Hi Mike,

Looks like you got a bunch of good replies! I thought I would add my
$0.02.

1. You looking to put your dial indicator on a stick. For low cost,
simplicity, and ease of use you can't beat this:

http://www.ts-aligner.com/tsjrlitevsdistick.htm

1A. Yes, getting close to the table surface is important. You've
already seen the problem with tilting the indicator. You could make
(or buy) an Offset Bar like I put on my products.

2. Blade bodies are not always flat. They can be deliberately hollow
ground, or they can be warped or cupped. What you are seeing is very
typical.

Measuring on the surface of a carbide tooth is not necessarily the best
solution for two reasons:

a. Placing a hardened chrome steel stylus tip against carbide can cause
micro-chips and cracks. Yes, you can be careful but why even risk it?

b. Carbide teeth are ground with a relief angle so getting consistent
readings can be difficult. You can easily convince yourself that you
have the exact same reading but in reality you are just measuring in a
slightly different location on the side of the tooth.

It's better to draw a dot on the blade body and take your measurements
with the stylus on that dot (rotating the blade as necessary).

Hope it helps! Let me know if you have any questions.

Ed Bennett


http://www.ts-aliger.com
Home of the TS-Aligner

Mike W. wrote:
I was messing around with my relatively new and unused dial indicator
today
to verify alignment of my table saw and came up with a few questions.
I
DAGS and got some answers to my questions, but was wanting to see if
anyone
could give me some more direct answers to the questions below.

Here are the questions.

1) I have the Grizzly Dial indicator. I haven't figured out a good
way to
mount it to the miter guage or any other fixture to use it for
checking the
blade alignment vs the miter slot. What I have done so far is to
clamp the
big bulky assmebly that comes with it to the miter guage and to it
that
way... but that puts the indicator at an awkward angle that is hard
to
read... and you can't get it closer than about a half inch to the
table.
Anyone have any pictures as to how they mount their dial indicator to

something for checking alignment? I'm hoping to not have to go buy a
tool
specifically for checking alignment. I planned on building a jig for
it,
but figured I'd check here to see if anyone can show me one that they
built
first.

2) When testing the blade alignment, tooth at front vs same tooth at
back I
get just over .001" out of line which is good enough for me. But, if
I
slide the guage along the blade the measuer varies in a range a
little over
.002". Is that normal for a sawblade to have that much variation in
thickness or do you think it is the miter slot? I have a Forrest
WWII that
cuts great, FWIW.

Thanks,
Mike W.