Saw Help!?! & little gloat.

[Bob Yarbrough]

I have brought up my love/hate relationship with my Delta contractors saw, purchased in January 05. Almost returned it several times.

Spent several hours last Sat. getting it adjusted to the best of my ability. Ripped a few (5-4) short pieces of wood (3-5 foot long) for test cuts. Seemed to work ok and I quit while I was ahead of the game.

Went to the candy store today, bought a Freud "glue-line" rip blade and a flexbelt for the beast. I have installed a merlin splitter and zero clearence insert on the saw already.

Picked up a piece of poplar to make a painted quilt hanger. Cross cut the piece to 4 ft on the miter box and squared the ends with the good long edge of the wood. Ripped a narrow band off the bad edge to produce a square board. Nice smooth cut. Went to rip the board into a 3 inch wide piece, got about half way into the cut and I could sense the saw bogging down, so I shut it down. Lifted the board off, restarted the saw, ran the piece through. When I had two pieces, I could see where the saw was just starting to try and burn. Bummer.

Any ideas, suggestions or advice.

Bob

PS. Minor gloat. A box from Lee Valley arrived yesterday with a low angle block and low angle smooth plane. Boy did I have some fun last night.

:D

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi Bob, First of all a big congrats on the LV planes. I'm sure you will be very happy with them.

Now with the ripping problem. Do you have your fence adjusted parallel to the blade? Did you let the board drift away from the fence when ripping?

Was the board warped that you were cutting? This can cause kick back and the blade getting pinched as you experienced. Need more info. from you on this.

One thing to check is what else you have on the saw circuit. If the saw is sharing the same circuit with the lights, other machinery etc. that could cause a problem. Let us know about how you adjusted the saw.

Good luck with this. I have a Delta CS on 220 volts on it's own circuit and I can't imagine needing more power. But that's probably because I'm ignorant. :)

Alan

[Chris Fite]

Did you check to see if the new flexbelt had stretched or so?

[Alan Turner]

Some wood is called reaction wood, and when ripped, it will move a lot, right away. It can close the kerf so tight it will nearly stop a TS blade. Or, it can open up, pushing the against the fence, and then causing binding against the blade. It might be the wood, not the saw, in other words. That said, it is not common to see reaction wood in poplar.

[Jason Tuinstra]

Alan, thanks for the education. I never knew there was a name for this. I knew that it caused a reaction - from me :p - but I never knew it was called "reaction wood." Thanks!

P.S. Bob - congrats one the new toys from LV! I'm sure you'll be very happy with them as their not painted Delta grey. My guess on your problem has already been suggested. Hopefully you'll get this solved. Nothing worse than table saw problems!

[Jules Dominguez]

I have an older Delta Contractor's saw, but the saw type is beside the point if the kerf closes up and binds the blade. I've had it happen to me a few times and trip the motor on overload. I've never used a splitter (though I plan to get one now since tuning in to SMC) and all I could do at the time was to keep firm pressure on the board to prevent a kickback and let the motor trip when it happened. I would then drive a wedge into the kerf to open it up so I could finish the cut. As Alan said, that particular problem is in the wood, not the saw.

[Michael Gabbay]

Bob - I have an 03 Delta contractor saw and the only time I get a board that binds is with pine or poplar. The softer woods tend to move more. When you are doing test cuts for saw calibration I use birch ply (not baltic $$$). You can be 99% sure that it won't move/bind during a cut unless your fence or saw is misaligned.

Good luck!

Mike