How OCD should you be with trunion alignment?

[Brian Antic]

I bought a SawStop Contractor saw and I love the setup. 52” T-Glide fence, router table off of the left wing, floating dust collection arm..I can’t think of anything a PCS would have offered me that this can’t handle except easier alignment and tuning. It’s a fair trade I think.

Anyways, how anal do I need to be when it comes to aligning the trunion to the miter slot? SawStop claims factory spec is within .010”. Mine is at .002”. Should I chase perfect alignment?

I’m new to woodworking so I don’t know how exact this stuff needs to be. The amateur machinist in me says to get it to zero.

Thoughts?

[Nick Decker]

.002"? Walk away and smile, you're fine.

[Frank Pratt]

.002 is fine. If you breathe on a piece of wood it'll move more than that.

[Roger Feeley]

.002 sounds pretty good to me. That error spread out across however many inches seems fine for woodworking. I have a Sawstop also and stopped messing with it around .002.

Using a stop of some sort, cross cut a piece of maple or cherry using the sharpest blade you have. Then look at the blade marks. They will either match the front of the blade, the rear of the blade or a mixture of both creating sort of a cross-hatch pattern. If you see the cross hatch, you are on the money. If you don't, you will probably see marks on one piece made by the front of the blade and marks on the other piece made by the back of the blade. Can the marks be easily sanded out?

Probably a bigger deal is to pick and use really good blades. I buy them two at a time so I'm not tempted to go a little longer before giving a blade up for sharpening. When it seems that you are pushing a little hard, switch blades and send the dull out to be sharpened. A sharp blade doesn't just give you better work, it's a safety measure. When you aren't pushing the work, it's easy to maintain a safe body position.

[Brian Antic]

Ok cool, that sounds good to me!


Probably a bigger deal is to pick and use really good blades. I buy them two at a time so I'm not tempted to go a little longer before giving a blade up for sharpening. When it seems that you are pushing a little hard, switch blades and send the dull out to be sharpened. A sharp blade doesn't just give you better work, it's a safety measure. When you aren't pushing the work, it's easy to maintain a safe body position.

Thanks for the advice Roger. I ended up with a Tenryu 40T combo blade per the advice from my local woodcraft know-it-all. He swore up and down that I wouldn’t need blades dedicated to specific tasks..we’ll see. Honestly I don’t know if I do or not.

Are there any good online shops that do sharpening? Or is it a local deal?

[Nick Decker]

Google Dynamic Saw for sharpening. Good people and they do a good job.

About that Tenryu combo blade, I have one. It's a decent combo blade, but not really that good for ripping. That's my opinion, though, and your Woodcraft guy may have different expectations.

[John TenEyck]

IMO, 0.002" is more than good enough. Now check to make sure your fence is aligned as well to the miter slot. Also, I agree with Nick on both counts: Dynamic Saw does a great job sharpening, and a general purpose blade is just that, and won't work as well as a blade specifically designed for fine finish work or one for ripping. Sort of like all season tires vs. dedicated Summer and Winter tires. Once you put those tires on your car it's very hard to go back. I've found the same to be true with blades for my TS.

John

[Patrick Kane]

is this .002" over the full 10" blade width with the indicator angled to hit the middle of the blade, or .002" over 2-3" of blade plate? .002" over 10-12" is the point where i call it good nuff and walk away. At that point you can get into a scenario where you chase your tail for 45 mins going back and forth between -.002" and +.002". Is there much difference between .002" or .010", im not sure, i dont sit in my shop and run scientific tests. However, at .005" or greater, i know it is well within my knucklehead abilities to improve upon. I want my machines to be as accurate as possible. I want all the mistakes to be on my shoulders and not compounded by inaccurate tools.

I also use Dynamic Saw. Affordable quality.