Dewalt miter saw table alignment

[Jonathan Poet]

I have a Dewalt DW715 that I picked up on sale late last year. I made some rough cuts with it in the intervening months and thought it was fine. But today I wanted to do so some finer work and had a devil of a time getting square cuts. After struggling a bit, I realized the table alignment is completely out of whack.

The three sections (the miter table and the left and right wings that the fences attach to) are not in the same plane at all. The left side seems to be about a full 1/8" below the plane of the miter table. And the miter table itself seems to be at slight angle to horizontal. Assuming the bottom of the right side fence is square, you can see a widening gap from the centerline of the miter table going away from the blade.

I tried to take some photos to show the problem. In the one the combination square is resting on the miter table, and you can see the large gap beneath it to the surface of the left table. In the other, you can kinda/sorta see the light coming underneath the right side fence, showing the widening gap.

Am I crazy? These should all be on the same plane, right? (I am new to miter saws.)

And more importantly, is any of this stuff adjustable? It doesn't look to me like it is, but maybe I am missing something.

[Fred Heenie]

Not sure that I can offer specific help but you might check out this: http://www.finewoodworking.com/how-to/article/get-more-from-your-miter-saw.aspx
The tips have helped My Dewalt's precision.

[Mike Cutler]

Jonathan

My DeWalt is older than the 715,but essentially the same.
The subase and tables on mine are somewhat adjustable, but it's basically a tear down of the saw to do it. When I did mine it was an unintentional alignment.
I bought my saw to cut aluminum channel for a shower installation and then used it to dry cut porcelain tile and porcelain tile crown moulding, of which it did a spectacular job. Long story short was that to ever really use the saw again, the whole thing was disassembled to clean out all of the aluminum and porcelain tile chips. When I put is all back together I just sort of aligned everything. Worked for me, but as I said, it was purely by luck that it happened.

What many folks have done is to build a zero clearance miter box for the saw. They build a perfect 90 degree "L", out of MDF, or cabinet ply, and mount it to the saw. The work piece would now sit on the sacrificial "L" and not the aluminum of the saw body.

[Bill Orbine]

Check to see if there's any damage on the underside....as if maybe the saw was dropped, something fell on it, stored improperly, etc.,etc...

[Eric Schmid]

Try putting a longer straight edge across the entire length of the table. Since the insert is adjustable in the vertical plane having your straight edge end at this adjustable point is not a true indication of flatness across the table. If the insert is proud of the miter carriage measuring from this point may give you a false reading. To be safe you can recess the insert then raise it to meet your straight edge. If you still find that the table is not flat, then you'd have to look at other options from there depending on what is out of alignment.

The fence is supposed to have a gap under it where it cantilevers over the miter carriage. This gap should not be tapered, but even if it is, in and of itself is not an indication of table flatness.

If the table is in fact not flat and/or the miter carriage is not in alignment with the table wings and your saw is still under warranty I would contact Dewalt. If not under warranty you could try the MDF sacrificial under your work piece. As is suggested above I often use an MDF sub base and fence assembly for zero clearance cuts. If you make this jig make it wider than your blade can cut and don't cut through the back of the MDF fully as doing so will compromise the rigidity of the jig.

Finally, I believe the saw head is adjustable for squareness to the table. If your table isn't flat then you can use the sub base jig to set the blade at 90.

[Jonathan Poet]

Long story short was that to ever really use the saw again, the whole thing was disassembled to clean out all of the aluminum and porcelain tile chips. When I put is all back together I just sort of aligned everything. Worked for me, but as I said, it was purely by luck that it happened.

Thank you so much for this. It inspired me to dig a little deeper and I found the problem!

Basically it was this: The tables on the wings were flat to each other, but the miter table itself wasn't sitting flat at all. (Looking straight on, I bet it was 1-2 degrees off.) There's a large plastic ring that acts like a bushing between the miter table and the base. That plastic ring was totally misaligned. (The plastic ring doesn't really have a groove or anything to line it up, it just sort of lays in there.) I removed the fence, the zero clearance insert and the nut holding the miter table to the base. I lined up the plastic ring nicely and put everything back together and it's essentially flat all the way across now.

Thanks for all the other responses. I was thinking more along the lines of adjustments that could be dialed in; it didn't dawn on me that it really was a manufacturing problem.

I feel like this thing must have been made the day before Christmas or after the Dewalt holiday party or something. I had a confounding issue when I took it out of the box several months back. It ships with the miter table turned and mine would spin from about 45 degrees to 60 degrees, but it wouldn't go to 90 degrees. It took me forever to realize that the bevel stop pawl had been trapped by the fence at manufacture. I had to remove the fence and flip the pawl out of the way.

[David L Morse]

I feel like this thing must have been made the day before Christmas or after the Dewalt holiday party or something.

Maybe the day after Duanwu.

[Dan Hahr]

That plastic ring is a wear ring. It will wear out and cause that exact problem. It's an easy fix though.
Dan