On Nov 1, 4:26 am, "Mike Marlow" wrote:

You can try using something bigger than your splitter to wedge the kerf open. It's likely that the splitter isn't keeping it open enough owing to how wet the wood is.

Couldn't agree more. There is a lot of stored tension in those wood
fibers, and when the moisture starts to leave that wood will warp on
its own. Don't believe me? Take one of those treated boards out in
the yard and leave it there in the grass on a hot day. Most of the
time you will come back to a nice canoe shaped board.

When you cut it, the redistributes that tension immediately. When we
used to cut the square ballusters on the job out of ripped 2X6s, by
the time we cut from one end of the other on a 10' piece, it was not
unusual for hte piece to be clamped closed, or for the ends of the
wood to be 2-3 inches different from each other.

I don't build decks anymore, because all I could get was nasty wood.
We have a two large PT plants on the outskirts of town, and they drop
ship to all the local lumberyards. No exaggeration here, you could
squeeze the treatment material and water out of the wood with your
fingernail on some of that stuff. You can crosscut most of that stuff
and see foam or water around your cut. Pure crap.

The splitter most likely won't keep open the slit left by the blade
kerf enough to keep the blade from binding. When we cut a piece like
that, we used little wedges a coupld oc inched long that were about
3/8" to 0" placed in the kerf to keep the blade clear.

If that does not work, I'd try a new blade. I would not be too quick to look at the saw though.

Yeah, even those gawdawful stand mounted tornadoes with those
universal motors have a surprising amount of power. Surprisingly, we
had better luck ripping and (not crosscutting) with cheaper, heavier
blades with wide kerfs.
All our Freud blades have small teeth and low kerf, and they didn't
work nearly as well as an Oldham with heavy, wide kerfed teeth. I am
thinking it was the wider kerf and the chips/chunks/pieces that thing
chews out rather than "sawdust".

A shot of WD40 on both sides of the blade didn't make it cut better,
but it did help keep the resin buildup down.

Como siempre, YMMV.

Robert