New saw that I'm just setting up and wondering what tolerances are
appropriate. Using a dial indicator....

miter slot to blade 7/1000's out
fence to miter slot 4/1000's out

are these acceptable?

"mcgyver" wrote in message
news:O5D5e.931815$8l.679965@pd7tw1no...
New saw that I'm just setting up and wondering what tolerances are
appropriate. Using a dial indicator....

miter slot to blade 7/1000's out
fence to miter slot 4/1000's out

are these acceptable?


How do your cuts look. If they show tooth marks and you are not happy, try
for .001-003 for the miter slot to blade and dead on parallel for the fence
to the slot.

If the cuts are good, leave it alone, but personally I would like the
miter slot to blade to be 0.001 - 0.003. And get the fence as close
to dead parallel as you can, but 0.004 over the entire length of the
miter slot is not enough to hassle over unless you are having problems
with your cuts

John



On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 21:55:58 GMT, "mcgyver"
wrote:

New saw that I'm just setting up and wondering what tolerances are
appropriate. Using a dial indicator....

miter slot to blade 7/1000's out
fence to miter slot 4/1000's out

are these acceptable?

I agree that you should strive for less than 0.003 parallelism between
the miter slot(s) and the blade, adjusting the table top (on a cabinet
saw) or trunnions (on a contractor saw) as necessary to achieve this
tolerance.

On a recent Delta X5 Biesemeyer I bought, my fence was out of parallel
a bit (about 0.0045), with the center slightly concave compared to both
ends on the left side of the fence and about 0.002 on the right side. I
called Biesemeyer about replacing it and they claimed their internal
benchmark is 0.007. Go figure. I should have told them it was out 0.01,
but my cuts look clean, so I probably won't complain (unless someone
convinces me otherwise).

Congrats on the new saw!

Stu



In article , John
wrote:

If the cuts are good, leave it alone, but personally I would like the
miter slot to blade to be 0.001 - 0.003. And get the fence as close
to dead parallel as you can, but 0.004 over the entire length of the
miter slot is not enough to hassle over unless you are having problems
with your cuts

John



On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 21:55:58 GMT, "mcgyver"
wrote:

New saw that I'm just setting up and wondering what tolerances are
appropriate. Using a dial indicator....

miter slot to blade 7/1000's out
fence to miter slot 4/1000's out

are these acceptable?

On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 21:55:58 GMT, "mcgyver"
wrote:

New saw that I'm just setting up and wondering what tolerances are
appropriate. Using a dial indicator....

miter slot to blade 7/1000's out
fence to miter slot 4/1000's out

are these acceptable?


According to Kelly Mehler (The Table Saw Book), the blade should no
more than 3/1000s out of parallel with the miter slot. Because most
blades are not perfectly flat, it's best to measure from the miter
slot to only one spot on the blade, rather than from two different
spots.

Set up the indicator on a spot near the front edge of the blade (just
inside the radius of the teeth) and make a mark on the blade near that
spot. Then rotate the blade so that this mark is at the rear of the
blade and check the indicator reading at that point.

If the readings are taken with the indicator attached to a miter gage,
it's important to make sure that it fits in the miter slot with no
play. Any unwanted movement of a loose miter gage will show up on the
dial indicator, so make sure that the gage fits snugly in the slot
before using it to check the blade alignment.

Mehler recommends setting the fence so that it is no more than 1/1000
farther away from the rear of the blade than it is from the front of
the blade. The fence should definitely not be closer to the rear of
the blade than to the front. Of course, the fence should be adjusted
AFTER the blade is aligned to the miter slot.