Tablesaw tweaking....should I try to correct this?

[Clisby Clark]

Being Mr. Parannoid and snowed in, I was checking my General 650 for fence and mitre slot parallelism last week. Using a try square, I found that the fence was dead-nuts parallel. However the mitre slot (table) is about .006 out with the blade being angled in towards the outfeed side of the saw.

I use a Incra 1000 mitre gauge which I adjusted to get suare cuts. I did find that whenever I try to mitre a crosscut-whether with the Incra or a sled, I get some burning which I assume is the product of the misalignment.

I want the slot to be correct, but I don't want to risk fouling up the fence adjustment, either. I know the fence has some adjustability to resquare so I'm inclined to proceed with the adjustment.
What would you experts do?

Thanks

[Justin Freund]

Things are backwards there. Adjust the miter slot to the blade, then the fence to the miter slot. I like a few thousandths of toe out at the back of the fence but its an individual thing. I'd fix it especially as you really don't want the blade angling into a cut anytime. I'm partial to the A-lign It tool but there are lots of good ways to get it done.

[John TenEyck]

0.006" is quite a bit. You should be able to get it down to around 0.002" or so. At that point the burning should stop. Be sure to check the same point on the blade or alignment bar at both the front and back of the miter slot. Check one miter slot against the other, as well. Sometimes, they arn't parallel and, if so you'll have to decide which one to align the blade to.

[Chris Padilla]

Justin has it: the miter slot is what you use to align everything else to. I'd definately try and dial out the 0.006". Loose the TS top a little and with a rubber mallet, give it some whacks to see if you can move nudge it closer to dead nuts parallel with the blade. Then slowly tighten the TS top back down and see if the adjustments holds or not. If it slowly goes out, you may need to loosen more...jimmy the washers around a bit (they may have a set to them)...then try again. Once the blade/miter slot are to your liking, adjust the fence to the miter slot.

[david brum]

I'd fix it. It's easy on a cabinet saw, one of the benefits. You can adjust your fence to the new angle in 5 minutes.

Two words of warning; Make sure that any tiny shims between the table and cabinet don't fall out. Those are vital for proper table flatness. DAMHIK. Also, try to make sure that the blade's eventual position still works with any zero clearance inserts or sleds you might have. Otherwise you'll end up with a big gap on one side of the blade. My neighbor did that.

[glenn bradley]

Yeah, go for it. My sequence is blade to miter slot at 90*, blade to miter slot at 45*, re-check at 90* and tweak till all bevels are true. Fence to miter slot last. I usually do this with the wings off as the time saved while adjusting is more than the wing removal/replace time takes. A minor final tweak may be required when the wings are put back on depending on your saw.

[Mike Barney Sr]

Remove the fence and fence rail. Then check the carriage to TS top alignment. To do this, measure blade to slot alignment/misalignment with blade at 90. Angle blade to to 45 and re-measure alignment to slot. If the results are the same then carriage is parallel to TS top. If not, shim the end that is closer to slot on the side of the blade that angles away from the slot, or the obtuse side. Keep rechecking and shimming until results are the same at 90 and 45.

Put blade to 90. On most cabinet saws the carriage and top are mounted to the cabinet independent of each other. In this case loosen the top and align the slot to the blade. On cheaper cabinet saws and lesser saws like a contractors saw the carriage is mounted to the top. In this case loosen the carriage mountings and align the blade to the top. I have a 1950 Delta Homecraft which is this way. I found the easiest way was to remove the top and carriage from the base and work on it upside down on the bench. You'll have to remove the motor of course. When blade and slot are aligned and the top and carriage are secured, reattach the fence and align the fence to the slot. Check it with the blade to confirm. I have a Unifence retrofitted to my saw. This fence has adjustments for square to the top and zeroing out at the blade. If your fence has similar adjustments, make them.

One word about toeing in or out - DON"T. Accuracy will come from everything being as well aligned as possible. My saw is aligned to less than 0.001" from end to end between fence and slot. Misalignment risks the wood being caught on the blade and impacting your belly. I know from experience at a shop I used to work for. The owner and I argued about this. I chose not to work for him.

Anyways a well tuned table saw will serve you well. I have made a few projects from rough sawn where I didn't use a planer nor a jointer. All the surfacing was done on the saw. The fence was long enough to act as a jointer. The alignment was true enough to produce nearly no saw marks. I use an ATB&R combination blade.

I hope this helps you. Happy sawing!

[Howard Acheson]

>>>> I want the slot to be correct, but I don't want to risk fouling up the fence adjustment,

There is a specific order of steps when aligning a table saw. The blade is the reference point for alignment adjustments. First you must align the blade to the miter slot. The second step is aligning the fence to the miter slot. In other words, you will have to re-align your fence after you align your blade to the miter slot.

A good part of your burning is because the blade is not aligned to the miter slot.