I am new to using a table saw.
I am building a child’s bed made of Maple and Birch Plywood.
The Maple is 3/4in by 51/2in.
When ripping pieces I have burning a lot.
I am using a Ridgid 10in table saw that is about 5yr old. Using 110V.
The blade is a Freud LM74 glue line rip. It is not new but doesn’t have that much time on it. I tried using a brand new Dewault thin kerf 60 tooth and had pretty much the same problem.
The saw doesn’t seem to be bogging down except on occasion when I push to hard.
Am I trying to feed it to fast?
Am I doing something wrong? Or is there something wrong with the setup? It seems pretty hard to push the stock through.
Thanks
James
Life is short, so live it.
Replies
James ,
I wonder if you are getting a binding sort of cut , the fence may not be parallel with the blade and this can cause friction and burning as well as other problems . Unless the power is for some reason not full strength or the motor is sick . Try different feed rates and see if there is any difference .
good luck dusty
James,
If you can do this SAFELY, try raising the blade so that at least one inch of teeth are visible above the workpiece. This decreases the total number of teeth in the cut, which will make the blade run cooler. Gary
Yes I have had the blade up high enough.
Life is short, so live it.
That Freud LM74 oughta cut through that no problem. Your saw needs to be perfectly aligned! Check and recheck the fence, make positively sure the fence is parallel to the blade. If it's toed in even a little bit, it'll cause you problems.
Is the blade clean? If there are any deposits of pitch and such (as there surely will be if you've been burning stock), soak it in a household cleaner such as Simple Green for 10 minutes or so and take a toothbrush to it. It must be clean.
Also, your feed rate needs to be steady but not too slow, maple burns easy.
Raising the blade, as mentioned above, can help -- the angle of attack of the teeth, and getting gullets above the stock for dust clearance -- but be careful! We don't want you cutting a body part of on our account.
Beyond those things, feed technique is very important. Use a featherboard to hold the stock against the fence, placed in front (infeed) of the blade. Steady pressure, and make sure you're not pushing in such a way as to move the far end of the fence. I've made most of the mistakes possible in ripping, and found that technique really caused most of them.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 3/16/2008 11:33 pm by forestgirl
Edited 3/16/2008 11:36 pm by forestgirl
I am going to get an old auto dial gauge with mag base that I have and check it very carefully.
When the maple is ripping through it seems to feed back together at about a foot or so past the blade.
Also I have ridges as if the blade is not cutting straight.
I am using a feather board.
The pieces that I am ripping are 7/8in and 2in. All the pieces are very curved after ripping.Life is short, so live it.
You said " all the pieces are very curved after ripping "
Several other possibilities , you did not have a straight edge to fence off of to begin with or , the material is timber bound stress wood , if it is stress wood cutting the parts wider and letting them do their thing ,then re cut to size say the next day . Other wise stress wood is difficult at best to tame .Maybe you could run the edges over the jointer to clean the burn and bring to final size?
good luck dusty
I don't have a jointer as of yet.
Can I make do with a thickness planer?
The maple was on sale?Life is short, so live it.
You could use the thickness planer if you could make one side flat , you could use a straight line jig and re rip on the TS , then run through the planer maybe .
The risk is the planer rollers just press down the already curved or bowed piece and it stays that way only thinner sometimes .
I still think you got a batch of swamp Maple
" life is short eat desert first "
Dairy Queen
In order to use a thickness planer to flatten a board, you have to build a wooden carriage that supports the irregularities on the bottom side of the board, so that the planer's rollers don't press out any cup or bow or twist, only to have it come back after the board emerges from the machine. Once one side is near flat, then you can turn it over and flatten the other side, and then go back and finish up the first side.
There are some articles and videos on this site that discuss the technique. Here are a couple of them (there are others):
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/FWNPDF/011145088.pdf
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=5245
-Steve
"Can I make do with a thickness planer?" The easiest way to think of it: A planer makes Face B parallel with Face A. If face A (the one that lies on the planer table) isn't flat, neither will Face B be flat. Just another way of saying what's above, but sometimes a little easier to grasp when you're just learning this stuff, or tired or both. ;-)forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
When the maple is ripping through it seems to feed back together at about a foot or so past the blade.
Hope you are using a splitter?
dan
I think your situation is common. My advise is to accept that the TS is not the end of the conversation when it comes to woodworking and there will have to be some clean up with other tools when the rough work is done.
Brian
Sounds like it's binding. You want to tweak your fence (usually the problem) so the front end (end farthest from you) is toed out just a smidge. To be exact, move it out a weency amount. <g>
Now, if that's not the case, it could be your blade itself is not parallel to the saw as a whole. But I'd look at the fence first.
Sounds like the far end of the fence is off to me, too. It could be too close or too far out. Solid northern white maple is very hard and easy to burn. Plywood shouldn't be a problem with a good blade. You should check the blade for alignment with the miter ways in the table, then check the fence to the miter ways. The far end should be just a hair more. For safety, keep your eye on the fence when ripping, don't watch the blade.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
I do measure the blade at both the front and back before ripping and they are as close as my eye site will allow. When you say to move out the front just a bit. Are you talking about 1/64th or 1/32nd?
I have ripped wood on this saw before with little tado.
Maybe it's the hard wood bringing out my poor technique.Why look at the fence instead of the blade? Look at where you want to go not where you don't.Life is short, so live it.
Measuring at the blade doesn't give you much distance for accuracy. You may not pick up on the fact the fence is off over the entire length. If you check that the miter ways are in line with the blade, you can use them to measure from. They won't tell you anything if the blade isn't in line with them. If your saw can't be adjusted, you can lay a straight edge against the blade to check the fence alignment.I use the thickness of the mark on my rule or tape to set the rear/outfeed end of the fence. That's probably about 1/64" or less. That's at the end of the fence, not the blade. If the fence is closer on the outfeed end, it will cause the board to pinch against the blade. This causes a burn or worse. If the fence is perfectly in line with the blade, the rear of the teeth will touch the work as the blade rotates upwardly. This is a place that could cause a kick up and it will leave extra teeth marks on the work, maybe causing a rough face edge. If you don't keep your eye on the fence, the board can start to move away. Once that starts to happen, your cut is not accurate and you could face a kick back. As a former woodworking instructor, that was the most common mistake students would make. Next thing they knew, the board was binding and out of control, often on the last six inches where recovery is difficult. The blade isn't going anywhere, be aware of it and keep your fingers away but if the fence is your guide, you'd better make sure you are staying on it. The resistance of the blade cutting often pulls the work away from the fence, if you aren't watching, you won't know it until trouble starts. Your hand pressure on the work is always applied to keep the stock against the fence, sort of in a diagonal direction, not straight ahead. You also don't stand in line with the zone between the fence and the blade, just in case. If things are set up correctly, your work should slide along without trouble, nice and smooth. A saw without an outfeed table is dangerous. You need to support the work so you aren't struggling at any time. Some try to rush things like they see others do. Nice and easy is a better way both for the work and your safety. If you need to apply force, something isn't right.Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
thanks
will be checking this tomorrow.
been away for a couple of days.
Now that I think of it when cutting the last little bit on the back of the blade it seems keep cutting till the wood exits.
Going by what your setup says then when you reach the back of the blade your cutting is already done.Life is short, so live it.
rrekih,
Whoa! there buddy! It's the wood not your saw.. that maple is case hardened.
The clue is the curved pieces comeing off the cut..
Whoa! there buddy! It's the wood not your saw.. that maple is case hardened.
I agree for the most part. I will admit I hardly ever use Maple. However I usually use some very hard woods. For the past few years, I find I am getting more and more 'reaction' wood.. I can rip a board and it burns! Leave it lay awhile and it does whatever it wants! Warp, curl. twist.. BUMMER....
Just me, BUT I never have good luck ripping with a thin kerf blade.
WillGeorge.
I really agree about that thin kerf blade deal.. First time I put one in my table saw I couldn't believe how crooked it cut..
Here I have all these thin kerf blades and I wouldn't use them. Grumble, grumble, grumble..
It could also as you point out simply be a piece of reaction wood But I don't have much experiance with that.
"The clue is the curved pieces comeing off the cut.. " Frenchy, I've had that happen without the wood being casehardened. Poor feed technique (pushing the end of the whimpy Jet fence) or other things (can't remember now). Case-hardening sucks, though, for sure. When it happened to me, it pinched the blade. Scaaarrry.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"The clue is the curved pieces comeing off the cut.. "
But I was watching TV at t time!
how do you check to see if that you have case hardened?
And just what is case hardened?Life is short, so live it.
rrekih
Take a 3 inch wide piece of wood and cut a one inch notch out of the center of it. make the notch 6 inches deep.. when you cut the notch out if the board slowly squeezes together that's case hardening. It could also be reaction wood.. although I've not seen a lot of maple reaction wood.. this didn't come off branches or a bent over tree did it?
OH case hardening is a fault of the kiln drying process. Dried to fast. Built stress into the wood.. conditioning will correct it sometimes..
Here's an article with picture and diagram on the test.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I haven't done the test in the article that you linked.
What I did was to rip about 12in of a 3 1/2in piece down the middle.
I did 3 rips going the thickness of the blade each time approx.
At the end I had almost 3/8in cutout down the center.
I then measured the opening at the beginning of the cut and at the end.
The beginning of the cut was closing in on itself.
What I did notice also was the twisting taking place between the free pieces. The left side was lifting 1/16in above the right or more.Life is short, so live it.
I recently ran into burning maple with my WWII blade. That blade & setup rips poplar just fine. It turns out that the sugar in maple makes it prone to burning. The design of the Freud glue-line rip blade exacerbates the problem because it's focused on a ultra smooth cut.The problem was solved for me when I switched to a regular Freud thin-kerf rip blade. I just made sure that I kept the wood moving quickly. No more burn marks. p.s. I had also been told that I should make sure my fence was angled slightly away from the blade in the back instead of perfectly parallel. I tried it, but it had no affect on the burning for me.
Thanks for the input.
I'm thinking it's inexperience plus hard to rip maple.
The point about the Freud glue line rip blade is good.
Life is short, so live it.
Ditto what Frenchy said. Best course is to get better wood and start over. You may have success ripping the wood oversized on the bandsaw and then sneaking up on the final width after most of the stress has been released.
Cutting wood with these stresses on a tablesaw is dangerous, and should only be done with a functioning splitter in place.
Bill
Everything you have written indicates that the saw is in need of alignment. Here is something that can help.
Here is the low tech, low cost way to align a tablesaw that I learned maybe forty years ago and teach to my students now.
Make 3/4 x 3/4 x 12" hardwood stick. Drill a hole somewhat centered in one end and insert a brass #8 x 1" round head fine thread machine screw about half way. UNPLUG THE SAW. Raise the blade completely up. Clamp this board in your miter gauge (if you determine that there is some slop in your slot to miter gauge, use a playing card to take up the slop) so the screw head just about touches the blade at the front. Now rotate the blade by hand and determine which tooth is the closest. Adjust the screw in or out until it just touches this tooth. Mark this tooth. Rotate the blade so the tooth is now at the back of the table and move the miter gauge/stick assembly to the back and see if it touches the marked tooth to the same extent. If it doesn't, adjust the trunnion (if a contractor saw) or the tabletop (if a cabinet saw) until it does.
For a contractor saw, first use a small c-clamp on the rear trunnion and cradle to keep the assembly from moving. Then loosen the two rear trunnion bolts and one front trunnion bolt. Slightly loosen the other front trunnion bolt and use a stick to tap the trunnion until the blade and screw lightly touch. The blade does not move directly around the center so you will need to repeatedly go back to the front of the blade, readjust the screw, and then again measure the back. Be sure to check after tightening the trunnion as the trunnion frequently moves when being tightened.
For cabinet saws, loosen the bolts that hold the tabletop and tap one corner until things come into alignment.
The same adjustment gauge can be used to set the fence parallel to the miter slot. Slide the miter gauge to the front of the table and move the fence over to the screw head and insert a playing card between the screw head and the fence just so you can move the card as it touches both the fence and the screw head. Now move the miter gauge to the back of the table and see if you have the same feel when you insert the card. I like my fence absolutely parallel--if you want to have a slight opening to the fence, you can easily estimate the opening by adding a thickness of paper to the card.
I always show my students with a dial gauge that their adjustments are within .001 - .002.
You can also use the same gauge to measure blade runout by using a $5.00 feeler gauge.
Finally, after you are satisfied with the above adjustments, check the position of the splitter to make sure it is exactly in line with the blade.
Bottom line, there is no need to spend more than the $0.05 for the brass screw.
I changed your method just a bit.
Instead of using the miter gauge I planed a piece of maple stock, (have lots of that right now) to fit snugly in the miter gauge slot.
It was about 12in long by 1in high.
Then I drilled a hole in the part that sits above the table and used a long screw to thread. Using a drill press to get it strait and true.What I came up with is the tightness from the back of the blade to the front is about the thickness of a piece of lined writing paper, if that.
I then checked my fence using the same method and had about the same results.
That would indicate that all is running true to each other.
Or close enough for my skill level.Life is short, so live it.
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