Shop tune-up

Chris Hatfield

Former Member (by the member's request)
Messages
380
Allen pointed out the burn marks on my projects and it reminded me to get the cleaning set I had my eye on. I've had the same blade in my table for five months now, and just now had the opportunity to clean it. And while I had it out, it also occured to me to put some wax on it - something I knew people did to bandsaw blades, but for some reason didn't connect it to anything else.

Any other real basic things that I may have missed in the realm of living my blades? Picking up everything I know third-person, I think there's more basic stuff like this that would help me out.

Rust has also taken a hold of my drill press, and I should have addressed that when I bought it. But being summer, I put it off. Steel wool, followed by some T-9 an some wax put me right? It's on the column and the spindle and chuck. My TS is an aluminum top, but I was considering waxing it along with my router table.
 
Cleaning the blade will help, but it's also important to ensure the blade is aligned with the miter slot and the fence is aligned with both. It's one of the few woodworking tolerances that I believe is worth tweaking to within a few thousandths of an inch from perfect. I think my blade alignment is the only thing I've used my machinist's dial indicator on, but my saw is dead on and can rip 1/32" strips with no blade marks on either side of the cut. I'm not in a good position to do a web search right now, but there's a lot of info available about table saw alignment.

On the rust issue, I use steel wool and WD-40 to remove surface rust, then Johnson paste wax to prevent it (or at least slow it down). In climates more humid than SoCal, products like T9 might offer more protection than paste wax, but I don't think it's necessary to use wax in addition to the T9.
 
Valid points about the fence alignment. I've struggled with it, but I found a new technique and haven't had a chance to try it out. I don have miter slots on the saw, not yet. I hope to rectify that soon.

I did make an adjustment to my riving knife, as it was misaligned to the blade.

Any other thoughts, and other tools?
 
you can make a stick with a hook on it that hangs over the edge. This would allow you to make sur the blade it set proper. Then after that is done you can check your fnec against the blade.
 
What saw do you have? If it's something like the BT3100, which uses a sliding table instead of a miter slot, you can do as Al suggested and use the edge of the table as a reference for the blade adjustment. Good technique is important, but it's still not a solution for alignment problems.
 
It's the Craftsman 21829, which is the next generation of the BT. I've been manually checking alignment with my tape measure each time I set the fence and my alignment has been good to this point. I just haven't been able to trust the marking because the back likes to walk. Hopefully with this new technique I can solve that issue.

I'm hoping the weather can be decent enough this weekend to see if things are better with what I've done so far.
 
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