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Thread: Adjusting the parallelism of the base plate of the Makita track saw

  1. #1

    Adjusting the parallelism of the base plate of the Makita track saw

    I bought a Makita track saw a month ago, and noticed that the factory callibration was far from perfect.

    The set screw for the 45 degree cut was off by a degre or two.

    I am also having burn marks when cutting birch plywood, on the rail side (but not on the other side of the cut) and I realized that the blade is not parallel to the base plate, it has a slight angle pointing away from the track. With a caliper, the plate to blade distance is greater in front of the blade than it is in the back, by aprox 0.75 mm.

    I am about to adust it, fortunately there are 4 screews on the base plate to make this adjustment, but I wanted to ask if it needs to be exactly parallel, or if it's preferable to have a slight tilt for a counter intuitive reason that I can't imagine.

    I'm hoping that this callibration will get rid of the burn marks. The blade is practically new, so I think I can rule out blade dullness, especialy given that the burn mark is only on the rail side, and given the slight of the blade away (non parallel) from the track.

    As for the straightness of the track, I wish I had a granite table to quantify it with a feeler gage.

    With the zillions of Youtube channels dedicated to objective comparisons of tools, it would be nice if one of them was dedicated only to measuring tolerances. Cause right now most such reviews are pretty subjective, and I can't know to what extent (if at all) the cheaper brands (like Makita) are in the same league in terms of tolerances as Fe$tool.

    I don't mind callibrating a tool myself, and will happily do it to save a few hundred bucks, but if the tolerances are much lower, that's another story.
    Last edited by maxime lévesque; 09-21-2021 at 12:45 PM.

  2. #2
    I have not noticed an issue like you describe with my DeWalt and I've never adjusted it as you contemplate. I also use a low end Evolution saw when volunteering and I do not get burn marks cutting plywood with it either. It seems like you might have gotten a "bad one".

    A blade does not have to be dull to burn wood, however. It also occurs when a blade gets dirty. Cutting softwood with a lot of sap in it can cause a buildup quickly.

  3. #3
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    The blade should be as parallel to the guide as possible.

  4. #4
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    I have the cordless Makita track saw and it amazes me how well it cuts.
    Hopefully, you can tune your saw up to get great results as well.

    There is no magic tilt. Square it up as close as you can.

    In terms of Makita quality versus Festool.... I don't have a Festool track saw but I also see no benefit that the Festool saw has. Online reviews comparing the two seem to agree with that assessment as well. That's not to say Festool isn't a great saw (I've only played with one at my local Woodcraft and it appears equally as good).

    I also wondered about many of my tools, etc. being straight/flat. I bought a good aluminum straight edge but not one calibrated to a real calibration standard. It claims such things but no evidence of real NIST traceability and such. However, it matches up well with some of my tools/ground tables. It would be a ridiculous chance that all my tools/tables fail to me straightness in the exact same way. My Makita track is as straight as anything I have the ability to compare it to. Once again there's no reason for me to think Festool or other manufacturer makes a better option.
    Last edited by Eric Arnsdorff; 09-22-2021 at 10:35 AM.

  5. #5
    So I adjusted the parallelism of the base plate with the blade, the burn marks are gone, the cut is very clean, very smooth surface, etc.

    Making the adjustment required some tinkering, I used the depth gage of a locking caliper to equalize the distance between the blade and the outermost edge of the base plate.

    It feels kind of strange to have such a critical adjustment done with bolting two plates together with four screews, rather than sliding machined surfaces / edges perpendicular to the blade and set screws, but I guess they have to cut costs somewhere, and wood working only requires wood precision !

    I kept the two back screews at the "factory" settings, and only adjusted the front ones, resulting in a shortened base to blade distance, so I could reuse my splinter guard, which became thinner post adjustment after the inaugural cut.

    I suppose there is a design / optimal distance to have between the base plate and the blade, and if it is too short (which might be my case) the bevel cuts will be offset from the splinter gard edge.

    The optimal distance would be the one at which the beveling of the blade is such that any given angles of the blade stem from the base of the splinter guard. Any offset from this distance will have the spliter guard "eaten" during bevel cuts (if two short), or cut farther from the splinter guard, if it is to wide.

    That is quite a fine adjustment to make with a mechanism as crude as two plates fastened together with four philips screws... Perhaps this is why the documentation doesn't specify this distance... I find it mind boggling that such a critical setting is not in the user manual !

    I wonder what is the fe$tool or other brands design for calibrating blade to base plate parallelism.
    Last edited by maxime lévesque; 09-22-2021 at 10:27 AM.

  6. #6
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    Just how close do you think the tolerances can get on an extruded piece of aluminum ?

    Close enough for purposes I'm sure, but when one starts pulling out granite plates, feeler gauges, ect......... all bets are off.

    There's also a reason why a rail from festool or mafell costs more than one from makita. And why a makita costs more than powertec, and why those cost more than a rail from Aldi's brand du jour.

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