Don't use fence and bevel at the same time on table saw

[AKA gray asphalt]

I've read this a bunch of times. I'm a newbie and I wonder how you keep a piece aligned without using a fence if you have the blade set at an angle to do a bevel cut.

[C & E]

You're asking for a kickback by refraining from using the fence. There is a guide made just for this and it's not expensive or hard to make.

[barry]

Never heard that, anywhere, ever. And ... makes no sense, especially because of the potential danger involved.

OTOH, widely published advice to not trap the work with blade angled toward the fence makes eminent sense.

Jim Tolpin, p88 Table Saw Magic: "SAFE BEVEL RIPPING Whenever the blade is tilted toward the fence, the stock between the blade and the fence is captive, and cannot rise off the table. Such pieces are particularly prone to being thrown back toward the front of the saw. ..."

Not to mention that if the stock is not flat, it's possible that it will rise as it passes the blade and thus cut into the stock beyond the desired cut line. With the blade tilted away from the fence, such stock would have some excess material left if it rises. Subsequent pass would remove that; no harm- no foul.

And ... with blade tilted toward fence, there is much more danger to you on pushing the end of the stock past the blade

Ripping anything without a fence is an invitation to kickback.

HTH, J

[Dave Jackson]

[DonkeyHody]

There's nothing wrong with using your fence while the blade is tilted. That's the "right" way to make the cut.

I'm guessing the warnings you read probably had to do with the danger of using the fence as a length stop while cross cutting with the miter gage that travels in the slot in your table.

In general, you should not use the fence if the part of the board next to the fence will be wider (blade to fence) than it is long (along the fence). The danger there is that the relatively short part against the fence can easily be cocked out of alignment, throwing one corner into the rising teeth on the back side of the blade while the opposite corner is pinched against the fence. It's this pinching action that gives kickback its power.

Do a google search within this group on "kickback". You'll find a great deal of discussion and some really good explanations by some guys who put a lot of thought into the hows and whys.

DonkeyHody "In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they are not."

[Jeff]

Are the purveyors of this adage referring to crosscuts?

[Chris Friesen]

That's garbage.

However, as others have said you generally want the blade tilted away from the fence.

Also, if you are running a piece with a bevel already ripped on it along the fence, you generally don't want to put the point of the bevel flat on the table as it could slide under the fence a bit. (Most fences don't come right down to the table.) In this case you either need to flip the piece over (so the point of the bevel hits the fence securely) or else use a secondary fence that goes right down to the table.

Chris

[Larry W]

I think what you read was actually more along the lines of "Don't use the fence and miter gauge at the same time" OR "When using the fence with the blade tilted, move the fence to the side of theblade such that the top of the blade is tilted _away_ from the fence."

[AKA gray asphalt]

All of you are correct. The instruction is not to use the bevel guide and the fence at the same time. I guess nothing it too obvious to put in instructions. I learned a lot for the other particulars of your posts. Thanks.

[Doug Miller]

Communication is facilitated when everyone uses the same terminology for the same thing. In this case, what you refer to as the "bevel guide" is properly termed the miter gauge.

A bevel and a miter are not the same thing. A bevel is made by crosscutting or ripping, with the blade tilted at some angle away from vertical. A miter, on the other hand, is made with the blade vertical, and the cut line at some angle other than 90 degrees to the edge of the board. When the two are combined, it's called a compound miter.

[Charlie Self]

messagenews:LWdMh.77519$S% [e-mail]...

The instruction is to not use the MITER guide, not the bevel guide. Two different things.

[Charlie Self]

Sorry, Doug. Posted before I read the whole thread.

[GROVER]

The haze surrounding this thread is somewhat cleared up by Doug Miller who correctly defines the difference between a miter and a bevel cut. If the original poster refered to using the fence and the miter gauge at the same time we all know that is an invitation to kickback. For those who have the Unifence ( the Delta manufactured fence for the Unisaw) you can slide the fence toward the operator,(It operates independently of the clamping mechanism) leaving no fence where the stock passes the blade. You are still able to use the fence near the leading edge of the blade to set repeatable lengths.

A way to due this with other manufacturers fences is to clamp a short block to the fence near the leading edge when the stock passes the blade it will be guided by the miter gage alone.

Joe G