Thin kerf Riving knife?

“Well, that sucks. I had a thin kerf rip blade on my saw and the riving knife is too thin. That sucks. Had to switch back to the blade that came with the saw to do my ripping.”

I’m assuming you mean the riving knIfe is too thick? The riving knife on my saw is pretty close to my thin kerf blades, about 0.090” or so.

-- John, BC, Canada

@nwbusa – yeah, I wrote it up wrong. Had to edit it. The blade is an Irwin Marathon 24 tooth blade but it is too thin and the wood pinches at the knife.

-- Handcrafted by Mike Henderson - Channelview, Texas

http://www.leestyron.com/zrkgrizzly.php

-- Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself.

Generally not too hard to make one yourself. I’ve made two…

Find some steel sheet 0.80” or 2mm thick. This will work with almost all thin kerf blades, but you might be able to get away with 3/32” or 0.90” – you need the thickness to be just less than the blade kerf. Trace the outline of your existing riving knife on it and cut it out. It will cut pretty easily with a jigsaw or hacksaw with bimetal blades. Sand to your line and round over all edges. Take care that you don’t bend the sheet, you need it to remain straight.

You’ll need to be very precise about the location of the mounting holes/slots/tabs where it attaches to the saw, as those are used for alignment. Depends on the saw, but if you’re too sloppy about them, you risk the knife being able to come in contact with the blade during operation. DAMHIKT.

-- Mark Kornell, Kornell Wood Design

I’ve made riving knives out of a good piece of hardwood. Not as strong as steel but they work well and are a whole lot better than nothing.

-- Dwight - "Free legal advice available - contact Dewey, Cheetam & Howe""

Let us know if grizzly says anything. I went through this last year and have been debating recently if I was going to switch to my regular blade in anticipation of my new zero clearance insert and other jigs.

Which model saw do you have?

FWIW, those Irwin Marathon blades aren’t much good for fine woodworking IMO….they’re more of a construction grade blade for rough carpentry. Try their Marples series, or CMT, Infinity, Freud Industrial or Diablo, DeWalt Precision Trim, Amana AGE, Oshlun, etc….you’ll get much better results.

-- Happiness is like wetting your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth....

This might be an alternative!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBMFQ1-8yDQ

“Which model saw do you have?

FWIW, those Irwin Marathon blades aren’t much good for fine woodworking IMO….they’re more of a construction grade blade for rough carpentry.”

I have the Grizzly 1023.

That is why I bought the Marathon blade. It says it is for ripping, construction. I am ripping 2×4’s and 2×10’s and it works OK on the outer part of the board but the knife binds when I try to rip through the inner part of the boards.
I also have a Marples blade but didn’t want to use it for this project. Dang it anyway. I always seem to make my job harder than it has to be.

I switched back to the factory blade, which is wider and went back to ripping.

-- Handcrafted by Mike Henderson - Channelview, Texas

Why are you concerned about a thin kerf blade on that saw? You don’t need one with a 3hp saw.

-- Friends don't let friends use right tilt contractor saws......

My sawstop has thin kerf knives. I doubt they make them. May want to call SS and ask them where they get thiers from.

-- Sorry the reply is so long. I didn't have time to write a short reply.

“Why are you concerned about a thin kerf blade on that saw? You don’t need one with a 3hp saw.”

This is all a learning experience for me. I haven’t had a saw with a riving knife before and surely not a 3hp motor.
Looks like I am getting more experience than I had intended.

Anyway, for the time being, it is put away. I will prolly forget I even bought it in a week or two. :-(

-- Handcrafted by Mike Henderson - Channelview, Texas

Make your own riving knife out of an old saw blade. Cut it out with a thin steel-cutting disk in your angle grinder. You can make different thicknesses by selecting from various old blades. You should be able to buy non-carbide blades for almost nothing at a thrift store, if you don’t already have something in your old worn out blade collection.

To solve the problem, I bought a freud regular kerf blade for ripping. So far it is working just fine.
I also ordered a thin kerf from Lee Styron for use with my existing blade.

-- Handcrafted by Mike Henderson - Channelview, Texas

I earlier suggested cutting up an old saw blade for a riving knife. And I did this, but it was a bit too thin. Then I ran into a suggestion to use 14 gauge plate steel. I dropped by my local steel supplier, and picked up an offcut about a foot square (enough to make 4 ore 5 riving knives). With a little sanding and polishing, it works perfectly with my Freud Diablo TK blade. For a standard blade, you’d probably want 13 or 12 gauge. The way I checked it out at the steel yard was to bring a piece of oak from home in which I’d sawed a 6” kerf. Slipped nicely over the 14 gauge, with no wiggling, so I knew it was good.