Burned cuts on tablesaw.

[Keith Albertson]

Please help. I'm burning maple when I make rip cuts. Both sides of the cut burn. I must have some sort of alignment issue, but I can't figure it out because both sides burn. I've used an alignment guide. The miter guage is parrallel to the saw blade. The fence is parallel to both, maybe even 1 thousandth wide at the back of the blade to avoid binding.

I have a riving knive, and it is centered, and about 5 thousandths narrower than the blade on each side.

I'm stumped. I'm aobut to just start experimenting with tweeking the fence and seeing what happens, but it took me the better part of a day to get everything so close. I have tried other pieces of maple, and other woods, and they also burn. I don't have an extra blade but there doesn't seem to be any warp in the blade according to the alignment guage.

Any help before I start experimenting would be appreciated.

[glenn bradley]

Are you using a rip blade (24 teeth or less)? Maple, cherry and other burn-prone woods call for a 24T blade in my shop. With things like oak, beech and walnut I can get away with a 40T but rarely do this as blade changes take all of about 70 seconds.

[Harlan Theaker]

I'd say either using the wrong blade, feed rate is too slow or your blade needs to be cleaned/sharpened.

[Jason Hallowell]

I'd say either using the wrong blade, feed rate is too slow or your blade needs to be cleaned/sharpened.

My thoughts exactly.

[Dave MacArthur]

also, a dull blade will burn wood as it cuts so much slower. And having build-up of resins on the blade can also burn the wood.

[Don Alexander]

sounds most likely to be a dull and/or dirty blade

[Sam Layton]

Keith, I go along with a blade issue.

Sam

[Bill Huber]

I have a general use blade and if I try and rip with it on anything but pine or soft wood I will get some burning. If I put my rip blade on there is no burning on any wood I rip. I have a Jet contractor TS and it does not have a lot of power.

My general use blade is a Freud Premier Fusion and my rip blade is the Freud Glue Line Rip, both are great blades.

[Keith Albertson]

Thanks for the input guys. I'm a little bit worried about the blade issue. The blade I have is a brand NEW Forrest WWII. It didn't feel dull when it gave me a little finger cut the first time I installed it!

I have used a different WWII on my old Delta contractor saw, and had no problems with burning. But I've moved up to a Sawstop PCS, and put this new blade on it when I set it up. I don't have my old WWII back from sharpening yet, so I don't have it to compare against the new blade.

Do you think the increased power (3HP vs 1.5) of the PCS is causing the burning and that I should buy a rip blade?

Thanks,
Keith

[Andrew Nemeth]

Have you checked to make sure your fence is flat?

[Jeff Monson]

Keith, when I plan on ripping alot on my tablesaw I use a glue line rip blade, I get very little burning with dedicated rip blade and a good setup. Using a combo blade, I usually end up with some burning when ripping as feed rate is critical. I very seldom use my combo blade anymore, as 95% of my table saw work is ripping stock. A good scms station has all but eliminated any crosscutting on my tablesaw.

[Alan Schwabacher]

Could the blade be dirty? All you'd need to do to get it that way is to cut some pine. A dirty blade behaves like a dull blade, except that you can clean it and make it behave better. Increased power should not increase burning.

Maple does burn more easily than most wood. I assume your previous good results included maple?

[Don Dorn]

I'm going to sway from the crowd a little. While I agree with the other assessments, you said it was a new Forrest WWII which tells me that it's sharp. Yes, there could be an alignment issue, but you said it was maple - and maple does tend to burn far easier than other woods.

I wouldn't overthink it by buying a new tablesaw. I tend to just put it in a vice (and bench slave if it's long) and use a card scraper or plane to take it off but I've heard that some people cut a just a tad wide and then take the final thin cut. I can't say whether this works but it's certainly a trick used at the router table with naturally burning woods.

[Lee Schierer]

If your blade is relatively new, I wouldn't suspect the blade. Yesterday I ripped a piece of 1-1/2 maple 14" long on my Craftsman TS with my Freud LU82M with no burn marks whatsoever. This is a 60 tooth blade. However, normally I use a 24 tooth ripping blades for such cuts. In this case, I only needed to make one rip cut before switching back to crosscuts.

What method did you use to align the blade with the miter gauge slot? A cheap dial indicator will tell you more about alignment than any other method. I would still suspect alignment or wood that was not dry.

Another factor is technique. With a blade with a high tooth count when making a rip cut you have to let the saw cut at its own pace and keep the motor rpm's high. If you have plenty of Hp and the saw still bogs down during your rip cuts, then you might have slipping belts.

[scott spencer]

Does the burning occur on crosscuts too? You might try raising the blade a bit to see if that helps.

[glenn bradley]

I'll be interested to see how your old blade does when it gets back from sharpening. My WWII has never been all its cracked up to be, especially in ripping tasks. I have concluded that this particular blade was just a lemon as way too many people love them. I now pretty much use it for rough stuff only and use other blades for clean cuts. I'll keep an open mind if I ever send it out for sharpening as opposed to making a wall clock out of it ;-)

[Mark Wyatt]

I've had this issue once several years ago and once recently. The incident several years ago was caused by the saw arbor being out of alignment with the saw top, mitre slot, and fence (a real PITA to fix).

Recently, I discovered my new Forrest WWII has considerable runout. It will be returned for replacement.

I'd check these as best you can.

[Keith Albertson]

thanks for the input guys. I'll check the WWII this weekend for runout. Boy, I sure hope it is not the arbor, since I just got the saw 3 months ago.

I have been using an "Align-it" system with a dial indicator. I'll see if I can get it positioned to check the arbor this weekend as well.

Keith

[Ken Taylor]

Keith-
Is your blade in backwards? I did that once and boy it burns the hell out of everything, pine too! And it don't cut worth a crap either!

A rookie mistake but.....it happens.

Just another thought.
-Ken

[Pat Moy]

As mentioned by others, the obvious causes are: blade alignment to fence, blade alignment to splitter (or riving knife), fence flatness, and dull blade. I had the same burning problem on my Powermatic 66 with a Forrest WWII a few years ago. I checked all those things and sent the blade to Forrest for sharpening and to check for excessive runout, but the burning continued. By chance, I decided to check table flatness. What I found was a dip in the middle of the table near the saw opening (if I remember correctly, dip was around .04"). Since I verified table flatness when I first bought the saw new, I knew the dip developed over the years. Everyone I asked said a small dip like that shouldn't cause burning. But because I ran out of things to try, I had the table ground by a local machine shop anyway; that fixed the problem. I recall posting something on this forum a while ago about this.

I'm not saying this is the likely issue on your saw. But if you've already checked everything else, you may want to check your table.

Almost forgot to mention: I also found a small amount of runout on my arbor flange (around .003"), which the machine shop fixed for an extra $20. For all I know, that could have been the cause of my problem and not the table. If you measure arbor flange runout, you can sometimes re-mount your blade but rotate it a bit first from its prior position. If the blade has runout as well and you're lucky, the arbor runout will cancel most of the blade runout.

[Steve Bigelow]

I don't recall seeing if this was a thin kerf or regular kerf blade.Thin kerf is more susceptible to burning, unless you are using a good pair of stabilizers.