table saw fence question

[lurker]

IMHO, 60 tooth is no good for ripping, which is what I assume you are doing if you are using the fence

Bob put a micrometer on the teeth and then the Riving knife is the RK wider?

Try a short fence. You can fit a lump of wood through the middle of the box section and then as Jacob says.
There is a good reason why several people are suggesting the short fence and it will take you less than 15 mins to see if we are right.

I have the mankiest of the Charnwood TS range, it is mainly used for sizing recycled (with hidden nails #-o )wood and cutting firewood, for this I use a less than perfect blade.
But with a newer Freud blade the wood comes off the saw in glue ready condition.

 

[shed9]

How consistent is the issue and what wood are you putting through the saw when this happens? Have you checked how straight the cut is on the wood itself (after it binds).

 

[deema]

Shed9 is right, I’d missed seeing that a 60 tooth on a 10” blade will result in the gullets clogging and stop it from cutting.

 

[rafezetter]

Could it be the way you are feeding the wood in?

If using a pushstick, you want to be pushing nearer to the blade, as opposed to nearer to the fence.

Exact opposite for me, stock needs to adhere to the fence (assuming I'm reading your post correctly).

I was under the impression that pushing on the "fence side" of the cut means any angled pressure, however slight has the potential to push the opposite corner out - same principle as the PIT manouver used by American police when trying to stop another car - they hit the rear bumper as far to the left or right as they can, to induce the car to spin on it's axis, the closer to the blade the less chance of any angled deflection.

This situation is amplified with a push having a small pivot point as oppose to a gripper (or hand) with a larger area.

Obviously with thin cuts this can be a problem, and I've been considering this for a while now and I've an idea.. watch this space

Edit: - lol pineapple - transatlantic beat me to it...

 

[powertools]

It seems to me that everyone has come up with solutions but nobody has asked the most basic questions.
What are you cutting, how thick is it and are you ripping or cross cutting.
Personally I think that a 60 tooth blade may be the root cause of your problems and you say that you are mainly cutting small peices then a short sub fence fitted to your long fence is essential for safety and accuracy.
On YouTube there is a guy called stumpy nubbs who has a few videos on table saw usage that are well worth a look.

 

[sunnybob]

Sorry for the delay, spent the afternoon at the dentist. 2 hours in the chair while listening to the woman rambling on about I have no idea what is enough to put anyone off the internet!
I will try to answer all the questions.
The saw is brand new.
The riving knife is there (usually, see below).
I normally use push sticks and push centre of the wood.

The particular problem I had today;
I'm making a rectangular box about a foot x 6". i screwed up the base and had to cut it off. Because of the broken wood and glue left on the base I used the table saw to trim the box sides square, barely a saw blades width. Because of the height of the box I removed the riving knife (yeah yeah, i know the horror stories, but I'm a grown up and have spent half a century working with machinery that wanted to kill me and I am VERY careful when that knife is off).
I had to rotate the box 4 times to clean all the sides.

I used push sticks, pushing the box against the fence. I could not have done this if the fence was short. But the blade marked the trailing edge of the cut as it left the blade.

Not a lot, but just enough that I had to sand again, and of course, when I sand i get an uneven level and have to go back to the saw again, and on and on and on.

I'm talking small effects here, but I want to eliminate the problem completely.

 

[lurker]

IF.... I have understood "today's task" correctly, I think I would have done that on a sledge.
Certainly the fence would have not been on the TS at the time.

 

[powertools]

To cut a box 12 X 6 inches you do not need push sticks as you will loose the accuracy as you have found out.

 

[sunnybob]

Lurker... I have just made a sled, and i think for a smaller item you may well have the answer, but due to the limits of the table size the sled is quite small and cannot accommodate a 12" box.

I have to work within the limits I have, and a bigger saw or even a bigger table is just not possible.
In theory, the fence should do the job, but I'm just having trouble visualising which part I am doing wrong.

 

[Steve Maskery]

The blade is a freud 60 tooth

What are you cutting with that very fine blade? Are you ripping or crosscutting? What is the rake of the teeth?

 

[sunnybob]

The current case in question is beech, about 20 mm thick. if i could just stop the back teeth clipping the wood, the cut would be glue perfect.

 

[powertools]

At last a sensible question and then a possible solution to a simple question.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I repeat, are you ripping or cross cutting? What is the rake of the teeth?

 

[Trevanion]

Are you taking just an absolute hair off at a time instead of a full blade width (3mm or so)?

I've found on harder woods like Beech if you try to trim something using the blade only perhaps taking 1mm off the blade will deflect slightly, not enough to be noticed but it will whip back on the trailing end of the cut. Couple that with the fine blade with loads of surface contact between the blade and the work it ends up deflecting quite a bit.

 

[sunnybob]

I dont know the rake of the teeth.
i know its a freud (hey, I'm new to this stuff) The saw came with a 24 tooth blade.
I am cutting along the grain in this instance, in fact thinking about it i cut along the grain much more than i do across it.
I cut mostly hard woods, very rarely soft woods.
trevanion... I always cut at least the thickness of the blade. Usually I am cutting much more.

 

[lurker]

Bob, cutting along the grain is ripping.
As I said a while ago, 60 tooth is too fine.
Have a look on the Freud packet and it will tell you 60 tooth is for cross cutting.
A general blade (that will do both) will most likely sort you.

 

[pollys13]

The riving knife is there to stop the saw cut binding. I read about the long and short fence and where to set the short fence in relation to the blade. I always had a problem using the short fence. Then someone else pointed out the function of the riving knife was to prevent binding. So am happily using the full length fence. I think is also a help to make sure the timber is all squared up before running it through the saw.

 

[Myfordman]

Bob, cutting along the grain is ripping.
As I said a while ago, 60 tooth is too fine.
Have a look on the Freud packet and it will tell you 60 tooth is for cross cutting.
A general blade (that will do both) will most likely sort you.

I use a 34 tooth 10" freud blade on my table saw most of the time and it produced perfect ripping only needing a quick sand before applying finish and cross cutting produces a shiny cut surface that needs no further treatment.

If I have a lot of heavy ripping to do say 50-60mm deep, i will fit a 20 tooth blade.

 

[Steve Maskery]

60T is far too fine for ripping, the gullets are simply not big enough to carry away all the sawdust.
At the risk of being a PITA, Bob, you were told what to do yonks ago, all good advice and you appear to have heeded none of it. And now you are getting unhappy results and are baffled as to why.
Measure the rake of the teeth. An approximation will do. It will tell us a lot.
S

 

[sunnybob]

I've had to take the blade off to see the markings on it. Its very faint and I cant get a picture clear enough to read.
There are three seperate diagrams showing angles,
The first has 2 angles shown both at 15.
the third has another angle shown which is 7.( I dont know the technical descriptions of those angles)
below that is = freud lcl6m01051 (some of those numbers are almost worn away but I think thats whats there.)
The width is 2.6 mm.
Last time I asked questions about the saw blade I was told to buy this as it would make my ryobi mitre / table saw cut better than the supplied 24 tooth. I said then that I was trying to cut hardwoods with the grain (ripping). I'm confused that now I'm being told that its the wrong blade.
As far as the cut itself, its a good clean cut. My question was how to stop the wood going back into the rear of the blade.