I work via e-mail with a number of blind woodworkers trying to answer their questions and providing some research help. Today, one of them raised a question about a contractor tablesaw that seems to act as if it is slightly out of alignment but when he rotates the blade a quarter-turn everything seems in order.
His e-mail message is as follows:
i have a contractors tablesaw sold by craftsman but really made by Emerson Electric.
the problem i am having is, when i cut a small piece of wood like a 1
by 2 it sometimes hits the backteeth of the blade.
sometimes meaning i make a cut, i slide the piece of wood past the front teeth and it hits the teeth in the back of the blade.
but if i turn the blaid a quarter turn it will slide through the
front and back teeth with no problem. if i turn it another quarter turn it will hit the front teeth.
the rip fence is set so the back end is a bit ferther from the blade
at the back of the saw.
please help
thanks.
The blade has been acting this way for some time. He does not have a dial indicator so cannot test alignment movement of the blade. He’s not aware of any damage that would throw the arbor out of alignment.
Do you have any suggestons at what might be at play here? Thank you, John.
Replies
Three possibilities:
1. The blade has a slight warp in it. Usually when a blade warps it goes to the left on one segment and to the right 180 degrees around the blade. If the problem occurs with several different blades the warped blade theory is less likely. Usually binding and over heating a blade will cause it to warp.
2. A speck of dirt or a burr on the arbor flange. Very lightly filing the face of the flange would correct this.
3. A bent arbor or an out of square arbor flange. To check for this you would need a dial indicator. There is no simple fix for a bent arbor.
Hope this helps,
John White
Thank you -- I'll be discussing this with him and let you know if any seem to apply.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled