Ripping Problems—Not Necessarily the Obvious

ANURAG wrote: I just got a Delta Unisaw (3hp). The fence (Biesemeyer) is parallel to the miter gauge slot, but when trying to rip, the front and back ends are off by 1⁄64" or more. The piece of wood starts off by being flush against the fence, but by the time the front of the piece is 4-5" past the back end of the blade it moves away from the fence by about 1⁄64" and appears to be binding at the front end of the blade. I initially measured the distance between the fence and blade and thought that at the front the blade was 1⁄64" closer to the fence (as compared to the distance between the same tooth at the back). However my friend and I cannot replicate this error consistently.

Keith Weber: In addition to making the fence parallel to the miter slot, you have to make the miter slot parallel to the blade. My Grizzly Cabinet saw has four bolts under the table to hold the table to the cabinet. I'm sure that your Unisaw probably has something similar. You'll have to loosen these bolts and move the cast iron table so that the miter slot is parallel to the blade. Then everything should be parallel and hopefully solve your problem. Just make sure that in the end, your fence is not closer to the back of the blade than it is to the front of the blade, or your wood will pinch at the back of the blade and kick up at you. I personally like to have the back of my fence a couple of thousands of an inch further away from the blade to prevent this.

Steve Schoene: How are you passing the wood past the blade? Generally there has to be some force pushing the wood into the fence. I use finger boards a lot but there are other ways. Are you using a splitter? Splitters also tend to prevent wood from moving away from the fence.

Bill Sands: Also, use a straightedge to make sure the face of your Biesemeyer is flat. The plastic laminate can be cupped or warped. By the way, finger boards shouldn't be used to keep the stock against the fence on the exit side of the blade.

Les Winter: Lock your fence down and tap it with the palm of your hand. Does it move? If the fence is not locking tight, you get your type of cut.

Forrest Addy: It's the blade. It hasn't got symmetrical side clearance and thus has a lead, a cutting angle it seems to prefer. I suspect the side away from the fence has less than the one facing the fence.

Rich Glisson: I get this happening with my General 350 when the splitter gets bent away from the fence so that it no longer is in the same plane as the blade. The kerf follows the splitter and pulls the board away from the fence. You can check the splitter/blade alignment with a straight board.

Bill Tindall: I am an advocate of using a small thin kerf blade on table saws when ever possible. They are less grabby, much less prone to throw things, less dust and noise. I think they are safer to use and they perform acceptably in nearly all situations I encounter, unless they are defective. I use a thin blade in the range of 7-8", with 40 teeth.

I recently bought a 8¼" 40T DeWalt blade at Lowes for evaluation. The first cut was a rip cut and I observed that by the time the piece was 3' into the saw it had been drawn an inch from the fence. Paying more attention on a second cut, I found I could not hold a rip cut against the fence. Thinking the yellow paint might need wearing off I tried several cross cuts in some oak. In each case I could see the blade deflect as the cut progressed. Upon examination of the teeth I found that the paint had worn off every other tooth (this is a ATB tooth pattern). Clearly the alternate teeth were not cutting, which would produce the symptoms I observed. (I had the same problem the first time I tried sharpening my buck saw!)

If the factory misground one of these they probably did a thousand, and 999 are still out there.