squareing up the fence

interesting!

-- My philosophy: Somewhere between Norm and Roy

Fascinating idea..Thanks for sharing vonhagen!

-- attilakungl@gmail.com

A new one on me thanks for sharing.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

pretty neat concept- I had to look at the pictures a minute and think about direction of off-set, though still always a bit scary to feed into the back of the blade, at least you aren’t in the way if it decides to launch the piece.

-- Its never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

Worth a try at least ….Thank you : )

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

the purpose of cranking up the blade does 2 things #1 it gets very close to the center of axis and#2 it has an upward thrust at the rear of the fence so the danger of kickback is reduced down to a minimum

-- blaine von hagen

quick and simple ,

thanks !

-- david ,new mexico ,allheart

This is something I will need to try. Thank you!

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

Blaine, this certainly is a new technique for me as well.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Smart & simple.
Thanks a bunch.

-- Eric

We learn somethin every day. Thanks.

-- Dudley Young USN Ret.

gad zoots,,,how about that..

-- Dan Hux,,,,Raleigh, North Carolina

This will be a great help as I think mine is out of square. Thanks!

-- Jeff, Fargo, ND

i would love to find a book with all these old time techniques that don’t require a starrett or wixey. I saw a demostration where this guy explained why carpenters from the day would keep their hand saws shiny like a mirror. they could keep the saw vertical based on the reflection. i think a lot of these these old tricks are being lost. thanks for showing us one.

-- david roberts, houston area, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but that has never been a problem for me."

Thanks for the tip. BTKS

i also set the blade at a perfect 90 degrees by just simply uesing 2 3/4 by 3 inch pieces of mdf and crank up the blade all the way and stand the 2 pieces on edge and trim both ends at the same time with the miter gauge and then unfold them end to end and it will show you which way its out times 2. so when your blade is at 90 degrees the boards will fit together perfect without a gap at top or bottom, remember when doing this to use a flat surface like a jointer bed or the cast top of the saw. i know about polishing saw blades and its the same as a mirror on a gangrip, it shows you when your at 90 degrees by placeing a mirror on a board you look into the mirror and it doubles how far your out so when you see a straight board not bent then your at 90. try taking 2 mirrors and use tape to create a hinge and then place it on a flitch of bookmatched venier open it and it will show you the finished table top and will equaly divide it up in pie pieces you can also check which wall in a room is out of square with a mirror.

-- blaine von hagen

thanks

-- Ain't better or worse than any other woodpecker in the woods.

Interesting approach, very innovative. Feeding the mdf from the opposite side makes me cringe a little.

This is the way I have been doing which also works well. I think there are a few DIY versions of this tool on the net.

Just two measurements and no test cuts:

measurement one:

measurement two:

-- Brian http://www.garagewoodworks.com

vonhagen,
Great info! I like it, because it’s so quick and easy. I don’t see how you could launch the piece by feeding it back into the blade since it is mdf and you are holding the piece from behind while feeding. I’ll have to buy some mdf just for this very test. This is the first thing that I have ever found to be a good use of “mdf”-LOL

-- woodbutcher north carolina

as i said earlier, since the blade is cranked up all the way the thrust is upward not backward and you only feed about an inch into the saw so unless your very careless there is very little danger of launching the board. as for useing dial indicators as in the photo from the wood butcher how do you know that miter slot is at perfect paralel to blade and then there is blade runout. i can take my mitutoyo digital calipers and measure the offset differance with my method but the human eye can detect less that of a thousndth of an inch offset so no measureing tools are required so the proof is in the cut, if its out it will visualy show and you can measure till your blue in the face with digital indicators and all sorts of gadgets but why spend so much time and fight all the varriables, i think altendorf has got it right and they do make one of the finest sliding table saws in the world infact they invented it

-- blaine von hagen

sorry i confused the wood butcher with garage woodworks

-- blaine von hagen

“how do you know that miter slot is at perfect paralel to blade “

Replace the fence with the blade in my two photos above.

-- Brian http://www.garagewoodworks.com

your assuming that the trunion and arbor on that saw is perfectly paralel to miter slot and i doubt that the tolerance is even within 20 or so thousandths, is all your doing in your photo is aligning your fence to your miter slot not the true axis of the saw blade

-- blaine von hagen

Great idea!! thanks:-))

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

Simple and sweet.

-- I will just keep doing it till I get it right.

Vonhagen

My faullt, I wasn’t very clear. In my photos above I am aligning the miter track to the fence. In order to check blade to miter track alignment I do the same as in above pictures, except this time reference off of the blade. I mark the blade with a sharpie and rotate the blade, referencing off the same spot for both measurements, I didnt do this in the photo.

Both alignments (fence and blade) require two measurements. Four total.

This way I know ‘both’ my fence and my blade are in alignment with the miter track (and by this rational in alignment with each other). Both of my alignments require ‘no’ test cuts and are very quick and 100% safe (assuming you unplug the saw first). :^)

Let me know if this is not clear.

and second measurement:

-- Brian http://www.garagewoodworks.com

How do you know from your procedure if it’s the blade (trunion) or the fence that needs aligning?

-- Brian http://www.garagewoodworks.com

lol the whole idea is to align the blade paralel to the rip fence, almost all the work done on a tablesaw is useing the rip fence. ALL SAW BLADES HAVE RUNOUT so useing a dial indicator to align the fence off the blade will give you differnt readings depending on which tooth you use or even if you use the same tooth and rotate it from front to rear. i have a starrett 385 straight edge and digital calipers and can do the same thing your doing to even a higher degree of resolution but it cant get it as close as i can with the blade spining and as i said eariler the proof is in the actual saw cut and isnt that what really matters?

-- blaine von hagen

vonhagen & GarageWoodworks,
You guys are doing a fabulous job. You’ve just about got the whole tablesaw set up complete now! Seriously though great information all the way around. The order in which the adjustments can be made, maybe a little out of sequence. I would prefer to 1st set my blade 90degrees to the table 2nd parellel my miter gauge slot to the blade 3rd parallel my fence to the blade as was the original post. Theoretically all this can be done once at initial setup. I do however check each one of these set ups frequently. The fence to blade parallelism is the one that I check most often and most susceptible to changing. In fact I noticed that the UHMW fences tend to wear or change dimensions quite frequently. I just changed mine the other day. It is terribly hard to keep a fence that is approximately39inches long completely parellel to the center of the blade (arbor shaft) and to the entrance of the blades teeth and the exit of the baldes teeth all at the same time and for a long period of time. Shimming the fence is all that is necessary sometimes. I suspicion that the use of feather boards during ripping has some effect over a period of time on fence wear? Has anyone else noticed this change in dimension of the fence face over a period of time?

-- woodbutcher north carolina

Woodbutcher. If your blade is parallel to miter track and fence is parallel to miter track isn’t the blade parallel with the fence by default? :^). The two alignments I showed are the only alignments I make. The third (blade to fence) is aligned in the process.

Vonagen. I checked both flange and arbor runnout with my jig. Both are <.001” if I recall correctly.

-- Brian http://www.garagewoodworks.com

so how would you dial in a slide saw then? and .001 isnt .00000000 and what does that convert to in 5 inches

-- blaine von hagen

GarageWoodworks,
Yes in theory! How many fences are dead flat along a 39inch length? This is your reference point for parelleling the miter slot,right? The fence I just replaced had a dip in the center of it almost .008”. Try running your dial indicator the entire length of the miter slot and the naked steel fence in your picture and see what readings you obtain. Next install a fence face of what ever material you choose and do the same. I’ll bet that the reading will not be same.
One should not omit the 1st step in initial setup either! I believe that we’ve successfully expounded upon the original post now-LOL.
The inital post gave us information allowing us to ensure that what stock went into the blade , came out of the blade the same width. That method is still an irrefutable proof positive eliminating all variables, such as blade runout, fence flatness, and parelleism of miter slots to blades and fences! Agreed?

-- woodbutcher north carolina

amen

-- blaine von hagen

Woodbutcher. Yes I agree it’s a good method for getting blade/fence parallelism. My two faults with it are 1 Safety (capitalism intentional)- I would never recommend this to a neophyte. 2 you don’t know which to correct to achieve parallelism (trunion or fence). I like having everything parallel with the miter track.

When aligning the fence to the miter track it is better to take several readings along the length for the reasons you state. Tiny pits or hollows can throw off a reading, but I think we are starting to split hairs now.

-- Brian http://www.garagewoodworks.com

GargeWoodworks,
I agree that we have gotten into several different areas. You are correct that extreme care should be exercised in using the initial suggested method, just as vonhagen had cautioned. That was why I was intrigued with the stipulation that only “mdf” be used.
In depth discussions such as this are not always meant to be “Try this at Home, I do!” But I must exercise care in getting out of bed each morning-LOL Thanks guys for a great discussion.

Sincerely,
Ken McGinnis

-- woodbutcher north carolina

I second the Amen to this post. It was a nice tip that I will certainly try at home . If you notice that I’m typing with my left hand only, you’ll know that I wasn’t careful enough during the test ! LOL

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

Just how close does it have to be? After all, wood moves:-)) seems to me .015 or 1/64 should be plenty close enough for most woodwork. If the miter slot is off a fuzz, you can just accomodate when you set up the miter gauge, can’t you?

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

uesing mdf that has been either jointed or straightlined is the best material to do this for 2 reasons #1 for safety #2 it mills very easily and will not deflect from blade as hardwood will and give a false reading. also use a sharp blade. i get it so there is no line as in the pic, i show one pic before adj. and one after adj. as far as the miter slot being off it is totaly irregaurdless to whats going on with the rip fence and blade paralelism, remember i was shown this on a altendorf elmo 4, i think they are about 50 grand now for a new one , anyway there is no miterslot on that saw but there is a sliding table and on all sliders such as martin and altendorf the fences glide away from each other slightly so basicly the mitergauge should toe away slightly from the ripfence as you move forward this is done so the teeth on front are the only thing thats cutting as you slide forward into your cut the blade wont heel. now apply this to a standard unisaw. your miter gauge should only cut on the front and not heel on the left side as this is the piece you want to save.

-- blaine von hagen

Wow! What an interesting discussion. I love the simplicity of this procedure & plan to give it a try…so thanks for describing it.

But here’s what I find so interesting about this discussion. It’s a prefect example of why this woodworking site is so great. Here’s why.

At the one end of the sawdust making spectrum you’ve got me. For all my woodworking life, I’ve used a couple of Shopsmiths that date to the mid 1950’s. I’ve actually used one of them since my dad bought it new in 1952 & I was a kid. In all that time, I’ve done all the settings on that & subsequent machines (still from the “50’s”) with wood rulers, metal rulers, tri & combination squares & a few tap, tap, taps to get things to look right.

In all that time, I’ve re-built kitchens, made closets, and done a ton of woodworking projects from jewelry boxes, to book cases, to tables, to cabinets. All of them fit together just fine with my “tap, tap, tap” tool setting method, and none, to my knowledge, has ever fallen apart.

Now, mind you, I’m not saying that I’m any better than any else or that my methodology is better. I know many would cringe at my way of doing things. All I’m saying is that I’m at one end of the spectrum & this project was valuable to me, but that I understand that there are others that saw the digital measuring way as the way they want to go.

So that’s what I’m trying to say here (in way too many words) There’s something for everyone here, and we can all benefit from the discussions. That’s what makes it a great site. So thanks to all who participate. -sst

-- Accuracy is not in your power tool, it's in you

I think that the information here is very valuable and I will have to give it a try just to see for myself. I am with Shopsmithtom on some of these methods, however. I too have a Shopsmith and it has worked fine for me for many, many years. However, I have sorta transitioned into the digital age. I own and use dial indicators and a Wixey. Though I own and use them, I don’t believe my Mark V is any better aligned than it was when I used a square and straight edge.

Excuse me now, I have to go glue up a couple pieces of MDF.

-- Making Sawdust Safely

I glued up a couple pieces but I could not wait for that glue to dry.

I found a piece of 1” thick MDF and I tried a preliminary test with that. I was curious about back feeding the table saw. It turns out to be NO PROBLEM. I would not do it with just any piece of wood and I would not feed it much deeper than I did (about an inch).

I was impressed with the result in that I have absolutely no discernible rig between the two cuts. Now I am anxious to go back to try it with a piece as described in the post.

I also have to go back and study the post to make certain that I understand what I might prove or disprove with the results.

Thanks for the tip, vonhagen.

-- Making Sawdust Safely

1 inch mdf will work and i use 3/4 glued up just for extra thickness. feeding in about an inch is all you need to go or til the saw blade goes from top to bottom. i use a piece about 3 inches wide

-- blaine von hagen

So simple and effective thanks for the tip

-- Wood and Glass they kick (well you know) Have a great day - Dug