contractor saw trunnion adjustment -help
Hello all. I’ve been lurking here for a couple of years I think, learned a bunch, never had a question till now and certainly have not felt qualified to answer any questions.
My question(s) regard adjusting the blade parallel to the mitre slot for a Jet 12″ contractor saw, model JTS-12. I called Jet a few days ago, they couldn’t find a manual to help me, said they will call back when they find the manual – guess it’s buried somewhere.
By way of backgrond, I recently purchased this saw from a next door neighbor who is liquidating her deceased husband’s workshop. I checked the saw out at her house and it seemed to be in reasonable adjustment, and cut just fine. Unfortunately, in getting the saw home, I had a brain lock and allowed it to fall over, knocking it badly out of line. I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to get it adjusted correctly. I looked up procedures for adjusting the trunnions and have tried loosening all four trunnion bolts, leaving one front one snug and loosening three, leaving the front two snug and trying to move only the back trunnion. Under no combination can I get closer than .015″. It appears that I have no adjustment room left on the rear trunnion – it needs to go to the right as you look at the saw. Try as I might, I can’t get the front trunnion to move to the left at all, though looking at it, it appears like it has a bunch of room to go. None of the procedures I found mention loosening the blade tilt mechanism, but it sure looks to me like it would keep the front trunnion from budging. Should I try this? Also the rear trunnion mechanism has some play in it. I clamped it with a C clamp, but even after that I can still wiggle it over by several thousandths. Is this normal? If so, does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with it? In the latest interation, in exasperation I just tightened things back up and decided I would check the fence for parallel to the mitre slot. Serendipitously it is exactly .015″ out, in the same direction as the blade. I fired the saw up, made a test rip and the width measured dead on – as close as I could measure with a steel tape. Soooo, I’m tempted to call it quits and live with it – would appreciate any thoughts.
My apologies for an exceeding long post. Hopefully, I will learn not to be so long winded in the future.
Replies
Loosen all four bolts. This will allow you to make coarse adjustments so you can snug one and do the fine tuning. If you can't get it after this, something is probably bent.
Thanks for your response. I have tried loosening all four bolts. My problem is that I can't get the front trunnion to budge - I think the rear is over as far as it can go. Any tricks for moving that front trunnion?
I had a similar problem with my Rockwell contractor saw, had to pull the entire assembly and elongate the holes on my drill press.Good luck,Leon Jester, Roanoke VA
You might need to remove the trunnions and elongate the bolt holes to get more leeway for adjustment.
Don't try to live with it. Even if you set the fence parallel to the balde, you won't get decent crosscuts unless the blade is parallel to the miter slot.
I had exactly the same problem with my 10" Jet contractor's saw, which probably got dropped when the guy I bought it from put it in the van (I wasn't there, more's the pity).
Do not, I repeat, do not!, go drilling out holes to make them bigger. The problem may very well be that the connection bars between the front and the back trunnions are seriously out of parallel. I got my blade fairly parallel to the miter slot, but when it was tipped to 45* it was way the hell out. My solution was to call Jet and find out who, locally, repaired Jet machines. They gave me the guy's phone number, and he fixed it for about $60. I took the saw to him. It takes someone who's done this a few times, when the thing gets out of whack real bad.
I don't have any secrets to tell you that will help, but I will say that I am very, very, very glad that people here at Knots warned me not to go drilling holes in the darned thing. If it was lined up properly at one time, it can be again.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I'll vote with Forestgirl on this one. Expanding those holes may be necessary, but only as a last resort. It worked with the holes as they are so something else is almost certainly causing the problem.
Is there a Jet repair center near you - or a tool store that carries Jet tools? You may be better off having it worked over by a pro.
Hello. I have had the exact same problem with my Delta Con. saw. Delta could not help me over the phone so they sent out a techie. He told me he has no idea why Delta does not tell people how to fix this because it is so easy. All you have to do for a major realignment is loosen the two targe trunion nuts at the rear of the saw and twist the motor in the desired direction, I am pretty sure that you need your four trunnion to table bolts loosened at the time. Lastly, my saw went out of alignment the first time I tilted to 45 degrees. The techie said that you need to clamp the front trunnion and the rear one together to suck up any slop in between which causes the trunnion to twist and go out of alignment.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I don't think I will mess with elongating the holes till after I have tried the Jet repair route. Unfortunately, I live in boons, the nearest repair center is 1 1/2 hours away. That, plus the hassle of breaking the saw down into managable pieces so I can move it by myself make me think I will wait till the New Year for that. In the interim, I am going to try the suggestion to move the motor. If that doesn't work, I'll just live with it till January.
One additional question - with the blade in the vertical position, you can change the angle of the blade a fair amount by moving the motor housing. It will fall back into position when you let go. I was wondering if this amount of play in the angle positioner is normal for an older contractor saw?
Again, thanks for your responses.
I'm in the boonies too, in a sense, living on an island that's quite close to Seattle, but far away from a land route to anywhere that's metropolitan. I called the repair guy and arranged to meet him at a lumberyard about 45 minutes from my house when he had a repair appointment out there! It worked great. Are there any cabinet shops, mills, etc., near you?? If they have any repair things scheduled you might be able to meet up with one of the guys for help.
Also, just by calling around you might run across someone who can fix it.
A cautionary note: Be extremely careful if the saw is out of alignment. That increases your chances of kickback. And, take a look and see what type of alignment you have when the saw is tilted to 45*s. It could be magnified from what it is at 90*s.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Thanks FG for the tips. I will be very cautious. I have two small tables to build before Christmas and will be doing only ripping with the blade straight up. Cross cuts I will do on my mitre saw. I am already a paranoid when using a table saw. I am very, very fond of all my fingers, and don't wish to experience what a piece of wood feels like fired at me like a bullet.
Sounds good. I used mine in a similar limited fashion while it was scr... messed up, and canted the fence to be parallel to the blade. Let us know how it turns out!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Hi again. You stated that you looked at the saw and it was in good alignment when you bought it. Having stated that, you obviously should not elongate the holes because it can naturally go back to alignment unless something was bent in the fall, in which case you need to straighten it.
Thanks Peter. I do plan to have an authorized Jet repair person look at it, if I can't get it back into alignment myself. Elongating the holes would only be something I would do if a repair person that knows Jet equipment and this saw in particular. I don't think I have reached the root cause of the problem yet, which is what I intend to do.
I have a Delta 10" con. saw. As I move a board through the cut the back of the blade burns the material. I tried every adjustment that I know. Is this the same problem you were having?
I have had this problem before but it is always a problem with the fence and the blade not being parallel. If my blade is slightly out of parallel to the miter slot, I don't worry about it I just adjust my fence slightly [ unifence system ]. You can still tune your miter gauge to be square to the blade but any sleds that you have may now be out of tune. Having said all that, I usually set my fence to be about 1/64 of an inch out of parallel to the blade, with the rear of the blade being a slightly larger measurement to the fence. If the wood is burning at the back of the blade then it must be getting pinched which is a very dangerous situation because of kickback.
How did your saw alignment work out?
Thanks for asking. I've not done anything further in trying to adjust it. I used the saw (with the fence aligned with the blade) to complete building two tables I was building for Christmas presents for my daughters - finished them 30 minutes before my youngest daughter arrived for the holidays!!
Anyway, I do not plan to use the saw till I can get it looked at by an authorized Jet technician. Looks like the nearest authorized Jet repair is in Greensboro, NC about 70 miles away, so I'll contact them right after the first of the year, dismantle the saw so I can handle it properly this time, and tote it up there.
Wilkes, Examine The bolts one at a time and check for bends. If not caused by bent bolts, maybe one offending trunnion hole needs to be reamed slightly larger to allow further adjustment.
Also, the lock washers have a tendency to dig into the metal and seem to want to stay where it is. Try to file off any 'Ridges' made by the lockwashers and you might gain the needed corrective space.
Good luck Steinmetz
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