Minimax sc4e sliding saw carriage/blade/fence alignment

[Christopher Solar]

Hi-

I have a Minimax sc4e slider (bought used a year ago) and lately I haven't been too pleased with the quality of the cut.

Today I clamped a dial indicator to the carriage and measured the parallelism of the blade and fence relative to the path of the carriage.
The blade skews to the right, that is, the back edge of the blade is 0.012" further from the carriage than the front.
(Measuring the un-ground portion of the blade raised to max height -- a span of about 8.25")

The fence also skews to the right, but at a shallower angle: only about .007 along the same span (0.036" for the whole length of the fence extrusion)

So: it seems like the blade should be parallel to the slider path, no? Does anyone know how this is adjusted? I don't see this in my manual.

Thanks,

Chris.

[Aaron Inami]

What you are measuring is the toe-out adjustment. A measurement of 0.012" is pretty high. You generally don't want a toe-out more than 0.004" to 0.007". If you can get the toe-out to a perfect 0.000", that would be best, but it is very hard to do.

You will want to view this video. It's based on a Felder saw. I think Minimax has different types of adjustment/tightening bolts, but the overall idea is the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s2a02XI3BQ

For Minimax slider, you should loosen all bolts except one. Then pull/torque the slider in the direction you want to adjust. Then re-tighten and check toe-out with dial indicator. Rinse and repeat as necessary or desired.

Be aware that loosening/tightening the slider bolts will change the slider table height alignment as well.

For the rip fence, there should be some sort of adjustment bolts underneath/inside the rip fence mount. You would have to check the Minimax parts diagram to adjust this for toe-out.

You also want to make sure your cross-cut fence is square to the blade.

[Christopher Solar]

What you are measuring is the toe-out adjustment. A measurement of 0.012" is pretty high. You generally don't want a toe-out more than 0.004" to 0.007". If you can get the toe-out to a perfect 0.000", that would be best, but it is very hard to do.

Thanks, I had a sinking feeling it would be the whole carriage that gets adjusted...
Measuring again at a blade tooth (same tooth both measurements) I'd say the toe-out is 0.015", so yeah, let's fix that.

From looking at my manual it seems like unlike that Felder saw in the video, I can loosen the carriage without affecting the height setting. The carriage rests on 3 pairs of posts and in the middle of each pair is a through-bolt that actually fastens down the carriage.

I think it will be a matter of...
- remove the outrigger/fence etc. from the carriage
- loosen 2 of 3 bolts, maybe loosen the 3rd a tiny bit, tap the loose end of the carriage a little and re-tighten
- repeat the above 15 times until I actually get it right

It looks like the rip fence angle is adjusted via the bolts that attach the round fence rail to the saw. Does not seem ideal, but that's the deal.

[Brian W Evans]

I found this description of how to adjust the rip fence somewhere - possibly here. I tried it and it worked very well - noticeably improved my cuts.

My saw was delivered in pieces because I told the dealer I was going to move it to my basement. Whoever took the saw apart at the dealer, took the nuts off of the heavy steel bar and put them in a bag tied to the bar. When the SCM tech arrived to assemble and commission the saw, he wasn't concerned about the loss of the factory alignment. The rip fence alignment was fairly quick once he set the approximate distance from the table edge so the fine adjust wheel engaged the teeth on the scale. When I worked on my saw recently, setting the rip fence toe out took about 30 minutes, and I was starting with a lot of toe in, which explained the burnt edges on my ripped plywood.

The SCM tech told me to keep the set of nuts on the threaded rod closest to the blade tight and use it as the pivot point for the toe out angle. Loosen the nuts completely on the next three threaded rods, and make all toe out or toe in adjustments with the outermost threaded rod. He used a piece of tape to identify one tooth on the blade and rotated the blade so that tooth was at the infeed and outfeed side when he measured the distance from the fence. He used a steel rule to get the fence close to the same distance, and then used a setup that looked like a homemade One Way Multigauge to fine tune the toe out. After he snugged up the outermost nuts, he put a dial gauge on a magnetic base at the outfeed side of the cast iron table and moved the gauge to contact the fence. After he zeroed it, he started snugging up the nuts on the inner threaded rods while keeping the dial gauge needle as centered as possible. I was surprised to see how little effort it took to move that thick steel bar. All of this took him about 15 minutes, then he tested the fence angle with a piece of 19mm MDF.

We were both satisfied and then he did something I didn't expect. He loosened all of the nuts, except those on the reference rod, wiggled the steel rod to make sure it was loose, and then handed me the wrenches. I could have strangled him. He was patient and watched as I fumbled with the process. It took me just under an hour, but I did it.

[Jeff Roltgen]

Brian,
Thank you - I copied/pasted/printed that and will insert into my SCM si315es manual. That's not how I adjusted mine when new, but I like the idea much better, even though I fumbled my way as close to "perfection" and am satisfied with the performance. For now...

jeff

[Aaron Inami]

The fence also skews to the right, but at a shallower angle: only about .007 along the same span (0.036" for the whole length of the fence extrusion)

Actually, I would not touch the toe-out for the rip fence at all. It is actually recommended to have just a tiny bit of toe-out for the rip fence. This prevents the fence from pushing the material into the rear of the blade which can cause a kick-back.

[Aaron Inami]

Oh, one more thing. When you are loosening/tightening the bolts, I would only loosen them like 1/5 or 1/4 of a turn. When you re-tighten, you should use a straight edge and make sure the slider table is actually above the main cast iron table. The Felder side usually recommends to have the table 0.004" to 0.007" above the main cast iron table, but I have seen some recommendations to have this 0.40" above the main cast iron table. There are different opinions, but you definitely DO NOT want the slider to be running under the main cast iron table.

[Christopher Solar]

Right, but at the moment the fence appears to be toed-in relative to the blade. I'll be rotating the carriage to be closer to the blade angle, then I'll have to tweak the fence to be slightly toed-out.

[Christopher Solar]

Good suggestion, thank you.

[Aaron Inami]

"The fence also skews to the right, but at a shallower angle: only about .007 along the same span (0.036" for the whole length of the fence extrusion)"

I took this as meaning that the fence "skews away from the blade" (i.e. the distance between fence and blade is wider at the rear of the blade). If the fence skews towards the blade, then you should definitely correct that.

You do not want the fence to be pushing material into the blade as you push it through.