Makita track saw blade alignment

[keith micinski]

Seeing all of these track saw questions has finally made me get around to asking this. Does anyone else have trouble getting there makita set back true to the blade at 90 after beveling? I have a hell of a time because the base flexes as you tighten the knobs down and it also twists front to back if your not careful. The other problem is the bottom of the plate isn’t actually flat, it has a small lip around the perimeter. I’m assuming to reduce sliding friction but it makes using a square to true the base up very difficult since there isn’t much surface are to reference. I have found it odd I never see anyone else complain about this. I also noticed the festool has the same lip around its base also. This twisting and flexing appears to be causing my saw to want to pinch the material and run away from the track causing cut quality issues and this time I can’t seem to get it back where it needs to be apparently because I’m still fighting it.

[David Justice]

Oh, yes. I have cut pieces with my Makita only to see afterwards that the cut is not square because the saw base was not 90 degrees. I agree that it's very hard to get the blade to 90 and the 90 stop is useless, I have tried several times to set it. Before I make any important cut I use a small engineers square to check/set the blade. Only thing I can think of to do.