Setting up a Table Saw

[David Weaver]

Good morning -

I'm supposedly getting a table saw in the next couple of days - we'll see how the freight goes - I got the fence and the sideboard, but apparently it wasn't important to ship the table saw with those.

Anyway, once it gets here, it's a brand and model notorious for not being set up square to the miter rail and fence (is "runout" the right term?).

I'm assuming that to get the saw set up correctly, the easy way to do things is to make sure the fence is running parallel to the miter slot, and then make sure the back and front of the blade are the same distance from miter slot - at least to within a couple of thousandths.

Is there a popular reasonably priced tool that is designed to fit in the miter slot with a dial indicator running perpendicular to measure the distance to the blade? I see various combinations of magnetic anchors and dial indicators, or either of those individually, and I also saw an article suggesting building one out of wood to fit in the miter slot, and then just using a set of dial calipers attached to the wooden jig to do the measuring. i don't really want to fool with that - especially planing the wood to fit in the slot within a thousandth, but I don't want a saw that's out even a hundredth of an inch front to back - I like to iron out errors before they get a chance to be cumulative - so I don't want to just get out a set of dial calipers and sort of eyeball things with them.

Does anyone have any suggestions? This tool is going to be used to set up only one table saw, so I'm not looking to spend $250 on the "starrett version" (or whoever else makes the definitive best). Durability isn't an issue since it'll be rarely used, but accuracy is. I've dropped a set of dial calipers before (and broken the dial), so I don't expect to buy a version that can be dropped.

I have all kinds of stuff (dial calipers, etc) from a reloading hobby, but I'd rather not mutate anything if I don't have to.

Thanks in advance, guys and gals.

[glenn bradley]

My order on a suspect TS would be:

Blade's general position left to right in the throat making sure that the blade clears the table surface at 90* through 45* of bevel.
Blade parallel with miter slots at 90* through 45* of bevel.
Fence parallel with miter slots.
Fence at 90* to table (on both sides if possible to allow left of the blade use reliably).As for dial indicators and the like, you'll get plenty of info here, I'll bet. I use a piece of wood mounted to a miter bar with a metal plate attached to the top. A magnetic stand sticks to the plate holding a dial indicator and I slide this forward and backwards. You use the same marked tooth at the front and the back of the blade but I'm getting ahead of myself. Stand and indicator of good quality can be had for around $30.

[Jeff Miller]

Try this for a start http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=powertools&file=articles_240.shtml

Also it would be helpful to know what kind of saw it is unless it is a secret:D

[Lee Schierer]

I attach my dial indicator to a block of wood with a wood screw and clamp the block to my miter gage. As long as the set up doesn't move it will work just fine. I picked up my dial indicator from Harbor Freight for about $15.00

[Sammy Shuford]

Here is my homemade gage for checking the fence and blade to the left miter slot.

[Brian Dormer]

Head over to Harbor Freight and pick up a dial indicator (analog or digital) and a magnetic base. You might also go to Amazon and pick up a "Mighty Mag" base. "Little Machine Shop" has dials, bases AND (VERY IMPORTANT) extra contact points for the dial indicator (a set of 20 points is like 4 bucks). With that setup - there is almost nothing (TS, Jointer, Planer) that you can't align (at least to the limit that it CAN be aligned). Its not difficult - but dealing in thousandths of an inch can be a bit tedious at times. The performance you get from a properly aligned tool is worth the effort.

[David Weaver]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I had the term runout confused with the situation where the blade isn't running square to the miter slots.

I think I'm going to get the dial indicator and magnetic base from grizzly, and I'll probably put something together like shown for confirming that the blade is parallel to the slots.

I agree on precision from the start. If you don't do it right away, it seems like there is less and less incentive to do it later once everything is set up, and I don't want to fall into that trap.

[Bill Huber]

I have a Craftsman 54 year old saw and wanted to set it up right.

I bought a SuperBar and Plate.

http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/suprbrrvu.html

It took be a little time but it was worth it, the saw is old but I have it square within .002 of an inch.
I did have to have a new hole drilled in the plate because my saw has a 1/2 in arbor but that was no problem.
The other thing I got were 2 brackets that bolt onto the under side of the table to help adjust it. The have set screws in them and you just replace the back to bolts that hold the saw to the table, man did they help.

After I had the blade set I then was able to use the same tool to set the fence to spot on.

Good luck.