Table saw blade adjustment needed?

[Corey Pelton]

Hey everyone,

I’ve just setup my new Sawstop PCS, and when checking the blade to the miters, I’m seeing that 1/2 the teeth are aligned, while the other half aren’t. Using a dial indicator shows about .008 difference from front of blade to the back, with the back half pushing away from the fence.



Do I need to adjust the table? This is my first cabinet saw, so I’m green on dealing with alignment issues. Also, I wasn’t able to find something similar to what I’m seeing online. I know the procedure for adjusting the table, but I wanted to get some opinions before I start mucking around.

Thanks for the help!

Corey

[James Tibbetts]

My guess is the blade is warped, or much less likely the shaft is out. If it were planar the teeth would all hit once you set the square in place regardless of the orientation to the fence, slot or anything else.

[Corey Pelton]

Ok, that’s what I was thinking myself, that the blade might be warped. Hopefully, it’s just that. I’ll throw another blade on, see what I get.

[Corey Pelton]

Tried two other blades, same thing 😐 Guess it’s time to contact Sawstop.

[Matt Day]

If you have a magnetic base dial indicator check the runout of the arbor flange. Also, see if the arbor washer is flat and has any wobble against the arbor flange.

[johnny means]

How does it cut? That's all that matters. Twenty odd years making furniture a cabinets and I've never seen anyone set up a table saw with a dial indicator.

[James Tibbetts]

Follow Matt's advice first if possible. That would produce the same variation as the shaft being out.

[Charles Lent]

Put a mark on your blade so you know which tooth that you are measuring to and make your measurements from the miter slot to that one tooth. Turn the blade to get the marked tooth positioned to the right place for taking each measurement. This will eliminate any blade warp error from your measurements. Do a measurement with the marked tooth just above the table in the front and then again in the back of the blade slot and use a magnetic base and dial indicator for the measurements. They make special mounts that fit the miter slot to mound the dial indicator to and this way would be better than using the magnetic base. 0.008" is a pretty small amount and it's easy to get errors in taking your measurements that would give you that much error.

Charley

[Corey Pelton]

Put a mark on your blade so you know which tooth that you are measuring to and make your measurements from the miter slot to that one tooth. Turn the blade to get the marked tooth positioned to the right place for taking each measurement. This will eliminate any blade warp error from your measurements. Do a measurement with the marked tooth just above the table in the front and then again in the back of the blade slot and use a magnetic base and dial indicator for the measurements. They make special mounts that fit the miter slot to mound the dial indicator to and this way would be better than using the magnetic base. 0.008" is a pretty small amount and it's easy to get errors in taking your measurements that would give you that much error.

Charley

Hey Charley,

That's exactly what I did, heh. I used my Woodpeckers table saw alignment tool to check (has a dial indicator on the end of it, works well!). It's about .008 from same tooth, front to back. The bigger problem is that half the teeth aren't aligned when testing 1 revolution. The latter half of the cut gets extremely hard to push the stock through, which makes me worry a bit. Quite a bit of burn marks from forcing a couple pieces through. I'll wait to hear back from Sawstop CS on Monday. Bit bummed that it sort of sidelined me this weekend. Was hoping to get more accomplished than I have.

I'll try Matt's suggestion tomorrow and see if anything is out of wack on the shaft or arbor washers. Though the washers seemed pretty ok, at least to the naked eye lying flush on the table.

[Corey Pelton]

It’s driving me nuts that this thing is off, so here I am at 5am checking the arbor with my dial indicator, hah. Inner and outer arbor washers are spot on. End of the shaft has .001 movement. Not enough to explain my results when checking the teeth. I think I’m more confused now than at the start. lol

[Lee Schierer]

Check the flange on the arbor shaft and insure there isn't a burr or piece of debris stuck to the face of the flange. If none is present I would definitely talk to Sawstop. Your cut quality will suffer with that much wobble in the blade.

[Nick Decker]

Corey, have you checked the alignment of the fence to the miter slot? That would figure in too, if you're having problems pushing wood through.

[Corey Pelton]

Fence is dead on accurate. Table and wings are as well. Washers and nut are burr free and properly machined. Threads are clean on the shaft, no flat or oblong sections. I wish I knew more about the saw, so I could at least give a decent hypothesis. I’m hoping Sawstop has an answer for me tomorrow.

[Corey Pelton]

Spoke with Sawstop techs, and from what they can tell, the arbor block has a wobble. They’re sending me a new arbor block assembly and we’ll see if it fixes the issue. Glad to see firsthand how great Sawstop’s customer service is.

[Joe Hollis]

If it is the saw itself and not runout on the blade, then that is pretty poor manufacturing Q/C for a saw like this in my opinion.

My General Model 350 10" table saw is 17 years old, and the runout on the arbor flange as measured using a Starrett dial indicator (I checked it yesterday) measures a few tenths over .001.

JH

Spoke with Sawstop techs, and from what they can tell, the arbor block has a wobble. They’re sending me a new arbor block assembly and we’ll see if it fixes the issue. Glad to see firsthand how great Sawstop’s customer service is.