TS won't cut square! - A follow up

A couple of days ago I posted my anguished cry for help with my table saw. I just couldn't get it to cut square. Thanks to all who provided suggestions!

I pulled out the insert and removed the splitter and guard. It happened on crosscuts and rips, so I knew it wasn't the fence. My last gasp was to track down a full-kerf blade. I didn't realize how uncommon those are now, but I finally found a DeWalt for a price that wasn't too bad. Bolted it in, aligned, and viola! it cuts just fine.

Which was really only half the battle, since I didn't know what the deal was with the thin-kerf blades I had tried (including a WWII). So I had a good, long think about it. Then I realized that, other than the blades, the only difference was the dampener/stabilizer that I had used with the TK blades. So I grabbed it and laid a straight edge across the mating face. It was seriously concave. No, really. My feeler gauges don't go that big. Must have been at least 1/16". So this sucker was causing the blade to go concave as well. Once I put a TK blade in without this little demon, it cut just fine.

One more for the books, I suppose.

Reply to
Joe Wells
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There are 2 types of blade stiffeners out there. One type is somewhat C shaped

in cross section (sounds like what you may have). These are meant to be used only in pairs - one on each side of the blade. Using only one will cup the blade. There is also a type that is basically a very large flat washer. This type is used as a single on the side opposite the arbor flange. John

Reply to
John Siegel

That's interesting. Mine certainly didn't come as a set. I don't recall anything on the packaging about that either, but that's long gone. Maybe mine was just mispackaged? That would explain why mine is so grossly concave. It seems too far out of whack to just be a machining error. Then again, mine is a cheapie, so maybe their QC really is that bad.

In any case, thanks for the tip. That helps a bunch.

Reply to
Joe Wells

Joe Wells wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com:

Then I realized that, other than

The owner of the sharpening service I use (Doug, at Bay Area Carbide, Concord, CA) told me to put the stabilizers in the blade caddy, and use them as a washer, and for nothing else. Said the Delta saws didn't use them, and they often deformed the blade in service.

Since he's only been doing this for 28 years, I listened. For a change.

Patriarch

Reply to
patriarch

First, it's obvious that others don't check blade square to the table as I do. I don't own a Starret square, but I do know that you don't want any light showing. No one else has mentioned it, though I can't believe they would tolerate light between blade and square either.

Second, the principle of the hollow center and milled edge is well-employed in my Delta CS arbor. Anyone who works on a lathe knows the easiest way to get a piece to sit flat is to hollow in from a rim. If it is mated with another - flat throughout - a more difficult thing to obtain - smaller than the rim, it might dish if you honk on the arbor nut. If mated with a washer with larger rim, so the arbor face fits inside, it might distort as well.

But who would measure for square and not notice a dished blade?

Reply to
George

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