Dave Fleming Posted January 4, 2004 Posted January 4, 2004 Whilst not naming names or where I saw it... Recently there was a dialogue on another forum concerning a person who found that his skill level was sorely tested in more ways than one. He had purchased a 'contractor type' tablesaw and was trying to rip strips for the initial structure of a laminated type small boat. He was having a hell of a time with the machine in ripping mode. Bogging down the motor, wavering cuts, in general a real mess of a time. He received a number of initial replies to his dilemma. Many of them made good points but IMOOP many presupposed his knowledge of the machine and how to use it. BAD idea! It was evident to me that the person did NOT know how to use the machine nor had he checked it for accuracy before using it. Checking for accuracy: Lets face it when we buy most machines new and off the showroom floor they do need ***tweaking***. The things are made on a production line, hopefully checked over by a conscientious worker, packed and shipped to a store near you. Rarely do you see YOUR machine prior to its arrival at your place. You SEE ***A*** machine example of the one you are after on the showroom floor all setup to sell. YOUR machine arrives at your place still in it's packing crate. After how much traveling, handling and banging around?!? For most folks it is, strip off the packing material, clean off the metal protectant, check the power cord, glance briefly at the instructions, plug it in and stand back and listen to the whirr of the factory installed blade. Ayup, it runs just fine you think. Out comes the nice 'blurfl wood' you have been hoarding till this very time. You set the measurement from blade to fence and flip the on swich for that first sweet cut. IF you are very very lucky the machine will function reasonably well. On the other hand it could very well chew up your precious piece of 'blurfl'. :roll: :x Not too hard to figure it out, the failure I mean. The damn machine is out of alignement from all the handling and possibly from lack of care in assembly. FIRST THING one should do with ANY machine is CHECK IT OVER...VERY CAREFULLY before turning it on. PERIOD. All bolts, screws, levers, clamps shoud be inspected for tightness and fit. Saw table tops must be checked for alignment to the blade. Fences need to be checked to alignment to the blade. Motors and belts need to be checked for alignment to the arbor and that the belts are riding in the V-groove/s correctly. The pulleys must be aligned to one another. No cocking off one way or the other. Dead straight in alignment. Table top is sitting correctly on base or stand. All adjustment cranks and handles move smoothly, no binding which could indicate the trunion is not fastened nor aligned to the table top. ALL packing grease is fanatically cleaned off the gears and screw crank adjusters and they are lubricated with a proper material that will NOT attract sawdust which will surely cause binding and misalignment in short order. If enough request it and it meets the approval of our Moderator I will be happy to share with you all the way I set up my contractor type saw many years ago. PAX
Guest Posted January 4, 2004 Posted January 4, 2004 Bingo Dave. :wink: Plain stupid. I went as far away from that one as I could. A table saw should not bind period. As far as table saw goes, one should never buy the top of the line, to begin with, without prior knowledge and experience working with one. I have seen the big horspower ones send strips , kickinig back through vital organs on the unannounced return to the feed postion, with body in its way. I think the blood was the best thing that came of this incident. Pushing a piece of wood through without a notched push stick is a cardinal rule of NO-NOs.
Frank Hagan Posted January 5, 2004 Posted January 5, 2004 Table saw alignment and set up tips would be welcome here, Dave. I'll add my own tips along the way, which I've gleaned from others much more experienced than I. One of the things that bothered me about a recent table saw thread I saw was that the "first responders" were well-intentioned people who had never used a table saw, but posted a lot of info they found on the Internet. While the info was good, they had no personal knowledge that it was; it could have been horrible advice, but they wouldn't have known it. I also winced when I saw advice to remove the riving knife on a table saw in Australia (which is a much better made item than the inexpensive guards made on American saws), especially in light of the poster's problem with binding and burning of the wood. The last thing I would tell someone with a new saw and a binding problem when ripping long pieces is to remove the riving knife (or splitter). (I have to admit it is not on my saw, but I take other precautions depending on whether I'm ripping, using a cross-cut box or cross-cutting sheet material). Everyone has to understand that they are responsible for their own safety and should do independent research and READ THE MANUAL that came with the tool. Beyond that, techniques for tuning and safety tips are always welcome!
Dave Fleming Posted January 5, 2004 Author Posted January 5, 2004 Thanks Frank, I will compose some thoughts and memories in the next day or so and post'em in a new thread.
capt jake Posted January 5, 2004 Posted January 5, 2004 Everyone has to understand that they are responsible for their own safety and should do independent research and READ THE MANUAL that came with the tool. Beyond that, techniques for tuning and safety tips are always welcome And above all (after safety of course) PRACTICE!!!! My skills with all of my tools has increased dramatically over the years; reason?? Practice!! Probalby teh most experience I gained for using all of my tools was using a table saw, and learning to 'read' the wood. Using the wood lathe is more like 'walking' with wood; a totaly different experience. The more you play, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can apply it to another machine. IMOOP of course!
Konrad in Lincoln Posted January 5, 2004 Posted January 5, 2004 I wish EYE had some Blurfl wood... Can you imagine a whole Vacationer made out of that stuff. Oh, I salivate at the mere thought...
BobSmalser Posted January 5, 2004 Posted January 5, 2004 Well, big brothers...I couldn't hold my tongue on that one, as there were exactly 25 posts of mediocre to good advice but absolutely the wrong answers before I just couldn't stand it any more: It looks like a new saw.When you assembled it, did you align the arbor square with the table? The fence might be perfectly square with the miter slot, but if the arbor wasn't aligned initially and checked periodically, you wind up with a downward spiral of problems. Check your owner's manual. And while you're down there around the arbor, make sure everything is tight...any pulleys aligned...and not flexing as the blade hits hard wood. Its probably even more likely, judging from the burn marks on the wood, that the fence is moving during the cut...and that's especially true if you are using your push stick too far out from the fence. The far clamp on the fence that grabs the far-side rail is operated from a rod running the full length of the fence. There is an adjustment there to tighten or loosen that far clamp...as there also is for the near clamp...tighten it bit and test the fence for square...there are adjustments for square there on the near side of the fence. So...in summary: Check and adjust arbor-table alignment. Insure arbor transmission is aligned and tight. Check far-side fence clamp and near-side fence clamp for movement. Check square of fence to table. Your combo blade should be just fine if it's sharp and true...and you may very likely have warped it judging from the burn marks...so change it out and take to a saw shop before you check your adjustments on wood. And that's all there is to a table saw....or at least all I can think of without handling your saw. Try a piece of softwood first after all those adjustments and the blade change...that'll tell you if your hardwood is springing on you..although reaction wood is usually obvious, like the offcut jumping off the table and banging your leg. If your saw with 3hp behind a 10" blade is binding up that bad, the problem is gross, not subtle....bet it can be seen with the naked eye, in fact.Your Diablo-style combo blade looks OK for the task, but is likely warped now, as I said...if that's the blade and riving knife that came with the saw you should be OK. If that's a thick riving knife and you added a thin-kerf blade, you might not be OK. Sounds like you didn't set the saw up at all when assembling it...go straight to the arbor and then the fence. Of course...as an end result...our friend fixed the immediate gross problem but probably didn't even check any of the others so long as he could make the cuts he needed... ...so there's little doubt in my mind that saw still cuts poorly.
Johannah Posted January 5, 2004 Posted January 5, 2004 I give up, I give up. :? Dave, you have commented a couple of times recently about checking the blade to table alignment, arbor, etc. I read your comments and thought "Ah, yes, the saw has been binding, probably out of alignment, some day I will check." See, in our house, we have grown into some specializations. My fella can do just about anything but if not interested, blasting materials will be needed for motivation. He dislikes plumbing, sharpening and some fiddly bits of tool maintenance. I stink at plumbing but enjoy sharpening and some other fiddly bits because they remind me of mending (the sewing kind). But procrastinators are us. Nothing will compel me to divulge how long the table saw has been binding on a rip. So along comes your insistent voice sounding like a more verbal version of my much-missed father-in-law, the machinist. :oops: OK, OK, I have written a large note and pinned it to the fridge saying "ALIGN THE SAW". It's a sweet old handy person's Delta (with irritating small jointer using the same motor) from about 1952, given to me by an uncle. Now if it just had a decent fence!
Dave Fleming Posted January 5, 2004 Author Posted January 5, 2004 J. I have several things on my plate/workbench at the moment so I cannot get into the details as I promised in another post but... The LEFT HAND table slot is your reference point. Pick ONE tooth of a good saw blade and mark it. If it is TCT aka Tungsten Carbide Tipped use the plate directly BELOW the tip. Take a measurement from the INSIDE EDGE/EDGE ClOSEST to the blade of the LEFT HAND table slot. First measurement is taken closest to you the operator. Record it, rotate blade so that the VERY SAME tooth is now directly opposite the previous point. In other words towards the back or rear of the table AWAY from you. Again using that very same mark, take a measurement INSIDE EDGE of slot to target tooth. Measurements should be the same or as close as possible. Any deviation shows you how much your table slot is off from being parallel to the blade. That is ONE cause of binding or inaccurate cuts. By the way those Delta 8 inch table saor and 4 inch jointer combo's were much favoured by onboard joiners. Set on staging or on the aft deck of a vessel saved many a step by putting the machines right near where needed. Be Back Later me. :wink:
Johannah Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 There cannot be many tools you haven't encountered. I should apologize for maligning the jointer. Resetting the blades evenly and to identical depth is not a task I enjoy or do well. Not the jointer's fault. It's a wonderful tool for small spaces. My uncle used it to finish his basement 50 years ago and made extensions to bolt on so it's easier to handle plywood. I like the small table for much of the work I have done including the mass production of hundreds of small cedar fence posts for a botanical garden. But the fence is horrible! Quick check by your method shows an easy-to-see deviation (yaw) in the alignment of blade to table. I just grabbed my sewing tape for a fast look so not the right tool for proper measurement.
capt jake Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 I have a late forties vintage 4" jointer made by Delta. I love it. Yes setting the knives bac be a bit tedious, but once you 'set' them with a stone!! It is a joy to work with. I may have to locate the owners manual (yes I still have it, along with the original purchase reciept) and scan the text for your muzing!!
Dave Fleming Posted January 6, 2004 Author Posted January 6, 2004 Jake, don't bother with the scanning of the owners manual The Old Woodworking Machines site has one ready for d/l. You folks with older machines really should peruse that web site and for further info the folks on the forum are a nice bunch too.
tdrown Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 The site's address is http://www.oldwwmachines.com My table saw: Craftsman 8-inch Bench Saw from the 50's or 60's. Manual is not there, but I have it anyway and someone is looking for it in the classifieds!
Johannah Posted January 8, 2004 Posted January 8, 2004 Thank you Jake and Dave and Tyler. You gents are right handy. Wonderful website reference for folks like us who have a lot of inherited tools (plus we're cheap). Edited to add: Looking on that cool website, I found a catalogue of Delta Homecraft tools showing the Saw-Jointer combo. we have. In the list of accesories available was the sabre saw attachment I had completely forgotten. Most startling was the price as of the mid '50s, at least $300 for the version Uncle Arnold bought. I wonder how he snuck that past my Aunt? They didn't have much money and he was supposed to be the sensible brother who was less impulsive than his big brothers, one of whom was my dad. Fascinating. A sleeping dog to let lie as Aunt Phyllis is still with us. More relevantly, I was able to download original instructions for the jointer and a similar table saw.
Dave Fleming Posted January 8, 2004 Author Posted January 8, 2004 The Internet can be a bountiful source of information... BUT it does take discipline, so easy to click on a link and, before you know it 3 hours have gone by and you still have things to do! :roll: Jo glad you were able to find what you needed. And yes there will be more on setting up and tuning a table saw. We sorta backed into that topic with what perhaps should have been the last chapter put first! :wink: But ,I felt it was important that the recent incident in another forum mentioned, needed clarification as to the causality of the problems. Especially when the person involved posted further on his "adventures" with ripping complete with a nick to his thumb! Not serious but, most definitely a wakeup call to that individual regarding safe practices with whirring sharp things.
seahawk Posted January 18, 2004 Posted January 18, 2004 8) it's so nice to read so many here...but table saw,my story,one friend of me,funiture maker in old germany..learn 31/2year his job work outside 2 years and make his master..have a own comp.and many tools inside.a table saw it's 3 x3.50 meters price is little more tan25 000$ is digital,some time he make stripplanks for a friend all ok to end of the work he lose 2 fingers,so???you say read the manuel???think about this hi is no blind,some wood have a drail you can not se this and one sec.no watch it's done.......
Greg Luckett Posted January 18, 2004 Posted January 18, 2004 8) it's so nice to read so many here...but table saw' date='my story,one friend of me,funiture maker in old germany..learn 31/2year his job work outside 2 years and make his master..have a own comp.and many tools inside.a table saw it's 3 x3.50 meters price is little more tan25 000$ is digital,some time he make stripplanks for a friend all ok to end of the work he lose 2 fingers,so???you say read the manuel???think about this hi is no blind,some wood have a drail you can not se this and one sec.no watch it's done.......[/quote']Very true and good point, Seahawk! I have worked with people who have lost fingers, hands, and eyes. All it takes is a moment, a blink of the eye, and the body parts are gone. We all have those moments. Scary. Not knowing how to safely operate a tool makes it so much worse.
Wild_Dingo Posted January 26, 2004 Posted January 26, 2004 Well this is a fine thing... thanks Simon for pointing this out. Lets not be shy here fellas the post your talking about was written by me on the woodenboat.com form... I wrote the questions after experiencing problems thinking it responsible to stop the machine and get advice when one doesnt have an answer either personally or from the machines manual... which in this case was just a put it together and be done manual not a manual with troubleshooting or resolving problems manual... I thought as I always have that when I dont know something the best policy is to stand up and admit it and ask for help BEFORE it became yet more serious a problem which is what I did... I thought I was being responsible and safety conscious but from above apparently not. Dave why the blazes couldnt you be man enough to have posted that response to my questions where I asked for advice? Time and again mate Ive tried to make amends for whatever slight you have taken and time and again you have chosen to ignore me. thats cool But this was me asking for help and advise that you were able to give but unwilling... this was advice I needed and asked for regarding what had the potential to have caused a huge problem for me and in fact did cause some small blood loss... you could have helped you could have given this advice where I asked for it instead you ignore the question on the forum I asked it and come over here to post it??? gawd talk about pathetic! You say I should have known better? Tell me how? I read the instruction manual I did as that thing said and I then still had problems so I asked for advice where I beleived one of the best sources of advice would be willing to offer it... you read it!!! you still do read the posts on the woodenboat forum Dave but did you help when advice was asked for? NO you came over here big noting yourself. You could have helped Dave... you chose to remain silent... Did I ignore all the other advice that was given? NO I didnt but you assume I did... The only thing I havent done but are presently in the processes of doing is changing the table insert... and now I am going back over the entire machine AGAIN!!! Funny I thought I was being responsible by stopping the machine when I have a problem and seeking help before it becomes a real problem... you could have helped but chose not to dont you dare come to another forum that I rarely attend and start sprouting how I should have done this or if Id done that and not say anything to me where I posted it... talk about ignorant! Bob the problems as yet are still being worked through... dont assume because Im still having problems that I havent tried what you suggested I have but it quite simply hasnt resolved them!!! I am buying a new blade tomorrow which annoys the hell out of me since both the ripping blade and the planer blade are flamin new less than 10 hours use on either but advice was to try a new blade and even at the cost of $70 per blade I am going to do that as well as everthing else recomended by yourself Bruce and the others I know to have experience knowledge and give their advice freely and without judgement... and I will be going after the arbor this arvo... so I do listen and am prepared to take advice when asked for and given. Mike I asked for advice!!! You thouht you had answers for the problems? WHY NOT RESPOND???? gawd those statements of "I saw that thread and sayed far away from it" sort of thing drive me nuts!!... IF someone asks for help or advice honestly asks for it and you have an idea of being able to help then offer it!!! shite!!!... That was my post mate and when over the 3 years Ive been on that board have I ever had a shot at yourself when you have offered advice Mike? The only answer is Never... I respect most people who have more experience than I and am more than able to say so and have done many times not only to yourself and Bob and Bruce but also to the sage up there... who denigns to be above offering his advice to one such as I instead choosing to ignore me to the extent that his lack of offering advice where I would have read it when it was asked for had the potential to cause more problems than I actually have... Yet I am held as irresponsible??? Sorry Frank but this guy doesnt address the questions where they are asked this guy sits back like some all seeing all knowing sage of all things boat and machines and yet when asked for advice he ignores you only to go elsewhere and big note himself... You got advice for me about the questions I ask about my new machine Dave Fleming post it where I ask!! at least then you would be seen to be being helpful not a jerk
Guest Posted January 26, 2004 Posted January 26, 2004 Mike I asked for advice!!! You thouht you had answers for the problems? WHY NOT RESPOND???? I was being trashed concerning several issues. You were questioning several different opinions, as some was not telling you what you wanted to hear. Sometimes as you say, its best to stay away from a frey, in some sections of the board. Your body parts were are stake here. But you were having second thoughts and over a year ago, I was warned that I may be held liable after the new guildines that was posted on the board, with giving some help on the running strakes, Shane, by the board attorney.
Guest Posted January 26, 2004 Posted January 26, 2004 After thinking about this additional reply, I have decided to respond with this point, for your benefit, Shane. I make no apologies for it. I post it to clear up the misconception that you may have as far as me helping anyone. I have limited amounts of time afforded me to spend on the computer, for several reasons. It is very hard for me to see close up. Bifocals do mevery little good with the angle of the screens to my computer chair. For me to sift through a serious inquiry from anyone, that has a bunch of dit-dots, smiley faces, and lingo, that in your own way, is your writing style, is very difficult for me and my pea brain functions to do. If you want a direct answer from me, tell me in a few lines, written without all of the incidentals in it. This is not a cut down. But cut through the chase, especially with limbs at state here.
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