Saw tuning question...

[Jim Hinze]

I'm finally putting my shop back together after demolition in preparation for expansion...

So this morning, I put my master plate on the arbor, got out my gauge and checked parallelism... from front to back of the plate, there is a little less than .001 difference. Is it worth trying to dial it in further????

Second, the fence... I have the Uni-T-Fence from ttrackusa.com. From beginning to end, the end is toed out between .001 and .002 In the middle there is a "dip" for lack of a better description of about .002 to .003, it's length is starting at the front portion of the blade and lasts for about 1.5" .. Is it worth shimming the UHMW or running the UHMW through the planer and taking off a VERY tiny amount?

Third, am I being entirely too anal about this?

Thanks in advance!

[Sam Blasco]

I'd leave the parallelism alone, that's about as good as you could get it anyway. Even if you adjusted it, when you do your final torque-ing, chances are you could end up worse and it could prove a tedious adventure. The fence sounds good toed out that much, I set mine for .004". The dip I would shim and this is easily done, then check the toe out again and adjust that. Sounds like you are just about good to go.

[scott spencer]

Blade parallism of 0.001" is about all you could ask for. Even the fence is pretty good if 0.003 is your worst point, but as Sam mentioned, you could shim that. A slight toe out is recommended by many blade manufacturers to prevent kickback.

[Steve Jenkins]

i found that a good sharp handplane works great on uhmw plastic.

[Jim Hinze]

Thanks all!!!!

I'm going to try to shim the low spot first with some tracing paper, it that doesn't work, I got a good sharp low-angle block plane that should do the trick.

[Chris Padilla]

Jim,

Be as anal as you like...nothing wrong with it. I find messng with my tools almost as much fun as using them! :)