Never tried a full sheet, don't ever intend to try. I get it cut to close on a panel saw where I buy the plywood and make the finish cuts. Handling a smaller sheet is not a big deal with good support. You can do the same with a circular saw for the first cut.
Woks for me too. I recently upgraded the front rail on my Delta Contractors saw to the 50" version. Of course I had to add a longer wing to match. Then I replaced my out feed table with one that runs the whole length of the saw. I also have a small infeed table I built so it will quickly install in the front rail. and I support it wit ha roller stand. I cut 4x8 sheets of 3/4" MDF all by myself, as long as I can lift them on the table! One thing I do when cutting full sheets is to cut the piece slightly wider than needed then make a second pass to trim it to size. That way if I fudge up the cut I did not screw up the piece. Greg
Sure, that's common sense to cut a long piece slightly oversize and then trim it to needed size. One other thing I do is use a single roller stand just to the left of the tablesaw for added support when slicing from a full sheet. And naturally depending on width, I try to cut wider pieces first, if there are any.
Long straight rip on a TS? The secret is a sharp blade on a well tuned TS, and practice. I generally stand on the left back side of the piece with my left on the side opposite and parallel to the fence and my right hand on the trailing end. Of course it is much easier with a helping hand.
What Chris says works for me, too...but, really, what it's all about is practice. One more thing, though, try real hard to get your footwork good enough to keep the sheet (or board, if you will) to move through without stopping. Do some dry runs...plug in your hands...keeping your eyes on the fence connection. I find the hardest part to be getting the sheet set up to *start* the cut...the cut itself is no longer an issue due to repetition. Now, all that said, depending on the widths of my rips, I'll most always get at least
*one* done where I purchase the stock (at HD they'll do one cut free...most yards out here will do that) and that cut just a smidge over the dimension I'm after...this gets the sheet size much more managable. Then the procedure described above...practice, baby, practice...cg
RE: Subject
Unless you set up infeed, out feed and side support tables, the mechanics of the process are not in your favor.
If you are trying to only break down one or two sheets, having all those tables set up take up a lot of space for what is basically a short time project.
An edge guide, a couple of C-Clamps and a 4'x8'x2" foam sheet, and a hand held circular saw simplifies life a great deal.
Have fun.
Lew
I hope you're not cutting through the foam with your blade. :-)
Doh! Yeah. Also eyeing the spare 8' long white melamine shelf that's been gathering dust in the corner. A length of cleats down its length, and a simple cut with the saw will turn it into a usable guide. (No matter. I'm just pleased as punch with how easily it cuts on the TS now.)
Anyway, there's not much left of the plywood. There's a little less than a square foot of small bits and pieces in scrap. It was quite an epiphany to discover that there's a bookcase hiding in each 4x8 sheet of plywood. Just add some edge banding and a 1/4" back sheet.
As a matter of fact, yes.
About 1/4-1/2".
That's why a 2" thick sheet.
Lew
"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:8vH1l.1926$c35.1622 @nwrddc02.gnilink.net:
I use a 1/2" sheet of plywood to support cuts in large pieces. It takes a few minutes to adjust the blade depth so it cuts just past the depth of the piece and doesn't cut too deep into the plywood.
This sometimes causes a bit of trouble with slightly warped (cupped) pieces, as the blade may not want to go all the way through. The 2" foam gives a deeper cut, and thus eliminates this problem.
Puckdropper
And on e-bay no one can hear you scream.
It would be even more manageable if you extended the fence. Consider: you have a foot or so of fence between the infeed side of the table and blade; that means you have seven feet or so of heavy, hard to manage plywood hanging off the end. Even if it were totally supported it would be easy to wobble off the fence. If you clamp a piece of straight 2x4 to the fence so that it is hanging off the infeed side by two feet you now have three feet of initial contact area instead of one.
It sounds like you're having trouble sliding the wood and that it's not travelling past the blade smoothly. If you were cutting a simple piece of pine, does it cut smoothly, without burning? If not, then you likely have a blade/fence alignment problem. If that's not the case then it's likely friction from your support surfaces.
For any infeed/outfeed support that you're using, what kind of surfaces do they have? For example, if you're trying to slide the plywood onto another support that is plywood, then you're going to get some friction causing difficulty cutting. Either hardboard, or better yet, some type of melamine surface are about as smooth as you're going to get.
On Dec 15, 6:30=A0pm, "MikeWhy" wrote: I've seen conical feed rollers that hold the work to the fence, but never paid much
Woodstock W1104 Yellow Anti-Kick Back Board Buddies
The saw cuts fine. The fence was trued to less than .001 its entire length, and the top freshly waxed. The saw was ready.
I made a dry run with the blade down to see what I was in for, and found I couldn't keep the edge on the fence. Extending the fence forward as dadOH suggested likely would have solved it, or helped quite a bit. Once it had about somewhat more than 2 feet of contact, I had no trouble keeping it on the fence. The problem was getting it started and moving straight. Even with some practice, it weaved and bobbed enough to, if it didn't kick back outright, leave divots and burns.
The outfeed is the router table, also freshly made slicker than snot for the occasion. The trouble was the infeed. It needed more support, which I solved for the moment by stacking and clamping some cutoffs on the Workmate. It supported the last 2 feet or so, behind me, while I worked as normal from right at the table. That worked out pretty well, and was all the help I needed. In the future, I'll look at making or buying a roller stand, or look at Board Buddies. Maybe just focusing on walking a straight line while pushing would have worked, but I wasn't encouraged by the first few tries.
I use two roller stands actually. One is a single roller stand that I use left of the table saw and the other is a 13 roller stand that I use primarily for outfeed support.
As others have mentioned, it probably comes down to practice. I use a wheelchair so I don't walk the boards at all because I need my hands to push the wood through while at the same time keeping it pressed against the fence. Sometimes I need to reposition myself so I have to let go of the wood, move to a more optimal position and then resume my cutting. Those are the only times I might get a burned edge, but they're infrequent. And yeah, if you can get stuff cut slightly oversize at the wood store before bringing it home, then all the better. We make do the best we can.
There's another thread going on about saw blade sharpening. You're gonna need it. :-)
Props for keeping up with the woodworking in the chair.
As to those roller stands.... The ones with multiple bearing balls don't push or direct the stock like the ones with the single, long roller. If you have the ones with the single long roller, I find that angling them ever so slightly towards the fence helps keep stock against the fence. When they angle away from the fence they try to pull the stock away, too.
Every advantage helps when you're on rollers, yourself. :-)
Do you mean you were AT the table or you were on the right side? If the latter and if your fence is to the right of your blade then you are on the wrong side. You needed to be on the *left* side of the sheet so you could keep it against the fence with your left hand and feed with your right. The same is true of ripping anything.
Working out of a chair is amazing and I'm counting my blessings!
Now...while I like rollers and have a couple of pairs, the most handy dandy items in my small shop are a set of simple stands that I made to help with the infeed side of my TS...surface areas are four-foot long 1x3" hardwood with a strip of that slidey stuff stuck on top (could be laminate)...ends are rounded-over and it's held to TS height by a couple of legs with some "T" feet at the bottom with a stretcher between 'em. These things are easy to move around with one hand ('cause that's all about working alone, eh?) and serve as horses of a sort when I need a work table or whatever.
cg
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