I needed a whole bunch strips of Mahogany for some solid edging. That's a lot of tedious ripping.
strip rips-01.jpg
Cutting thin strips between the blade and fence can lead to binding, burning and chatter. Basically, inconsistent results. Ever notice how you can get perfect ribbons of wood off the waste side of the blade? The issue with cutting finish sizes off the waste side is that it usually involves a lot of subtracting fractions, or counting little lines. This is how I do it without the math and and line counting.
strip rips-02.jpg
What you need:
Clear packing tape
Fine point Sharpie
Feather board
strip rips-03.jpg
First I cover the scale indicator with the clear packing tape. This allows me to mark on the fence indicator with the Sharpie and then peel it off when I'm done.
strip rips-04.jpg
For this example I want a final 3/16". I just trued up a piece of stock to 5" so that is where the cursor was set. Now comes the only brain work involved. I take my finish size, 3/16", add an 1/8" for the width of the saw kerf, plus a fat 1/16" for clean up with the thickness planer. I marked that total, a fat 3/8", on the indicator to the left of the cursor.... 4-5/8" minus.
IMG_2550.jpg
Although not really necessary, I find that a small amount of pressure just in front of the blade from a feather board helps.
strip rips-05.jpg
To make the first rip, I move the fence cursor to my Sharpie mark and make the cut.
strip rips-07.jpg
For each subsequent rip, just move the cursor to the position of the Sharpie mark. No brain work.
strip rips-06.jpg
I find that by fixing my eye on the scale where the mark is, then loosen and move the fence, I can lock it down right on the money.
Now I need to figure out how to eliminate saw kerf waste.