Calling Paul and Jim Re Table saws

Rob Keeble

Member
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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
The recent hit Paul took and the comment that came up regarding reaction wood had me wondering about past experiences myself.

Then Jim posted about table saw mitre slot alignment and that added my thoughts.

Well most of us know of Niki who passed away a while back, well in doing some research on the alignment of the mitre slot to the blade and the aspect of reaction wood, cause i always thought one wanted a little toe out on the fence for some of these reasons I found these posts by Niki which provide a few good thoughts on the whole subject. As is usual with Nikis great posts the pictures tell a thousand words.

Take a look Paul and Jim, this might aid in your current quests but i would add its probably worthwhile many more of us reviewing these posts.


Quote of a post by Niki on another forum

"By extending the blade line to 24" (in my case 30") and checking the distances at the ends of the straight edge, you can minimize the error (misalignment)....well, instead of measuring the error (misalignment) over the 8"~9" of the blade, you are multiplying it a lot by checking the error over 24"...

Please note that in both cases, I'm lifting the straight edge off the table (to cancel any drag or binding) and, I'm using a caliper for better accuracy......and I think that if you get some 0.002"~0.004" on the 24", you are good to go...on 8"~9" of the blade, you'll get much less...

I call the above adjustment/test "Static Check"...

After I finish the "Static Check", I like to fine tune (or fine test) the blade using the "Dynamic Check"...yes, yes with the blade running at full speed...with the "Dynamic Check", all the Arbor run-out and the blade run out (and every blade has a run-out) are already "Included"...you can see it here
By the way, all the checks/tests should be done with the blade a "Full High" position....correct me if I'm wrong but, on the pictures, your blade doesn't look to me at "Full high"...

Regards
niki "


The threads Niki referred in this post are below

http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20188

http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22502&highlight=

http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15608

Given Pauls injury its worthwhile getting to grip with understanding the goings on when you get reaction wood that closes up or springs out during the cut.

Niki makes a good point about the fact that once wood is passed the teeth the cut is done.

What a contributor to our fraternity he was when you see how he posted on all sorts of forums and he is pretty practicle and down to earth no gadget nonsense where you always need this or that gadget to do something that a good dose of common sense and understanding of the problem will solve.

Hope this helps you Jim and Paul. Still dont quiet understand how one tests for reaction wood to avoid it.:D I am pretty sure i have experienced it in the past. Just lucky i did not have Pauls bad experience but that was not by design which is how i would like it to be.
 
Thanks Rob! Yeah, Nikki was one of those special guys. Always a new way of looking at things in a practical manner. I'll spend some time this evening reading through it when I can grasp what is being said. Jim.
 
Thanks for the info!

I am sawing again but with GREAT care!

I wish that I could thank Niki --

Paul
 
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