On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 3:37:20 PM UTC-5, -MIKE- wrote:
On 2/3/15 2:00 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:


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IMO, if your board is binding in the couple inches between the back of
the blade and the splitter, there is something wrong with your set-up.

While I tend to agree with you, perhaps I should clarify: Of the 50+ boards that I ripped, maybe 1/2 dozen or so presented this problem. Maybe I made it sound more extreme then it was and for that I apologize. It only took a couple of binding episodes for me to notice that it was the darker wood, so I grabbed another dark one: it bound. Then I grabbed a light one: it was like butter. That indicated to me that the darker boards were the issue, not my set-up.

Trust me, I checked my set up carefully since I am still in the "I don't know what I don't know" phase. The only variation between "bind" and "like butter" was the color of the wood.

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Even in a board with high tension, you should be able to get past the
splitter before needing to insert a wedge. I have run across a board or
two with extreme tension that started to close up before the splitter,
even when the saw was set-up perfectly. You can do two things...

Actually 3...


1. Back the board out and re-cut into the pinch. Turn the saw off
before backing out if you're uncomfortable with that procedure.
2. Raise the blade all the way up before cutting. This will actually
cut the pinched wood again on the back side of the blade. Plus there
will be less space between the blade and splitter. Careful, it may want
to lift a bit if pinching on the back of the blade. Be sure you are
pressing down as you always should. If you end up having to back out
again, the blade won't kick back as much since it is cutting in a more
downward motion.

3: Back the board out and restart the rip from the other end. That worked for me.

However, I do like the higher blade method and will keep that in mind. Thanks for that!


However you end up ripping a board with tension. I would recommend
ripping to rough widths on the first pass. Then the final width on a
second pass. If you're only cutting off a fraction of an inch, there
won't be enough, or any, wood to bind.


Umm...true for the second rip, but that doesn't solve the initial binding problem. Maybe I'm missing something...

I was ripping 1x6's essentially in half. I used the narrowest of the 50+ pieces to determine what the narrowest "1/2" would be and set the fence to rip each board to that width. Therefore for each board, the first rip was to final width, leaving the "cutoff" rough. That piece was then ripped to remove that "fraction of an inch", which changed slightly for each board. Even if the first rip was rough, the binding issue would still have been present since I would have been ripping a full width board, regardless if it was to final width or rough. Am I missing something in your suggestion?