Burn marks in cherry

[Kevin Swindle]

I have been ripping some 2" wide by 1 3/8" thick strips of cherry and getting some bad burn marks on all the pieces. The boards are 8' long and it takes more effort than I think is necessary to push it through. I am running a 40 tooth WWII blade (almost new) and have checked the blade for parallel to the miter slot and the fence for parallel to the miter slot. The fence acually has about +.060 lead at the rear. All my set-ups look good. Any ideas why the cherry may be burning so badly? Thanks in adavnce for your help.

[Todd Burch]

The WWII is a great blade, but it's not the correct blade for ripping that thick of material, although cherry has a tendency to burn anyway.

Scale back to 30, 24 or 20 teeth rip blade (not a combo blade) for ripping that thick of material and be sure to raise the blade enough so that the entire gullet exits the wood on the top of the cut.

As a work-around, rip wide and edge joint the burned edge off.

Todd.