Hi Everyone,
I just finished setting up my Grizzly saw today and made a couple of cuts. The cross cuts are beautiful, but ripping wood leaves an awful burn mark on the edge of the wood.
The blade is a newish Forrest WW2, the saw has 5HP. What am I doing wrong? What did I forget on the set up?
Also, the saw has a Unifence style fence and I pull the fence back to the middle of the blade for the rip cut.
Is it just technique? I don’t recall this with my old Delta Contractors saw.
Replies
Is your fence well aligned to the blade? Seems to me if they aren't parrallel or at least diverging, the blade may bind against the wood.
I've got a short fence for ripping, so I don't think it's a problem with the fence. Check out the photo...
Glad you got the Unifence, that's a nifty safety feature.
Feed technique is important (that you're not pushing the stock against the side of the blade), but pure set-up is critical. In addition to the usual (fence parallel to blade, blade 90* to table, and parallel to miter slot, one thing that often gets overlooked is that the splitter must be 90* to the table and in line (completely) with the blade. If the splitter is tilted a little bit, it can affect a rip cut.
I've tried pushing the stock all sorts of different ways... Still burns. You can see a picture from that I posted of my set up in the previous posting.The splitter seems to check out fine with the straight edge, but it is a riving knife, maybe I need to check it again. BTW: I got the euro style fence because you reminded me of it when you got your Unisaw. I can't believe that Delta didn't offer the Unifence on their new Unisaw!
That's a very thin piece of stock, re-check the fence and make sure it's exactly parallel to the fence and 90* to the table. Even though it's short, it still would influence how the stock meets and travels past the blade.
Bummer that Delta isn't offering that fence. Could be that only a relative small % of consumers know the benefit of the design.
PS: What type of wood is that and how fast were you feeding?
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 7/15/2009 12:20 am by forestgirl
I would still check for parallel.
Edited 7/15/2009 1:51 am ET by pcott
Just to expand a tiny bit on the fence influencing the stock: Even though it stops short of the far side of the blade (which is the safety advantage), you still have the whole fence on the near side of the blade and the stock is lining up against that fence. So if the fence is out of parallel, the stock will be too.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
FG,You were right, I shimmed the fence about 1/64 of an inch from the front of the blade to the back of the blade and the burning disappeared! I even tried it with the old fashioned full length fence and still no burning.Oddly, I'm pretty sure that the fence was parallel to the front and back of the blade, as far as I could see, but it was still burning. I guess that the side of the sides of the blades or maybe the rear teeth were just scraping and burning.
Great! Glad you were able to fix it relatively quickly.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Jointerman,
I read the entire thread with interest. I also use a Forrest WWII blade. I was surprised that everyone focussed on making the fence parallel with the blade. That is incorrect. The instructions that come with the blade tell you to angle the fence .003 inches away from the blade. I just called the Forrest factory. You can get them at 973 473 5236. I wanted to see if they still call for angling the fence away from the blade, even with their latest version of the WWII blade. THEY DO!!! The rest of the responses you got, which recommend making the fence parallel with the blade are incorrect, according to the Forrest people, and according to the instructions that came with the blace. I am sure that all of them meant well. They are all nice folks.The Forrest representative also told me that to further reduce burning on hardwoods, you should raise the tip of the blade 3/4" above the wood!!!!! THis too is different from most blades. I read your original message in which you were getting some burning, and your second in which you said that you shimmed the blade and now you are not getting any burning. From the information you gave, I cannot tell what happened. You didn't say which direction you angled (shimmed) the blade. MY STRONG SUGGESTION, even through you are not getting any burning now, is to insure that your saw is CORRECTLY set up. THIS IS CRUCIAL ON A NEW SAW, which might have been knocked out of alignment during shipping. I also recommend you check it often. Kickback is bad stuff. Here is what I would do to insure the saw is correctly aligned.1) use a dial indicator to insure that your blade is parallel to your miter track.2) insure that the fence is parallel to the miter track.3) then angle the back of the fence .003" away from the blade.If you do not have a dial indicator and the equipment needed to insure that your saw is correctly tuned up, I strongly suggest you get it immediately. If you don't know how tune up your saw, there are lots of places to get instructions on how to do it. It should be in the instructions that came with the saw.Once you are sure that your saw is correctly set up, then:
1) insure your blade is sharp. If it is not, I recommend you send it to Forrest for resharpening, not your local sharpening service, unless you are positive they can sharpen it according to factory specifications. Forrest blades are ground differently than most blades.2) insure your blade is clean3) raise the blade 3/4" above the wood.4) vary the speed at which you push the wood. 5) if you are still having trouble, call the Forrest folks. Sometimes it is difficult to explain in words what is simple to show in real life, such as "angling the fence away from the blade". If my writing is unclear, please get back to me, and I will try to do better. Hope that helps. In general, if you have a problem with a particular piece of equipment, such as a saw blade, I recommend contacting technical support for that equipment. Not all companies are great about that, but many of them are. Forrest is VERY VERY GOOD. Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Hi Mel,Thanks for the info. It was actually the fence that I shimmed and not the blade. The fence is now angled just slightly away from the blade. On my old saw, I had a Biesemeyer fence that was set up this way.As for Forrest, I actually didn't know they recommended having it set up this way. Good to know! Did they say anything about set ups for cross cuts?
J man,
Crosscutting using the Forest WWII is the same as "normal" blades.
Glad you found my information useful. Sounds like you have a nice setup. Good luck.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Hi Mel:Angling the fence is fine if you only use your fence on one side of the blade. In My case I move the fence because of a sliding table and a router mounted in the table saw. In my case the fence must be parallel to the blade.Also, I just learned a neat trick for cutting plywood or other splintery wood. Cut the board it two passes, the first with the blade raised only 1/8", and then fully through the board. The first pass acts like a scoring blade and gives a very clean cut.Be safe,
Dennis
Dennis,
Thanks for the tip on cutting splintery wood in two passes. I will try it.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
"I was surprised that everyone focussed on making the fence parallel with the blade. That is incorrect. The instructions that come with the blade tell you to angle the fence .003 inches away from the blade. " Mel, this is not as hard-and-fast a rule as Forrest (and many others) would like you think. The topic has been discussed many, many times over the last 10 years here at Knots, and there are plenty of qualified woodworkers who don't toe their fence out. Most essentially, one does want to make sure it is not toed in of course.
Dennis2 made an extremely improtant point about not toeing out your fence if you might be moving it to the other side of the blade for certain operations -- of course it would then be toed in toward the blade and create just the problem you're trying to avoid.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
edited for spelling error
Edited 10/9/2009 12:17 am by forestgirl
It's not a question as to whether the "correct" way is to set the fence parallel to the blade or "toed out." The results are all that's important. If a saw cuts perfectly clean when the fence is set parallel, then that's the best set up for THAT saw (and probably THAT saw running THAT blade).If after setting up parallel, the saw burns the wood, and toeing it out fixes the problem, then toe out is the right setting for THAT saw and blade.The setup to get a blade cutting cleanly for a particular piece of equipment is an inherent characteristic of that particular machine. There are no fixed rules about this.To paraphrase Duke Ellington, "If it cuts good, it IS good."Rich
"It's not a question as to whether the "correct" way is to set the fence parallel to the blade or "toed out." The results are all that's important. " Right! That's why I reacted strongly to Mel's "I was surprised that everyone focussed [sic] on making the fence parallel with the blade. That is incorrect. [emph. added]" We've had several conversations about this issue on Knots, and it's pretty clear it's not a written-in-stone, one-view sorta thing.
IIRC, there was even some discussion as to the origin of this set-up technique -- lack of precision in older power tools leading to an added safety precaution, that sorta thing.
With my now-gone Jet contractor saw, I kept the fence completely parallel to the blade because it wasn't uncommon for me to move it to the left side of the blade. Way too much of a pain to reset otherwise. And the only time I had kickback was when I got a case of the stupids and forgot to put the splitter back on before cutting a piece of nearly-square stock.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
It's interesting that Forrest is the only blade manufacturer that calls for the fence to be "toed out". All others call for the fence to be parallel.It's also interesting that Forrest is the only quality blade manufacturer that strongly recommends using a blade damper or stiffener. All other top quality blades do not need that.Howie.........
Howard,
Life is too short to try to figure out everything for myself, based on physical principles and sound engineering practice. So when an EXCELLENT manufacturer with a great reputation recommends that:
1) I use a blade dampener
2) I cant the blade out .003"
3) I raise the blade 3/4" above the wood when ripping,
I actually do it. And it works!
When I tried without the .003", I got some burning.
So I find it useful to pay attention to what Forrest recommends. The fact that other manufacturers make different recommendations, I believe is based on the fact that Forrest uses a very idiosyncratic cutting scheme. It is possible that they are so good, because they had the nerve to try some different designs, and then stick with something that works well. They have improved the WWII a bit in the past few years.
If you can't tell, I am a big fan of Forrest.
Have fun.MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel I agree, Forrest is very proactive and really researches their products. Remember the hub bub here on knots about replacing a blade that had been used wrong. They wanted it back and wanted their customer to get a new one. Definitely a strong company that solicits feed back from their end users. Just not something you see everyday....
Morgan <!----><!----><!---->
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Hmm... Last year I emailed Forrest some pictures of my Woodworker 2 special flat grind that wasn't giving me smooth crosscuts on the left of the blade, which I assume is standard crosscut position. I never heard back from them. I mean, if you are going to post an email address as [email protected] then you should at least reply. I never followed up because I just decided that the special flat grind was too slow at cutting and switched it out for one of my other blades. Now I'm running the regular WW2 and it's quite the nice blade.
J-man,You might not like what I am about to say. If while reading my message, you decide that you don't like it, please just stop reading it, and IGNORE IT. I am writing the message because it might possibly be useful to you. This message is about some stuff which turned my life around, and might possibly be helpful to you. Than again, maybe not. But it is worth it to me to try. You wrote a message to Forrest, and didn't get a reply. You said: "if you are going to post an email address as [email protected] then you should at least reply. "There was a guy on TV decades ago whose tag line was: "It is better to light one candle than to curse a the darkness." I always liked that thought. It puts the responsibility on ME rather than the blame on others, and it works better. There was another guy, named "Woerner Erhard" who developed the "EST" training program back in the 1960s. His tag line was "If you don't take responsibility for your own life, someone else will." I LOVE that way of thinking. I believe that if you adopt that philosophy, you will be happier. You will never complain. It takes energy that could be more effectively expended in solving the problem. Rather than blame Forrest for not answering your message, which you are not even sure they received, it is far more effective to just write or call once again. You know, I have thought that I sent messages in the past, and further investigation found that the problem was with me or with my computer. I have a sign which continually reminds me "NO WHINING"! I sincerely hope this advice is useful to you. If I didn't believe so strongly in it, I wouldn't have taken the time to write. To me, the most important attribute that a woodworker can have is "self reliance". Have fun. Take control of your life. Never complain again! You will be amazed at how good this will make you feel. Instead of feeling weak and thinking "They screwed up.", you take the responsibility to make things happen right, and you just feel good about life. This attitude is a GAME CHANGER. I hope that rather than getting upset with me, that you consider what I said. As someone on TV once said, "Try it, you'll like it."
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
No worries... You are absolutely right, I probably should have tried again. I mean, I like their blades enough to have purchased two more of them! Chopmaster, WW2. I didn't try again because I'm that impressed with the WW2 special grind, it's rather slow in it's rip capbability, which is part of its design. BTW: I need one of these "NO WHINING" signs!
J-man,
Glad you didn't take my message the wrong way.
I LOVE THE "NO WHINING" sign.
Sometimes I get the urge, but the sign helps me overcome it. Stop over to the Gallery and see what you think of the glider I made for my grandson.Thanks for writing. By the way, if you ever get near Washington, DC, I live in nearby Virginia, Please let me know and come over for a visit. Where do you live in the Bay Area. I have a son and a daughter in law who work for Google, and they just had a daughter (my first granddaughter) lately, so I get out there once in a while. I used to work for NASA and went out to Ames Research Center on Moffett Field quite often.MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,Very nice glider! Still beyond my capabilities to build! (Yeah... I know... No whining!)As for what part of the bay area? I'm right in Mountain View, about 2 miles from Google! Let me know when you're out here. Are you right in Blacksburg are closer to DC. I do make it out there now and then. Likely to be in Reston in a few months. Wow! maybe we can have a Knotsfest somewhere like the Breaktime fests!
J-man,
I certainly will let you know when we go out to visit my son's family. My wife and I live in Burke, VA which is near Springfield, VA. We are about 18 miles southwest of the Center of Washington, DC. We are not far from Reston at all. I am looking forward to meeting you, either on this coast or the other.MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
I really like what you had to say, I like the response even more.
Jointerman,'
Don't look at the Glider as beyond your ability. It makes you a better Craftsman to keep Challenging yourself. I have a hard time just looking at a piece without trying to dissect it and figure out, how did he do that.
I love reading what you both write, there are so many great personalities here on this forum.
Taigert
T,
Glad you liked the Glider. I had a lot of fun building it. It warmed my heart yesterday when my 18 month old grandson walked in the room, walked up to the glider, sat down and rocked as he watched Sesame Street. He actually likes the chair. Who woulda guessed?I think we all do the same thing, dissecting other people's projects to see how we think they are built. That is fun. I posted a second message in that thread with a bunch of photos I took as I was building it. I try to add in new features to each project that I make which will challenge me. I don't need any more furniture, so I don't do this stuff for "practical" reasons. I do it for the same reason other people do crossword puzzles - it makes me happy. I like the challenge of facing problems and figuring out ways to solve the problem.It occurs to me that the most important thing that a woodworker can have is the confidence to know that he can solve problems as they arise. It is a sense of self confidence that grows with time and experience. Have fun.
If you are ever coming close to Washington, DC, Please let me know, and stop over for dinner with your family, and we will swap some woodworking lies.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
FYI:Flight attendant on the plane today had a huge button on her uniform that said NO WHINING!
Good words.
Better life through Zoodles and poutine...
Peter,
You said "good words."
Thank you.
What were you referring to?
If I have said any good words, I want to remember them.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
The whole post was well thought out in my opinion.
Better life through Zoodles and poutine...
Why didn't you try again? I always allow someone to be busy and make a human error. If they ignore me two or three times, or are just plain incompetent then I take issue. Good ones don't, they just follow through. I would resend the email, and ask for a response again.
By the way I have the same flat bottom grind on a standard WWII to blade and it does cut slow, I just use it for cutting tenons and box joints. I also have a special 8% bevel grind which is a great time saver cutting tails on my TS as well.
AZMO <!----><!----><!---->
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-------(*)/ (*) http://www.EarthArtLandscape.com
I really shouldn't blame Forrest... I didn't try again because I'm just not that into the blade, the regular WW2 is nicer for ripping and crosscuts. I'll just use a dado blade for tenons.
It often helps to have the slightest taper. Glad everyting is working out now
I was told by an "old" guy that the fence should be set 1/64' wider at the rear in a perfect set up hhhmmmmmmmmm looks like the "old" guy was right.
What? did I say old guy? I meant old XXXX or old curmudgeon. :).
Hope you're continuing to read this thread -- this post by Rich14, for instance, and my reply. forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Yeah, still reading. Yes, results are the main thing. In , out, up down, if it takes that to do what you want, then do it. We should know our machines and their idiosyncrasies.
Jointer,
Try a 30 tooth blade for ripping. I have a few of the ww2s , I do not care for them when ripping maple or cherry . 30 tooth WW1 is my favorite. I have a Small slider as well, I use it strictly for crosscuts and straight line ripping with the sliding table.
On my slider the sliding table sits ever so slightly higher than the stationary area to the right of the blade by design. Although I do not use it for ripping I have always wondered how this would affect ripping performance as the stock being ripped is never laying flat on the table, Is the grizz set up this way?
By the way , That appears to be one fine saw, I have no doubt once you become familiar with it you will never look back, nice choice.
Tom.
The blade needs to be clean, it probably isn't at this point, and the fence needs to be parallel to the blade, it is probably toed in. If it is a heavy cut, you should be using a rip blade, not a combination, and some woods, like cherry and maple burn easily even when the saw is set up properly,
John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998-2007
I was just about to type almost word for word what you posted John. Made me laugh though. On any saw I have owned I have set the fence a tad out of parallel, maybe 1/32" away from the blade of course. I get accurate rips and probably less of a chance for kickback. This is the way I was taught. Though I have never used a unifence I like the idea of a short fence for ripping. I have clamped a short board to the beismier for the same effect.I have a lot of cherry, wood I sawed from trees that had to come down. I found that an Amana 18 teeth (I think)full kerf blade on a 3hp saw will rip cherry without burning. Powerfeeders also reduce or may eliminate burning cherry if one is available.
mike
So ripping a 5 foot long, 2-1/8 inch thick piece of Walnut on a FWW2 40T blade, I get a couple of very small burn spots (1-inch long?). Should I consider this good enough?
Is it the number of teeth, my technique or is it the set up? Thoughts?
Jointerman,I believe the problem may very well be too many teeth.I have practically eliminated this kind of thing with a 24 tooth blade. My choice is a FTG Freud blade. But just about any major manufacturer makes a blade that will perform equally. I also use a Felder blade because that's whats fits my machine, but it doesn't matter.It's really not the brand that matters any more. Every brand that gets mentioned in these forums is very good to excellent.Rich
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