Custom sized kerf with table saw

[al ladd]

Anyone know a method of getting a .135 kerf with a standard table saw blade in one pass? Some sort of wobble shims? Cuts are shallow and don't need to be all that pretty....

[Bob Jones 5443]

Wobble? Sounds scary. How about using a shim for the second cut? I have a set of plastic shims 5" by 20" in fourteen thicknesses from 0.0005" to 0.030". That's what I'd use for this. If my blade give a 0.0125" kerf, the second cut would be with a 0.010" shim against the fence.

What are you cutting and how long will the cut be?

Short of owning the specialized tool, what else is 0.010"? Maybe a specific number of paper thicknesses? Do you have a 0.001" caliper to calibrate your shim?

[al ladd]

Several hundred cuts......, maple, only 12" long each. Single kerf is also more accurate than 2. I have an old Oldham wobbler, and it works great near its smallest setting, but that's .15". I might just experiment with tape on the arbor faces, or on blade near periphery of arbor faces. Don't need much wobble for that extra .01"!

[Bill Dufour]

Aluminum foil is less likely to crush.. Good luck keeping it dead flat and not wrinkled. Maybe take a much thicker washer and grind the angle into that. just realized you need two parallel faces not one wedge.
Bil lD

[Jamie Buxton]

Amana makes 10" blades with kerf widths that are not .125". Here's one which is .135" -- https://cherrytreetoys.com/10-amana-combo-ripping-and-crosscut-saw-blade/

Google with .135" kerf. Here's a $63 blade on Amazon spec'd at .135" kerf.

[Earl McLain]

If they don't have it, i'd guess that Carbide Processors could make it. Looks like he carries 13 different stock .135" kerf, but they are all 12" and up. And you could spec the grind as well--important if you need flat bottoms.
earl

[al ladd]

Thanks, prompted by these suggestions I delved all the way into my stock of blades and found an old Freud 7 1/4" combination planer blade with the right kerf! The tape shim wobble idea goes untested for now!

[Bill Dufour]

Any reason not to set the teeth on a non-carbide blade to increase the kerf?
Bil lD

[Richard Coers]

Thanks, prompted by these suggestions I delved all the way into my stock of blades and found an old Freud 7 1/4" combination planer blade with the right kerf! The tape shim wobble idea goes untested for now!
The single piece of shim between the inside washer and saw blade works very well. I use a piece of paper instead of tape, but have done it many times. Mark Duginske used to say a pad of Post-It-Notes makes a wonderful shim pack. That's where I learned the technique.

[Jim Becker]

Any reason not to set the teeth on a non-carbide blade to increase the kerf?
Bil lD

That would be a "not fun" task to come up with something that's actually balanced, especially since a lot of those non-carbide blades, when you can find them, are somewhat thin.

[David Kumm]

glad you found a solution. Keep in mind that even a custom blade with .135 teeth won't leave the same kerf. If I really needed .135 in one pass, I'd spec a blade at 9/64 .140, put it on the saw and check the kerf which will be wider. Then do the math and have a sharpening service adjust the tooth width to account for the runout on the blade and arbor. Dave

[Bob Jones 5443]

Call me nuts but a second 12" cut with a piece of paper against the fence sounds the least taxing overall.

[William Hodge]

Custom tooling can seem expensive, but I have found that saving three hours pays for it.When it works for another job it makes even more sense.
I use Connecticut Saw and Tool.

[Richard Coers]

Call me nuts but a second 12" cut with a piece of paper against the fence sounds the least taxing overall.
He's talking about several hundred cuts. That's going to wear out quite a few pieces of paper.

[Mark Bolton]

Or kick your fence off square a few thou and your kerf will grow but you'll have slight rad on the sides if the kerf

[Steven Cooper2]

Good you found a solution above, an alternative could be to use a pair of thin kerf circular saw blades as a dado set. Freud (and I'm sure others) lists plate thickness and Kerf on their website, likely find a pair where 2x plate thickness + (Kerf-plate thickness) = .135ish

Or Kerf + plate thickness = .135ish

This also allows you to stack a little spacer in between for fine tuning, in this case maybe shoot for a touch undersize.