 56 and can be found in the video sections of their website.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

Jim,
I recently picked up a G0691 (aren't you getting one for Christmas?).

I think you can spend a ton of money on setup tools and still get the wrong answer.

The full-on technical route would be to buy a master plate, a dial indicator, some jig that rides in the miter slot, and 3' straight edge.

But I think you can get darn close with just a couple pieces of MDF. There is a thread on this forum about how to listen to the sound of a piece of mdf being cut by the front of the blade vs the back of the blade to determine if the blade is parallel to the miter slot. It works great and this dynamic test is at least as good as using a master plate.

For setting the fence parallel with the miter gauge all you need is a piece of wood with a brad nail driven half way into it. Run this on your miter to check the fence against the miter slot.

Good luck with your setup!
Salem

[Dan Forman]

Here is a good source with pictures...http://www.newwoodworker.com/basic/tsalign.html

Dan

[Paul Ryan]

After thinking about it Jim, you really dont need a metal straight edge if you have a jointer. A jointed piece and feeler guages should work equally. But a nice steel stright edge will be around for decades if you take care of it.

[Jason White]

Jim,

My Grizzly 1023 was perfect out of the box. Don't be surprised if yours is, too! Wait and see before spending any money on fancy dial indicators et al.

I imagine your fence will need adjusting -- but that's the easy part.

Jason


Yes, I've read how you can do it with a piece of wood and a screw. That would work great for getting and checking the blade and fence parallelism to the miter slots. I've used a combination square with my contractor saw, and it did just fine. Same principle.
I should have placed more emphasis on the straight edges...that's is the one thing I don't have a way of doing. I've done some searching, and can get the Veritas 50" aluminum from Lee Valley for about $90.00 shipped. With a saw that comes with rails for 50" rip, I'll have to have an extension table to the right of the saw. And I may end up with longer rails for my Biese to go on this that would be 72". Still up in the air about that. But either way, I will need to be able to get all of that flat with the table, not just the wings flat to the saw. Can I do that with a 36", or do I need the longer 50"? (Yeah, I may have just answered my own question. ;)) Thanks! Jim.

[Jim O'Dell]

Jim,

My Grizzly 1023 was perfect out of the box. Don't be surprised if yours is, too! Wait and see before spending any money on fancy dial indicators et al.

I imagine your fence will need adjusting -- but that's the easy part.

Jason

I'm glad you didn't have to do anything to yours! But what did you use to check that it was perfect out of the box? See, I need some verification that mine will sit perfect also. I suppose I could use a piece of 3/4" MDF and use the factory edge to check. But there would always be that little cloud of doubt that it might be off. I have a 60" aluminum ruler from HD, but I doubt that that is very accurate. Maybe it would be accurate enough, I don't know.
At this point, I may just get a 36" from Infinity when I order a blade for my SCMS. It would get me over the threshold for the free shipping, and would be under 50.00. Maybe I could use it to check my 60" ruler and see how off it is. Thanks for the replies! Jim.

[Vic Damone]

I suggest beer and pastrami sandwiches for your friends who will be helping you move the heavy iron.

[Thomas S Stockton]

Jason's got the right idea, plug it in and see how it works. The most critical set up for safety is to make sure the fence is parallel to the blade. It can have a little toe out but you don't want any toe in, which will pinch the blade.
A jointed board will work fine to check to make sure the wings are flat, a level would also work fine.
You really don't need anything fancy to set up a saw. Your aluminum ruler is going to be way better than a factory MDF edge.
The problem I see is that people start messing around trying to tune their saw before cutting anything with it, they end up having no reference point. Did it cut good before changing some settings or was it something they did.
By all means give it a good once over to make sure it is safe and everything is square and flat. But unless you've done this before use it a little before changing things, unless it is safety related.
Tom

[Jim O'Dell]

Hopefully I'll be able to get delivery with a liftgate. But they won't be able to do it with a semi trailer. No place to turn around, and you have to leave by the same road you came in on. Otherwise, I'll have to rent a little trailer and pick it up at the depot. It should be easy enough to slide down the ramp. Guess we'll see. I've got a very little ways to go money wise. Hopefully the Christmas bonus Tuesday will be enough to get me over the hump. Then Christmas money to get these other necessities. I also need to send my crosscut blade out to be sharpened.

Tom, that is good advice. And from what everyone is saying here, it appears that no one really uses a straight edge to set their saws up. Unless...if they think they have a problem, then they borrow or buy a straight edge to measure what they think they see? I mean, several have started threads about how their new saw has X number of thousandths crown or dip in the table top. They had to use something to measure that. Maybe I'm wrong thinking that they used a good straight edge to measure with.
Maybe I'll set it up with what I have and see how it performs. It's possible that I've dreamed about having a cabinet saw for so long, I want everything to be as perfect as the dream is. Jim.

[Michael Church]

Jim,

I don't have a great deal of experience setting up table saws but I have an older Grizzly 5959 12 inch table saw and in the manual it does have instructions on adjusting the table if the blade does not remain parallel when the blade is at 45 degrees. It requires shimming between top and base. Maybe this is not required on newer saws. If you want to check it out the manual is here... http://cdn3.grizzly.com/manuals/g5959_m.pdf.
Congratulations on your new saw to come.

Michael

[Salem Ganzhorn]

So I had to look it up for you... Check out this guy's posts: http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=89490

I much prefer his methods to a dial indicator (unless you have a master plate). Note that I have a dial indicator and use it for various setup, but not for setting blade parallelism anymore.

There is also a thread that I could not find for verifying your 90 degree stop (and with a small variation you can use it to set the 90 miter too).

Rip a piece of MDF to 3" (say 10" long?).
Raise the blade all the way up.
Stand the MDF on edge and hold it against your miter gauge (clamp, sandpaper whatever).
Cut off at least 2-3".
Be careful to remember the top vs bottom edge of the cut off.
Flip the cutoff piece so it rests on what used to be the top and abut the cut edges.
If they meet perfectly flush then your 90 degree stop is dead on.
If you see a gap at the top then the blade is canted to the left.
If you see a gap at the bottom then the blade is canted to the right.
The amount it is off is 1/2 the angle of the gap you see.

This method is much more accurate than using a square (2x more accurate in fact).

Oh, and make sure to check to see that the UHMW PE on your fence is flat. Just hold a straight edge up to it. Mine was not.

Best wishes,
Salem

[Greg Peterson]

I'm dialing in my R4511 and the blade was within .01" parallel. However at 45, it is off by about .18".

I bought the Masterplate yesterday. No more rotating the blade and measuring below the gullet. Not only is the surface uniform, but by having a longer reference surface, any deviations are more pronounced.

The Masterplate will come in handy when I fine tune my radial arm saw.

[John Harden]

My goodness. I'm not sure which is worse; the people who are simply ignorant and see no need to calibrate a table saw, or the folks who give bad advice because it "worked for them" or they read it somewhere.

Jim, you know what you need to do. A quality straight edge will last a life time. Lee Valley has some excellent ones at very reasonable prices.

Get yourself a good (Class H or better yet, N) engineers square if you don't already have one, and a decent dial indicator and/or Oneway/Masterplate and you're good to go. I really like the Oneway as it works equally well on the jointer to claibrate the table to cutterhead and table to blade (these are two different things). Oneway sells 2nd's that have casting or grinding blemishes (doesn't affect accuracy) for $80 or so. Bargain.

A decent quality dial indicator with base can be had for under $35.

Regards,

John