setting that blade at 90 without any tools

Nice tip!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

As you pointed out the chop saw. It is such a pain to get a square against the fence and the blade without touching a blade tooth. Gonna try this for sure.

-- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

Thanks good idea.

-- Billp

That is an excellent and simply easy way to explain it. Thanks

-- so much wood, so little time. Bradford.

Thanks, why didn’t I think of that???

-- Roy L, Arizona

Thanks for the tip.

Scrappy

-- Scrap Wood's the best...the projects are smaller, and so is the mess!

vonhagen,
Man you’re just going to force me to get some mdf in my shop to set up the table saw with aren’t you? I really like this method for a quick set up. The two mating pieces will not lie! Great post, keep on keeping on!

Sincerely,
Ken McGinnis

-- woodbutcher north carolina

Since I use several old Shopsmiths in my shop, I tend to do a lot of eyeballing & tap, tap, tapping to adjust things. I’m a big fan of methods just like the one you mentioned. Thanks for a great idea that I had overlooked. -SST

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

thanks tom, and it is accurate down to minute of angle accuracy and you just cant get it that close useing squares and dial indicators. on a digital machine i use this method to calibrate the blade at perfect 90 and, i just push + and – till i get a perfect seem and then hit 0 on the calibrate button and its done. the same princeable as checking a square for 90 , scribe a line then flip the square over and it will show you how far your square is out but on this test you use light instead of a scribed line.

-- blaine von hagen

vonhagen,
Now that you’ve brought up squares and checking them for accuracy. I thought I’d try to show how I corrected and modified mine. I planned one edge of the wood (inside blade) completely square, cut a slot in the center, drilled 2 holes through wood and square, inserted two bolts,nuts,flat and lockwashers. Once you’ve checked the blade for square by flipping, tighten the nuts and bolts. This holds square very well, but the real benefit is that my square now overhangs the wood well and stays in place easily! This is 100% accurate as well. I’m sure you already probably have done this, but maybe someone else can use it!
http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x318/heston27214/?action=view&current=squaremodifiedcorrected003.jpg” target=”blank”>http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x318/heston27214/?action=view&current=squaremodifiedcorrected005.jpg” target=”blank”>http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x318/heston27214/?action=view&current=squaremodifiedcorrected004.jpg” target=”_blank”>http://s180.photobucket.com/albums Sorry that I can’t use photo bucket and LJ’s both at the same time and correctly-but if you use the links-maybe you can see the uncropped pics’ better.

Sincerely,
Ken McGinnis

-- woodbutcher north carolina

and to think i just paid 180 bucks for a 30 inch ulmia square for layout. im going to make one like yours ken thanks.

-- blaine von hagen

and look at the tab on this ulmia square, i will add this to your idea ken.

-- blaine von hagen

vonhagen,
I aaume that the tab is used just to keep the square somewhat flat on the surface? Is it moveable? Does the tab slide in the slot? I assume it does or it would only work on extened surfaces. I will have to look at incorporating something like that on a new rear wooden blade. I guess the simplest way would be to slot the wood blade first too the correct depth for the steel square blade and then take the wood to the router table and insert a keyhole slotting bit-cut that the length of the wood blade-recut the depth of the first slot to allow for extended imbedding area of steel blade below keyhole slot. Insert steel blade align and drill holes through wooden and steel blade. Remove steel blade and redrill holes one size larger (bit size) thisa allows for movement on bolts for precise align to wood blade. Install tab which has ears to slide in keyhole slot-drill one hole near end of wooden blade for very small dowel through surface of wooden blade and insert dowel so that tab can slide freely-but not out of the end of the wooden blade! Is that what you have in mind? That’s the way I’ll proceed with my new wood blade. Thanks for the additional info. Maybe we’ll both have a new large “SQUARE” square to work with-LOL

-- woodbutcher north carolina

the tab is stationary and acts as a support so when you are laying out lines on large panels the tab keeps the beam from falling off the edge. i thought this was strange when i first saw this square and its only on the large models and thought it would always be in the way and once i used it for layout it worked like a dream. go to peck tools website and look at the squares or go to ulmia germany and look at their website and i think you will see what im talking about. i think we are getting off the original post but hey, i think plumb level and square is the foundation for doing quality work, the closer you get to being plumb level and square the better your projects will be.

-- blaine von hagen

Thanks a lot for the tip. This is the first thing I will be doing on my table and chop saws when I get to the shop.

-- Brad, Oregon- Wood, it's what's for dinner.