Contractor Saw Tilt Alignment

[Mark Morin]

I'm getting burning (actually the wood is burning) when making cuts on my Delta contractor's saw when the blade is tilted. I've read the posts (Preston and others) and Delta's procedure for taking a flat board and ensuring the trunion rods are in the same plane. I used a piece of MDF and they appear perfect, that is, until I tilt the saw at which time the bars are no longer parallel. The weight of the motor is skewing them.

I've aligned the blade to the miter slots when the blade is vertical and that works fine. If this was minor, I could adjust the fence a litte but the back of the blade pinches by about a 1/16 which is not safe.

In Ian Kirby's book on table saws he pretty much says this is a design flaw and to leave the blade at vertical and use jibs.

-- Mark

[AL]

If you only use a certain angle (say 45 degrees), what about using a 2x4 to prop up the motor (to take off some of the weight, but not enough to cause the belt to slip)?

[Dan Cullimore]

Mark:

I haven't a Delta, nor have I Kirby's read, but with my Craftsman a full 45 tilt caused the motor housing to bump into the rear fence rail (after-market Craftsman "Align-A-Rip" fence system). A slight bit of filing on the rail allowed full tilt.

If you have a rear rail, you might have a similar problem. I imagine it would play serious havoc with blade alignment.

Dan

[Mark Morin]

Dan,

Thanks for the suggestion. I have the problem even when the blade is tilted at 20 degrees it becomes misaligned. It just gets worse as I tilt it further. Based on your comment, though, I did try to find if something was rubbing but couldn't see anything.

Mark

[Mark Morin]

AL

The support board appears to reduce the problem, and I can even wedge it against a place that doesn't release the tension off the belt. Off couse, the idea of cutting different supports for different angles isn't very appealing. I did create a jig for my particular project which needed at 20 degree angle, but it seem a shame not to be able to use the tilt.

Mark