rough saw cut

Gene Miller

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101
Location
Boca Raton FLorida
I just replaced my stock blade with a new one from forrest. I'm still getting the same hash marks on the stock that I previously blamed on the original blade. I have a minimax cu300 smart combo. I get the marks on both sides of the blade. It doesn't matter if I use the slider or the rip fence. I can go down the street to a friends house with a benchtop saw and get a better cut. It's very disappointing to spend this kind of money and not get a better cut. Thanks for any help. Here a couple of pictures to hopefully help. Minimax has been great to me but they don't seem to have a fix for this problem. The top pic came off the slider if that helps.

 
I just ran this 7/4 beech (top surface in the pic) through my C-man with a 24T Irwin blade. I would check your setup as you reported multiple blades with the same problem.
 

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I'm jealous of the cut quality. I have checked the runout of the arbor and nut and they are 0. I also checked the forrest woodworker II 40 and it is .001. I agree that something else is wrong since it is with 2 blades. I don't know how to check to make sure the slider is square with the blade. If I pull the slider all the way back and measure it to the blade and then push it all the way forward and measure to the same spot on the blade that measurement should be the same, right? I hate to start turning screws and make things worse.
 
If you are getting a rough cut on both sides of the arbor then you either have a warped blade (unlikely since you've had this with two different blades) or as previously stated some slop in your arbor that essentially causes your blade to act as a wobble dado. A check with a micrometer or similar gauge would confirm or delete this possibility from the above. Another way to check would be to cut a kerf into a piece of wood and try and see how much larger than the blade the kerf is. If it more than a few thousands of an inch, then you have a arbor runout problem. MM is famous for their customer support, I'd be testing them on that...
 
A way to check your sliding table that's simple is to cut a sheet of plywood about 4" long then flip the piece front to back and rip off a 1" wide portion from the same side. If it's the same width at both ends then your table is ok...
 
Ken to answer your question, yes it has cut like this since I received it. They tried to help over the phone but their solution didn't fix the problem. I did go through the saw with everybodys help and both the slider and the rip fence were out. Way out. Since I don't have a fixed miter slot I wasn't sure what to check the alignment with. I ended up using the blade and then rotating it so I could get the same measurement. I really wanted 2 points further apart so I could get it as accurate as possible. The rip was off by 3/16. I guess these are things to check when new but as I am also new at this I didn't know. The slider is a little more difficult to adjust but I kept going until the cut was clean. Now I have to check to make sure that I will end up with a square piece on the slider. That will have to wait until I can stop by orange and get a piece of ply. Thanks for all the help.
 
From the look of the pictures you posted, it looks to me like the blade is not square with the rest of the saw's world. I don't know how to tell you to adjust it, since I've never set up a slider, but there are a few other guys here who have a lot of experience with them. They should be able to help you get things straightened out.

Tod Evans, please pick up the white courtesy phone. :)
 
I hate to start turning screws and make things worse.

I know your getting a lot of response here but not really an answer. I'm as inexperienced as the next guy who has never had a slider. I hear Minimax has a user forum and MM owners speak highly of it . . . I think this is the way to the MMUG - http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/MiniMax-USA/ and maybe they can assist. I've heard other owners say that MM makes house calls for troublesome issues. I think your's should qualify. I hate to see you frustrated with such a beautiful machine.
 
From the look of the pictures you posted, it looks to me like the blade is not square with the rest of the saw's world. I don't know how to tell you to adjust it, since I've never set up a slider, but there are a few other guys here who have a lot of experience with them. They should be able to help you get things straightened out.

Tod Evans, please pick up the white courtesy phone. :)

I had the same Doctor Tod thought. But, he finished up a big job recently and has been concentrating on building a large addition to his home. I don't think he has internet at the house. If Glenn really is needing that advice soon, I'l PM him Tod's cell phone #, on request.
 
Although I am not familiar with your saw (a lot of things are not available here in Canada :( ) but you definitely have a blade that is binding on the cut. There has to be some way that you can square up the fence to the table. Once that is done mark a tooth on the blade with a felt pen and measure from that tooth to the fence. Then rotate the blade 180 dg and measure from the same tooth to the fence again. If you come up with a different measurement then you PROBABLY have a trunion problem. I say probably because I am assuming the arbour is ok and the blade washers are in good shape. The important thing is to make sure the blade is running inline with the fence. Once that is established then you can adjust your slider but also do that from the fence. Then check the slider with the blade. The manual should tell you how to adjust the trunion. If not loosen all the bolts EXCEPT for one back one. It will be your pivot pt. Back being the front of the saw. Then using a 2x4 gentle tap the trunion in the direction it needs to go for adjustment. Good luck!
 
Gene, that sucks, I'd be asking someone from MM to come on down and fix it, or replace it.

I'd also check every single bolt and nut on the whole saw, especially something that holds anything to do with blade or arbor etc. Something could be loose somewhere that does not show up until you hit the power, or even until you cut something, as the blade, without any load, might be fine.

I'd get every single bolt checked before I do any more cutting with it.

Gene, I'd also be bummed out by this turn of events, right out of the box, it should have just hummed, you did not buy some East-Asian knock off, you bought a Min Max for crying out loud! :bang:

Good luck, I hope that someone from MM steps up.

Cheers!
 
Gene, I am sorry that you are disappointed with the results from your combo's slider.

When I had a regular table saw, I skewed the blade slightly relative to the miter slot, so that only the leading edge of the blade touched the wood cut on the cross-cut side. I skewed the rip fence a couple thousandths away from the blade, so that only the leading edge of the blade touched the wood cut on the rip side. My cuts were very pretty, with no blade marks.

When I got my combo (also a MiniMax), I learned that the blade was set up absolutely parallel to the slider. This means that both the leading and trailing edge of the blade touch the work, leaving cross-scratches on the cut. MiniMax confirmed that was the correct alignment. After the initial panic, I found that the scratches were very shallow... so slight, that I find it easier to sand out those scratches than to sand out the jointer scallops if I edge joint. Bottom line, I practically never edge joint - I get better results from the saw and the slider.

My rip fence came in bubble wrap, so I had to install and align it myself (nobody to blame but me). Initially I set it up like my old table saw, with the fence canted slightly away from the blade. Pretty cuts, but the accuracy was nothing like I was getting on the slider side of the blade. (Bottom line, I finally set the fence parallel to the blade, and got the accuracy but with a few scratch marks.)

Why do I harp on accuracy? When I set up the cross-cut fence on the slider, I got it aligned so that a 5 side cut was only off about .004 inches (the thickness of a sheet of copy paper). That is the combined error in four right angles, plus the error in perhaps 15 feet of cutting. The best part, I did the calibration three years ago, and it is still rock solid, even though the fence and outrigger have been on and off countless times.

Many people have laughed at .004 inches in woodworking, but my work now comes together better than it ever did - I have to remind myself to check for square in carcases (and if it is off, I can usually trace it to a clamp that is skewed). If you don't think .004 inches is much, try adding a strip of paper to a well-made tenon, and see if you can get it into the mortise.

I can understand posting here on a weekend, when the MiniMax office is closed, but I would be interested in what they said when you called them today.
 
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