I'm a Victim of Good Tools!

[Jeff Frieburg]

Get this...

As a long time subscriber to the oft mentioned adage of buying tools that are of the best quality you can afford, I finally worked my way up to acquiring over the past year or so Oneida's Dust Gorilla and a Forrest WWII table saw blade (among other gloats ) on the advice of you fellow Creekers.

Last night, while performing a cross-cut operation on my table saw with some maple stock, I heard a loud bang and the short cut-off piece flew out of the blade area like a shot (that's why we wear eye protection). After shutting everything down and inspecting the situation I noticed the left side of my throat plate had a gouge out of it and was bent. After inspecting my prescious blade, I noticed that a carbide tip was missing.

After doing a little CSI - Woodshop, it seems that what happened was that the awesome suction created by the Gorilla around the throat plate had drawn the cut-off piece into the space between the blade and the edge of the right side of the throat plate and it wedged in there causing the blade to be "deflected" into the throat plate on the left side of the blade and ruining a darn good blade.

I've mailed the blade to Forrest for re-tipping and checking for trueness, and I'm looking for a aluminum or plastic throat plate to relace the pressed-steel one that came with my Craftsman table saw.

OF course, the LOML pointed out that all this "quality" I've been buying is supposed help me be a better woodworker. Right? RIGHT?

Any ideas how I can keep this from happening again?

Jeff.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Try making your inserts from wood.
You can make different inserts for different blades and even inserts for blade angles.

It's easy and you can adjust the inserts to be dead flush with the table in any of several ways. Some guys tap and drill for little nylok grub screws in the cast iron flange. Others do it to the wood insert. Some just make 'em precise in their planer. Others use shims and glue. There're other ways to get 'em dead flush.

Forrest will (I am guessing) replace the blade gratis. They have a rep like that.

[Drew Bernat]

Ouch. I'm glad to hear you're okay.

As for inserts... I picked up this trick from Usenet. Use hot glue. No, seriously!

1) Rough-cut a plate from some spare wood (I used 1/2" birch ply) a little bigger than the current plate.
2) Use a router or sand the insert to size. It'll be too thick, so rabbet the edges (router again) until it sits lower than the table surface.
3) Now the fun part: run a line of hot glue around the edge of the insert. Stick it in, and it should be just above the table surface. Quickly press down on it (I used a straightedge) to make it level. This will squish the glue, but it will stick to the insert and not the table. Poof, done. Well...
4) Clamp a piece of wood on top of the insert, keeping the clamps _well_ away from the insert itself. Turn on the saw and sloooooowly raise the blade through the insert.

If the normal saw blade is too big (it was for me), swap to a 7 incher from a circular saw to start the cut.

You can google for zero-clearance inserts to get more instructions. Seriously, though, make one. It's a safety issue.

[David Duke]

Sounds like your using the standard OME insert and not using a zero clearance insert. You need to use the ZCIs where possible it will be alot safer and help prevent instances just like you described.

[glenn bradley]

A picture is worth a thousand words. . . and maybe a blade.

[Andrew Shaber]

Your analysis sounds questionable. The stock throat plate is a long way from the blade. More likely, there was something too hard in the wood like a nail or something. Or, was it a brand new blade? Maybe the tooth was defective.

I agree on the zero clearance throat plate made of wood.

[Jeff Frieburg]

I'm definately going the zero-clearance route. I wonder how many others out there should do the same up-grade.

Andrew: On my saw the stock throat plate clearance to the left of the blade is about 1/8" and about 1/4" on the right. For a Forrest blade to be deflected 1/8" seems like a lot to me too, but that's my best guess as to what went wrong. The blade is about 5 months old and had performed great up to that point. No nails in the wood either.

Oh well... a good, but expensive, lesson for me.

[glenn bradley]

"I wonder how many others out there should do the same up-grade."

All of them, IMHO.

I'm glad you were not injured and the damage was not worse. Hopefully the blade can be salvaged. there are a few posts here on the forum about making ZCIs. If I can help with pics or anything, PM me. Knowing the model of your saw will help if you PM.

[Art Mulder]

Forrest will (I am guessing) replace the blade gratis. They have a rep like that.

I hope they do.

How do you know that the missing tooth is the only one that was damaged? I sure wouldn't want to trust that damaged blade to not throw teeth at me.

I know of a fellow around here (who teaches woodworking) and he throws out blades even if it is just dropped onto the concrete floor.

[Noah Katz]

IMO a ZCI to narrow the gap should help a lot.

Less area over which the suction force is applied, and the loose piece can't rotate as much, decreasing the wedging action.