Burning Cherry

[Jack Gingerich]

First post- though I've been viewing this forum for a little while....... I've been ripping some cherry on a Powermatic 2000 (3hp) with a Forrest WWII blade (1/8 kerf w/40 teeth) and fence set back a few thousandths, and still get burn marks, even on the cutoff piece. The blade is sharp, clean, and I raised it to cut with a steeper angle, but still burning the wood. My next option is to try a dedicated ripping blade with fewer teeth. Any other ideas? I know cherry is noted for burning easily, but I seem to be going from joiner to table saw, and back to joiner to remove burn marks.

Jack

[Joe Jensen]

In my experience, cherry burns super easy. It's the only wood I really have to use a rip blade with.

[Cody Colston]

I always rip a sixteenth wide and then joint off the sawn edge. That's on all species.

[Greg Muller]

Ditto, rip + 1/16th per side and run through the jointer or sand. Even my best rip blade burns cherry enough to wreck a finish.:(

[Tim Sproul]

Clean blade. Feed faster.

[Lee Schierer]

I agree go to a 24 tooth blade if you are ripping, feed the wood through at a constant rate, no stopping or hesitation in mid cut. With 3 Hp you should be able to feed it in pretty fast. Make sure the bottom of the gullets on the blade clear the wood on top of the piece being cut and you should see burn free cuts.

One thing you didn't mention is whether your blade is set perfectly parallel to the miter slots. If it is not you will still get burning even with your fence trailing away. You will also see burn marks on cross cuts. Personally I prefer not to have the fence trail away more than a few thousandths of an inch over the length of the fence. I check my blade to miter slot alignment and slot to fence alignment with a dial indicator (about $20 from HF) attached to a block of wood on my miter gauge. If the blade isn't within .001" or .002" of being parallel to the miter slot you need to work on the alignment.

[Michael McCoy]

Clean blade. Feed faster.

What Tim said. I'm just running a contractor saw and the only time I get any burning is when I'm slow with the feed rate. I do always use a dedicated rip blade.

[Jack Gingerich]

Thanks for the respones. The blade is clean and alligned and feed rate was as fast as the 3hp would handle.

The fix was (as I thought and some have suggested) was a rip blade. I just purchased Freud's 24th heavy duty rip blade and made several burn free rips.

So much for the Forrest being the "end all" blade as I was hoping (given the price)

Jack

[Don Bullock]

Jack, it's not the blade. Cherry burns very easily.

[Lee Hingle]

[quote= Lee Schierer

One thing you didn't mention is whether your blade is set perfectly parallel to the miter slots. If it is not you will still get burning even with your fence trailing away.



You will also see burn marks on cross cuts. Personally I prefer not to have the fence trail away more than a few thousandths of an inch over the length of the fence. I check my blade to miter slot alignment and slot to fence alignment with a dial indicator (about $20 from HF) attached to a block of wood on my miter gauge. If the blade isn't within .001" or .002" of being parallel to the miter slot you need to work on the alignment.[/quote]


Lee,
I'm a bit confused by your reply. While I understand the need to have the blade perfectly parallel to the miter gauge for crosscutting operations, I do not understand how non-parallelism between the blade and miter slot would affect a ripping operations on a table saw.
Lee

[D.McDonnel "Mac"]

Jack, it's not the blade. Cherry burns very easily.


Amen to that!

Cherry is nearly my favorite wood to build with but it burns very easy. I just allow for an extra trip to the jointer. With a rip blade you may not have burning to joint off but the rough cut will need to be jointed off so either way it's a few extra passes over the jointer for cherry!

Mac

[Harry Goodwin]

I had same problem with same blade. Forrest suggested raising the blade as you already tried. Harry