tablesaw featherboard techniques

[Alan W]

The saw is back together, fence is about 1/100th inch further from an inch or two behind the blade vs before the blade. (used dial caliper)

Ran some pine through the woodworker II tonight and a couple strips of Poplar. The edge is nicer than the perpared edge from the saw mill (eg. s2s). However I managed to get myself a series of blade marks towards the begining of the cut mostly on the materials to the left of the blade.

I was using a featherboard to press the material up to the fence set about 1" back from the blade. Am I using the FB correctly? Or should it be further back on the piece?

Do most of you TS users push both waste and stock completely by the fence or only the stock you are keeping?

Alan

[Tom]

Sounds like you've got the featherboard about right, but 1/100th inch toe-out on the fence seems too much to me. Try a little less. You can do it with your dial gauge/indicator/caliper. I push it all past the fence. 'g'luck! Tom >(Alan W)

Someday, it'll all be over....

[George]

I don't clamp my featherboard to the saw. Mine is hand - held, with a curved face that allows me to feed with as little pressure as I need.

Since the featherboard is in the left hand when I rip, I often let it tuck in a bit after the board has passed, providing me protection should the breeze try to tuck the off-cut into the blade. Only the fenced side goes through, unless I've a good eight inches or more of stock on the waste side. Not worth the risk.

You can set your fence parallel or kick it out a bit on the other side of the blade, in spite of what some will say, but the very best thing you can do for your safety is to get vibration of the saw to a bare minimum. Lots of people with contractor-type saws use link belts, and they will take the thump of a regular (set) belt out of the equation.

As to roughness at the beginning of the cut, sounds like you had blade squirm - stabilizer or thick-kerf blade to fix - or you were having a bit of difficulty aligning the piece past your featherboard, for which the hand-held will answer.

[Traves W. Coppock]

On 1 Oct 2003 23:50:34 -0700, [e-mail] (Alan W) Crawled out of the shop and said. . .:

snip

myself i don't use a featherboard unless its some real off the wall kind of cut on the TS.

as for pushing the cut through, i leave the offcut to its own device once the board has all gone through the blade.

Traves

[Leon]

The recomended additional clearance at the back of the blade if you must use that method is .005" or 1/5000. You are witnessing why the fence should be as close to parallel to the blade as possible.

Yes this is what is suppose to happen when you do not adjust your fence parallel to your blade. I tend to use that material on the left side of the cut also so I perscribe to seting the fence as close to parallel to the blade as possible. This will help eleminate tooth marks on BOTH sides of the cut.

The FB can be as close to the blade as JUST behind the teeth on the front side of the blade.

I only use one push stick on the fence side of the blade. Care must be taken to remove the nub on the trailing end of the waste piece if you intend to use that edge against the fence on another pass.

[Doug Miller]

1/5000 = 0.0002. Did you mean to say 5/1000 ?

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

[Leon]

Yuh got me... ;~) 5/1000" and or .005"

[Lawrence Wasserman]

Most recommendations I've seen for toeing out the fence say 1/64 from front to back of the TABLE, so 1/100 from front to back of the blade would be excessive. Try moving the fence closer to parallel.

[alexy]

Quite a range! I presume that you meant '.005" or 5/1000', not .005" or .0002"

That sounds better to me. Isn't the OP's positioning of the featherboard behind the blade just creating pinching on the blade and/or splitter, and pushing the cutoff into the blade to encourage kickback?

[Leon]

"Lawrence Wasserman" >

Isn't 1/100 less than 1/64 ???

[JackD]

Isn't the table at least 3 times longer than the blade?

-Jack

[alexy]

yes, but not as much less as front to back of blade is compared to front to back of table. Eg., recommended "slope" of 1/64 over 30 inches is a lot less than 1/00 over ten inches.

[alexy]

Whoops! Actually a LOT less than 1/00 if it were defined. Make that "1/100".

[Lawrence Wasserman]

Hi, Leon,

Sure 1/100 is less than 1/64. But, look at what the OP said, 1/100 from front to back of blade, whereas I said 1/64 from front to back of table.

[Leon]

I see that now Lawrence.... sorry... thanks for pointing that out...

[CW]

First thing to do is fix the fence. The way you set it, it is way out of alignment.

[Henry St.Pierre]

Depends who's measurin'