Table Saw Alignment

[Gene E Miller]

Greetings & Salutations,

I am checking the saw alignments on my Grizzly
1023 Table Saw and want find that the blade
is in line with the miter slot within .003 front
to back of the 10" blade.

In addition it is the same on both miter slots so
that tells me that the miter slots are parallel.

My question would be is this an acceptable tolerance
or should I get down and dirty and start adjusting
the trunnions to bring that blade in closer.

I did check on 3 different saw blades and the
readings were the same so I really feel that it
is pretty accurate.

Also when originally setting up the saw the manual
said to align the fence so that the back was about
1/64" farther away from the blade then the front so
avoid binding but I feel that can cause troubles when
trying to make good parallel cuts.

What say you?

Would like to see what other opinions are in this
regard.

Thanks in advance for the input. :)

[Howard Acheson]

What are you using to take your measurements? What kind of a saw do you have.

In general, 0.003" is the outside limit for blade to miter slot and fence to miter slot variance. I generally shoot for 0.001" and am happy with 0.002".

I am not a fan of "kicking out" the back of a fence. For the best cuts, the fence should be parallel to the miter slot.

[Eric Haycraft]

.003 is good enough. My jet came in at .003 out of the box. Since it is a cabinet saw, it is really easy to adjust, so I dialed it in within .001. It is about a 10 minute procedure, so I don't really see any reason not to make it as accurate as possible.

Regarding the fence, you want to be somewhere between parallel and 1/64 kick out. I prefer parallel, but you will get differing opinions on that. 1/64 seems a bit excessive to me though.

[Gene E Miller]

Greetings & Salutations,

Thanks for the response.

The saw is a Grizzly 1023 Cabinet Saw and that
variance is what it was out of the box.

I have never adjusted a cabinet saw so I guess
I will need to get the manual out and read up.

I kind of agreeded that the fence should be pretty
close to parallel as I just don't like that gap at the
back side.

[Walter Yamamoto]

I adjust my fence parallel. I don't see how a slight distance at the back would hurt parallelism of the wood. Of course if the rear is too skewed, that will present problems with the outside of the board being raked by the rear of the blade as the wood gets pushed through.

With the fence slightly away at the rear, the only point at which the blade will cut the wood (at least the piece on the fence side of the board) would be the front as the back of the blade will not touch it.

The distance from the cutting edge of the blade to the fence at the front will remain constant as the board moves past the blade so the width of the board will be constant.

[Craig Kershaw]

I just went through this on my General 50-185 contractors saw. I was getting burning when I ripped boards. When I measured the difference between the blade and the miter slots I found I was out by about .012, After much effort I got the difference down to between .002 to .003. What a difference. No burning and real smooth cuts. Well worth the effort. There are many posts on this topic on the Creek. Take some time to review. I made a jig to hold a dial indicator and it worked fine; if you don't want to do that you can spend a few $$$ and get one of several jigs.

[Jared Cuneo]

I just went through this with my Delta contractor....and I have no dial indicator, just a starrett combo square.....I'd be willing to bet that I am around .002-.004 and thats good enough for me.....I was .015 or so out on 45° cuts

JC

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

I like my fence kicked out a couple thousandths in the back. It is just a bit less likely to allow the back of the blade to catch. Since my saw is right hand tilt, for those few times I choose to cut on the left side of the blade, I have to remember to readjust the fence or I will actually be tight in the back. That's an easy way to wreck a good miter cut.

Faust Ruggiero