Hitachi C10 FL Table Saw

[Richard Nelson]

I bought one of these C10 FL saws from Lowes about 6 montha ago. The blade has always been slightly out of parallel from the miter slots. I haven't done anything too precise before now. The manual does not tell you how to do it. I have tried turning the saw upside down and loosening the trunion bolts and tapping one way or the other, but cannot get it straight. Does any one know how to align this saw? I am going nuts.
Richard

[Ed Blough]

I bought one of these C10 FL saws from Lowes about 6 montha ago. The blade has always been slightly out of parallel from the miter slots. I haven't done anything too precise before now. The manual does not tell you how to do it. I have tried turning the saw upside down and loosening the trunion bolts and tapping one way or the other, but cannot get it straight. Does any one know how to align this saw? I am going nuts.
Richard

Richard
The trunions are definitely the way to go. The secret is to loosen the trunion bolts enough to allow you to move the trunion but not enough that it will shift when you tighten them down.
How far off is it? If you within .005 of parallel that is probably close enough. When you say you can't get it straight what do you mean? That you don't have enough play in the bolts to align it straight or do you mean you just can't seem to get it straight?

Which way is blade out of parallel is the back of the blade closer or further from the slot? If it closer you need to move the back trunion way from the slot and/or front trunion closer to slot. If the blade is further from the slot then you need to more the back trunion closer to slot and/or the front further away.

First step determine which way you need to move. Loosen the bolts in the back trunion, just enough to allow you to tap the trunion to move it.
Now move the back trunion. Check your blade is it parallel? If it is carefully tighten the trunion bolts if not, are you at the end of the range of movement in bolts? If not tap it again.
If you at the end of the range of movement for the back trunion then carefully tighten it and loosen the front trunion. Remember your going to tap it in opposite direction. Again check your adjustment. If you do this slowly and carefully you should be able to bring the adjustment in. It might be easier to have another person checking the adjustment while you lay under the maching making them.
Remember once you do this you should never have to adjust this again. Ever! If you do! Then one of two things is wrong you didn't tighten the bolts or you didn't adjust it correctly the first time.

Also don't forget about blade run out. When you check for parallelism make sure you pick a point on the blade and that same mark to check for parallelism front and back. Mark a point and check the distance from the blade to the slot with the blade point in the most forward position. Now turn the blade point to the most rear most position and check the distance again. Using the same point removes blade runout from effecting your measurements.

Also insure your blade is properly mounted, in some cases saw dust or metal particles get behind the blade and cause more runout. First minimize your runout. If you have .003 runout with is close to spec and then combine that with .005 out of parallelism again within spec you end up with .008 out of parallel which is out of spec.
So mimimize runout and always measure from the same point on the blade to check your front to back parallelism.

[Richard Nelson]

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your reply. There is not enough play to get the blade to line up. The rear is closer to the right slot than the front of the blade. I have tried to move the front or the rear. The arbor is clean. I have gone so far as to take an old blade and put a clamp on the front of the blade to the right, and a clamp on the rear to the left. Then I loosened the bolts, tapped the assembly over accordingly, and re-tightened the bolts. Still no luck. It is out a good .015". I am at a loss. Any ideas?
Thanks, Richard

[Ed Blough]

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your reply. There is not enough play to get the blade to line up. The rear is closer to the right slot than the front of the blade. I have tried to move the front or the rear. The arbor is clean. I have gone so far as to take an old blade and put a clamp on the front of the blade to the right, and a clamp on the rear to the left. Then I loosened the bolts, tapped the assembly over accordingly, and re-tightened the bolts. Still no luck. It is out a good .015". I am at a loss. Any ideas?
Thanks, Richard

Richard
Are you sure your out? How are you measuring it? Are you measuring from the same point on the blade in each case?
I have not heard of a Hitachi being out.
In any case what you may have to do is actually remove a trunion bolt and see if the hole in the trunion is slotted enough to enable an adjustment of .015. Remember you only need about .007 in the back and .007 in the front to make the blade parallel.

If the hole isn't big enough to allow the adjustment then you may need to contact Hitachi support.

If the hole is big enough but you can't slide the trunnion over it may be due to some casting flash. You will need to remove all the bolts holding the trunion and remove the trunion and check to see if the bottom of the table is perfectly smooth, also check the table side of the trunion to insure it does't have anything to hang it up.

I'm thinking Hitachi may factory align the blade parallelism making no provision for customer adjustment, and for some reason yours is out. If you think about it this makes perfect sense since the factory should be able to set every saw at exact parallelism and it should never needed to be changed. If this is the case I would say it was a warrantee problem. You may want to check to see if Lowes will trade you for a new one. Or what Hitachi will do for service. Like I said I haven't heard of a Hitachi being out.