square my RAS

I'm fairly new to woodworking and recently bought a used radial arm saw. I know that they're becoming dinosaurs, but they're what I grew up on. I'm having a hard time adjusting this saw to cut square. Are there any secrets to this?

What I always did when I had one, was first make sure it is unplugged..then use a framing square against your fence and run the blade along the lenght of the square (look for drift off the square) move the saw from stop to stop it's full movement to make sure it tracks correctly, make adjustments as necessarily to keep that blade against the square for the entire travel. If it is one of the older saws with no adjustment on the saw or tracking (ya they used to do that..lol), then your left with shimming the fence to get it aligned, much more tedious but doable. You bolt a sacrificial piece to the fence and use the shims at each bolt location on the low side to bring it to square.

Can I ask what brand it is. I've had 2 Craftsman saws, and while I could get them square 1 cut later they would be off. I've since had nothing but the older Dewalts and they can be tuned dead square and stay that way. If it's a Dewalt I have some suggestions.

I've used the framing square method myself, but make sure your framing square is actually square too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azMBpXqDJW0

Btw...Welcome to the family!

I inherited my FIL old Red Star Radial arm saw.

I've used this booklet to get mine tuned up. Quite a bit of history on the type of saw, and some good info on how to set it up.

This link may be of limited use, since the book is out of print, but a little searching and I think you could find one.

https://www.amazon.com/How-master-radial-Wally-Kunkel/dp/B0006QUBB6

The Mr. Sawdust book mentioned above is supposed to be the best, but it is focussed on the Dewalt saws. You can get it directly from the family of the author here:
http://www.mrsawdust.com/

There are other good books including one by Jon Eakes that has explicit instructions for fine tuning Dewalt, Delta/Red Star, and Craftsman saws that all must be done differently. You can get his book here, as a $15 download:
http://joneakes.com/learning-curve/75-radial-arm-saws
This is the one I used to tune up my Red Star.

Try looking up your RAS with your model number on http://www.hammerwall.com. This a manual search engine. The manual will explain the "how to" of your model.