Hi Gerry,

Good to hear from you!

GerryG wrote in message . ..
Ed,
I'll agree with all else, but pick on the fence rear distance. I had some
problem with slight burning with several woods, and tried adjusting the fence
rear away from the blade by: 0, .002, .005, .010, etc. In most cases, .006 was
enough, but items such as thick cherry needed about twice that. Going further
did not produce any additional benefit.

I have to admit, there are some times when you might want to open up
the alignment a bit at the rear end of the fence. Cutting cherry with
a very low clearance angle blade (like the Forrest WW II) is probably
the most challenging situation. In essense, the minor misalignment
increases the effective clearance angle on the good side of the cut.
Correspondingly, the clearance angle decreases on the waste side of
the cut. If there is too much misalignment, the wood will tend to
wander away from the fence during the cut. It's a pretty dangerous
situation because the wood is being fed without guidance. Attempts to
keep it against the fence can cause burning on the waste side or even
a kickback.

Burning is caused by heat. Heat that is generated during normal
cutting isn't usually eough to cause burning. Most of this heat is
carried away in the sawdust. Burning most often occurs when the sides
of the teeth rub against the inside of the kerf rather than cut wood.
This happens when the blade is dull, coated with pitch, or there is
poor alignment. You can minimize heat by reducing the number of teeth
in the cut (raising the blade all the way up) and feeding the wood at
the proper speed (just a bit below what it takes to start slowing down
the motor).

I generally advise people to do exactly what you did. Change the
fence alignment in very small increments (0.001") until the burning
goes away. Never go beyond 0.015" total fence to miter slot
misalignment. If you get this far and are still having burning, then
something else is very wrong (dull blade, improperly sharpened blade,
improperly installed blade, reaction wood, etc.). Having a precise
alignment tool makes the process pretty easy, don't you think?


As an aside, I just moved cross-country, and had to reassemble and align
everything, virtually from scratch. This includes the TS, RAS, jointer, BS,
DP, router table, chop saw and others. A full day's work, and the TS-aligner
paid for itself yet again. And with that platform fixture and indicator tips,
it's still the fastest and most accurate way I've ever found to set jointer
knives.

GerryG
(An old and satisfied TS-aligner customer)


Glad to be of service!

Thanks,
Ed Bennett
(The old and satisfied TS-Alginer maker!)