miter guage/crosscut sled on table saw
user-165082
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It seems I am having trouble with my crosscut sled and miter guage cutting 90 degrees. My saw blade is set at 90. The board on my miter guage measures square withthe blade. How do I tell if my crosscut sled is square with the blade? It seems that one side is higher than the other when I cut the board and check it with a square. Can anyone tell me what I could be doing wrong and what adjustments might need to be made? What should I be looking for?
Thanks ,
Steve
Replies
There are a lot of ways, here's one.
Take two 1x6's approx 12" long (or something close, such as plywood ripped to similar dimensions)
Stack them, mark the edges of one side (the 1x side) of the boards
Hold the marked edge against the miter sled and crosscut them.
Now, put the cut ends together while the marked edges are against a flat surface such as your tablesaw top. This will magnify your 'error' by a factor of two. If you see daylight, adjust, recut, recheck.
Above all, take your time.
Hi, Steve. Using a square to set your blade and/or miter gauge to square is the next-to-last step, as many squares aren't actually square, and the eye might not pick up a very small error. The final step is test-cutting wood, as mentioned above. I'm having trouble following his description, though, as I've never stacked anything to do the test. I'm probably just in a pre-caffeine fog.
I have a drawing that shows how to do this, will scan and email to you. Hopefully, you built in some adjustability to your sled fence?
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
FG,
You don't necessarily have to stack them to make the cut, it just ensures you're cutting them the same.
To illustrate, if you cut the ends at a 5° angle and then placed the ends together, the bottom of the boards would form a 10° angle (with the two 5° miters).
If you cut the ends at a perfect 90° angle, then the bottom of the boards will form a 180° angle, ie. a straight line.
I'm on my second cup by now. Also, I'm making some little stools for some very young and soon to be born kiddies. His question reminded me to check my miter sled before I made my cuts. Cut, adjust, cut, adjust...you know the drill.
I've always found that test to be waaaaay harder to explain than it really is. I sent Steve a scan from one of my books. I usually use a 1x~3, put it upright to check for square-to-table, and lay it down on it's face to check square-to-miter gauge.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
When I bought my new saw, and put it together, I found that the blade wasn't parrallel to the miter slot. It wasn't off much, but enough to make bad cuts. I was suprised that a 1,000$ saw was so inaccurate. I had to do much filing to square it up. If I didn't live 150 miles from the store, (Home Hardware), I would have taken it back. I used a good strightedge and rule to check the alingment, and checked it with a few cuts.I use a crosscut sled extensivley, and need that alingment to be bang on. If the blade doesn't line up exactly with your mitre slots, you can still make accurate rips, beacuse you can alingn the fence to the blade, but your mitres will be off.
"I had to do much filing to square it up." Filing? Filing?! Whoa. Didn't the usual adjustment technique work? What kind of saw is it?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I had the same reaction when I read it!
Hal
Truth be told, my first reaction wouldn't have made it by the censor, LOL!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Filing. I think it has something to do with the matter/anti-matter pods....
Seriously, I seem to recall you posting something a while back about a nifty new splitter you had acquired. Would you mind sharing again?
Thanks!
BTW: Am I the only one having problems with the "Search" function??
Nope, you're not the only one having trouble. It wasn't working for me 2 days ago. I've been trying to find a post by John White, but no luck.
The splitter I have is the Merlin. Here's the Hartville Tool page on them. There are other quick-release splitters, including the Biesemeyer, that might work a bit easier, but I'm quite happy with the Merlin, and it's the only one that I could find to make fit my old Jet saw. I use it with a Penn State overhead guard.
I had to modify some things to get it to work with the old blue saw, and I have a maximum blade height of 2.0".forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"Filing!" That word surely woke me up.
At first I freaked at 'filing.' The arbor? The trunnion? I'm speculating, but perhaps the filing was on the holes in the base for the bolts to attach the top. i.e., the top might have needed more rotating than the holes permitted in order to align the slots with the blade.
At any rate, after doing one's best to align slots and blade, shouldn't one square the sled/gauge to the slots, *not* the blade? Not only does this strike me as more accurate, but it is also easy to do - just square the fence to the guides on the sled or gauge.
He's from Canada, so the $1,000 translates to a contractor's saw I would guess. (Help us out here, Skidoo!). More than once I've seen it suggested in a forum that someone having trouble with that alignment should file the trunnion holes. No! With that style saw, if it's that badly out of whack, it's a pretty safe bet it's the connector bars that go between the trunnions -- the whole assmebly can get out of square and really screw things up.
Wonder if he filed the miter slots? Oh dear.......
I prefer to align everything to the blade, especially the fence. Don't want any cumulative errors causing a kickback.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"I prefer to align everything to the blade, especially the fence. Don't want any cumulative errors causing a kickback."I meant the fence on a sled or miter gauge. Certainly the rip fence needs to align with the blade.With regards to fences on miter gauges and sleds, it helps to imagine the slots and the blade being REALLY badly aligned - imagine something like 15 degrees. If the fence is perpendicular to the slot, a square cut will result, where either the front or the back of the blade is determining the surface. If the fence is perpendicular to the blade, the workpiece will move towards (or away from) the blade causing a non-square cut. Either way, if alignment is bad, kickback is almost certain from moving the workpiece into the side of the blade.I square my miter gauge fence to the bar with a square. It takes 30 seconds, and my cuts are dead-on square; I usually can't fit more than 3 business card thicknesses into the gaps in my finished joints.
Filing my table mount holes to enlarge them slightly to alighn the table to the blade.It's a General. I wasn't impressed either.
The General's, from what I've heard, are usually quite well made. I'm sticking with my original fantasy that there was (and probably still is) something not-square with the undercarriage, sorry! If it works for ya, that's great.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
It is well made, and after I got it aligned,I am very happy with it.You my certainly stick to your fantasy, but after I enlarged the stands table mounting holes, I was able to true the blade to the mitre slots.
"...after I enlarged the stands table mounting holes...." OK, that's a totally different design than what I was thinking about.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I'm also from Canada and I too had to file the holes in my cabinet in order to line the blade up with the mitre slots. My saw was a brand new Craftsman Professional 10 inch hybrid. As far as I can tell nothing is out of whack underneath, it now makes wonderfully perfect cuts. Maybe it's a "Canadian" thing.
maybe they send the less thans to Canada. Both General and Craftman are made in the States
I believe General powertools (not General International) are made in Canada. I suspect General doesn't make any powertools in the US.
Note that General powertools are entirely separate from General handtools.
My saw is General International, made in Tiwan
I'm not sure which is off, vertical or horizontal? Is your blade square to your mitre slots?
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