Suppose you have a perfectly square board, is it still wrong to use a ripfence to cut across grain? How about plywood, is it a no no to cut across the shorter dimension of plywood using the rip fence? What if the short dimension is 14 inches? Is it grain direction and aspect ratio of the board that determines whether or not to rip?
Marc wrote:>Suppose you have a perfectly square board, is it still wrong to use a
Make yourself a sled for all those "iffy" cuts. You'll love it. Don't use the fence. Tom Work at your leisure!
It is not inherently wrong to crosscut with a rip fence. The trick is you must have sufficient depth to have control over the wood. A thin piece will twist easily and become a dangerous projectile, especially on a wide cut. I frequently do it on stuff too wide for my miter saw; anything narrower would probably be a mistake. With that firmly in mind, practice and see what you can and can't do; but understand that kickback is always possible.
Yes, a sled is much better, for those with a shop big enough to have a sled.
So there is really no hard definition of a crosscut, it is more of a judgement call, correct?
Marc states:
Not so. A crosscut runs across the grain. Period.
The technique you use to make a crosscut might use other tools with different names, but if the cut is still across the grain, it is a crosscut.
Charlie Self "Did you know that the White House drug test is multiple choice?" Rush Limbaugh
It is perfectly fine to use a rip fence to cut across the grain. Just don't use a rip fence and a miter gauge at the same time unless you use a block so that the wood is not touching the fence at all while the cut is being made.
a crosscut is made across the grain of a board. it's a bit of a misnomer to apply the term to sheet goods at all. PB and MDF are grainless, and plywood has layers with the grain alternating, so all cuts are both rips and crosscuts
so forget about the word crosscut when working with plywood. what is relevant is aspect ratio. if the distance from the blade to the fence is much greater than the amount of the wood touching the fence you're getting into a danger zone. the longer and skinnier the piece you're whacking in half the short way the more likely you are to have kickback.
"Marc" wrote
On my web site is an attempt to explain the situation that can arise when using the long fence as a /stop/ when cross cutting narrow workpieces.
Please look under Circular Sawbench Safety - Fences.
Jeff G
It is not wrong, but it is not a safe thing to do especially without the blade guard properly in place. Use a panel cutter or miter.
Know to very good cutters who both had their sticks kicked back at them when x-cutting against the fence. One guy was black & blue for weeks, contusion was rectangle 1 x 12. DO this on the bandsaw, a fun, friendly, quiet tool that will not kick back.
If the miter gage will fit between the fence and the blade, it's also safe to use. As with the stop block method, you must feed with miter gage only.
There are zones of uncertainty between miter gage cutting, using my panel cutter and going to the fence and treating as sheet goods.
My comfort level seems to fall at 9" for miter gage, 18" for sled, and above that, fence.
What would be unsafe about crosscutting along a rip fence?
If the board is very wide in respect to the length, you may get away with it. If you crosscut a narrow board and try to run it along the fence, it is very easy for it to c*ck and give you a kickback.
How would this be any different than ripping a narrow board with a rip fence?
Maybe we're taling about different things. With a long narrow board you are ripping with the board held firmly along the fence. Maybe 48" of it is in conact and at least 12" at any given time. Now, by cross cutting with the fence, do you man taking that same board and cutting a few inches off the end? If so, it is very difficult to run that narrow end along the fence and hold it square. As soon as it gets off of 90 degrees, it may contact the back of the blade and end up in your face.
So, you figure to hold it with the miter gauge and run it along the fence. Same thing can happen.
Or have I not understood the question? Ed
Thank you Ed. From the way I understood the original post which has generated the discussion in this thread the stock was fairly near square, yet people have been saying that it is dangerous to crosscut along a rip fence. I've been walking through each response and posting questions like the one you replied to in order to try to understand why anyone would say this because it is patently untrue. A table saw is just a safe ripping along a rip fence or cross cutting along a rip fence. The direction of the grain is completely immaterial. I guessed that maybe the advocates that it is dangerous might be thinking of a long narrow piece of stock and the operator trying to run it the wide way through, but that is contrary to the original post. Next I thought there might be a little bit of the "this is what everyone says, so I'm going to say it too" thing happening here. It's pretty common for people to jump on the party line especially if it makes them sound authoritative in matters like this and I thought I'd take a stab at pointing out an error in the company line if that was the case. Finally - and with equal probability, I could have been missing something key to what people were trying to say.
To clarify my position - crosscutting is cutting against the grain and it has nothing to do with the size of a piece of wood. Ripping is cutting with the grain and it has nothing to do with the size a piece of wood. Either as just as safe or just as dangerous on a table saw. Cutting techniques prevail in all cases, but they don't relate to one type of cut any more than another.
This is what I pointed out several posts back as a bad practice - or at least I attempted to. I think another poster stated the warning better than I did, but our point was the same. The issue here is not an issue of cross cutting though.
I'm wondering which one of all of us are using the wrong term? Possibly some are using the term cross cutting to refer to cutting through the narrow direction of a board, or to put it another way cutting across its width. In contrast, to those people ripping would be cutting down the length of a board. This would explain a lot of the confusion in this thread - wrong use of terms.
"Mike Marlow" wrote in news:9ibPc.6040$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
IIRC, it started with a square sheet of plywood. Given the nature of plywood, any cut is simultaneously a rip and a crosscut. In practice I run the long side against the fence. If I have to cut at 90 degrees to the long side, I put the long side against the mitre gauge but do not let it touch the fence. Unless your fence and miter gauge are dead nuts on, using both at the same time almost guarantees a problem - usually nasty.
LD
When cross cutting along the length of a narrow piece you can clamp a block to your fence behind the point/line where the piece will contact the blade as sort of a surrogate fence. Using the miter then you have the proper distance to the fence up to the point where the piece contacts the blade. This eliminates jamming the piece between the blade and the fence but still gives you consistent accuracy for your cut or multiple cuts.
You are right with many cases, but let's do a "what if" here.
What if you have a glued up panel that is 13" x 24". You want to end up with 13" x 22". Given the 13" dimension, you can't use the miter because the end is off the table. You know you should be using a panel sled, but you don't have one.
Do you make the cross cut along the fence? Do you set the fence to cut off
2 inches or to cut off 22 inches?What if the panel was 13" x 48" and you want 13" x 46"? Still feel safe doing it that way?
2 inches. Simple and effective.
I'd use my circular saw. Simple and effective.
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