Ripping on a sliding table saw.
jointerman
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
For the folks with that know how to use a sliding table saw, I have a question. Am I supposed to be doing most of my ripping on the sliding carriage?
I realized the other day that if I’m ripping a narrow strip say a 1- inch strip off of a 3-inch wide board, the cut might not be square because the sliding table sits about 1/16 of an inch above the table top of the table saw deck.
Am I supposed to just use a short rip fence as a stop guide and then put the board on the carriage and use the carriage and roll the board across the saw blade where the 1-inch final cut will fall off the right side of the blade?
As much as I love the sliding table saw, I’m still trying to figure out how to work with it efficiently
Replies
Sir Jointerman,
I do not have a answer because I do not have a 'true' slider. Mine is a aftermarket slider on a plain old tablesaw. I have mine level with the saw table.
I sure would like to see a picture of your saw! I could never afford one...
I am VERY curious to know why the sliding table would be raised above the main table. Less friction? I will watch this post for more information.
With my slider', I never use the tablesaw fence. I clamp my work onto the sliding table or use a wooden fence (Left side of the stick away from the blade) I made up to fit my slider. My fence that has two knobs/bolts so I can adjust it. When I cut thin strips (I do often) I use my standard fence with a 'reference guide' in my miter slot to reposition my standard fence for the next cut. The strips are 'sort of' the same thickness. Very close, but I cut them a bit oversized and run then through my drum sander to finish off to equil thickness.
Sorry that I bumped your post. I would like to know more about a 'true' slider.....
Will,
I will try using the slider to rip wood as you mentioned, it's still somewhat of a foreign concept to me. If you want, I'll post some pictures of the saw, it's a grizzly slider, so the cost wasn't quite as high as that as a Felder or Hammer. On a "true" slider, the sliding carriage sits next to the left side of the blade, in fact it serves as the left table. It turns out that it's actually only 1/64 inch above the main table. I've seen other sliders and this appears to be the standard.
I am still drooling over sliders (don't have one yet) but I would use the slider to rip one straight edge, and from there, use the fence.
I have a Felder slider.
First, it sounds as if your slider is too high relative to the cast iron. Some Felder owners adjust their slider to be level with the cast iron. Mine is a few thou above. 1/16 is definitely too much.
For ripping (on Felders), there is a parallel fence that helps hold the work. I also use the stock fence, just like a regular table saw. Make sure the fence is in its lower position.
Others have a shop-made sled that holds the stock on the slider.
The Felder Owners Group might be helpful to you even if your slider is a different make.
The Felder videos I found on Youtube are what got me to thinking about how one rips wood on a sliding table saw. For ripping, the videos mainly showed the use of the sliding carriage. There are a lot of different techniques for sliding table saws that I should start learning, time to watch some videos.
I wonder if maybe FWW should do an article on using sliding table saws?
I have an older SCMI at work, and now a brand new Technomax combo with slider for my home shop. In both cases, the sliding carriage is nowhere near 1/16" above the table. I haven't measured it, but my eye tells me it's more like 1/64" - barely perceptible. In theory, the problem you pose exists, but In 15 years of work with a slider I've never had it actually cause a discernible problem.
Mr Ring,
I just ran out to the shop to measure how high the sliding table is, according to my dial caliper it's 1/64. I guess eyeballing things isn't a good way to measure!
So do you use the sliding carriage to rip or do you rip the standard way with the rip fence. I haven't had problems with standard ripping, but looking at the narrow stock recently, it looked like the 1/64 of an inch could effect this cut.
I am considering a slider and the price of the Grizzly certainly is appealing. So a slight deviation from the topic, but still about your saw....
How do you like your saw, ripping issue aside? Are adjustments easy to make... can you, in fact, lower the slider table if you choose to? Any vibration that's nasty? And the all important accuracy of the sliding carriage.... do you get 90º cuts?
Thanks.
Sap,
Yes you can lower the slider. There are height adjustment screws under the carriage, it turns out that mine is at 1/64 of an inch above the main table and not 1/16th as I originally mentioned. I believe that the idea of having the carriage slightly above the main table is so that work can actually slide across the blade and not be dragging across the table.
As for the saw, I love the saw. I choose this one because it has a standard 5/8" arbor and can actually use my dado blade set.
Adjustments are very easy, you can remove the outrigger table in less than a minute. The cross cut fence can be re-positioned for front or back of the work piece very quickly; there are adjustable stops for this so you don't have to readjust the fences for each set up. The downside is that there are no reverse angle marks on the big miter fence (it comes with a small miter gauge and large crosscut fence).
Let me know if you have any other questions. I can post pictures too if you'd like.
Which one of the Griz machines do you have? Photos of a fair size panel going through it would be nice to see.
There is a Grizzly outlet within driving distance of me so I will certainly look at one before biting. But having your observations beforehand is valuable.
I've got the G0623X. I don't have any panels to cut right now. I think that a friend is bringing over some plywood next weekend to cut, so I'll post some pictures then. My carriage only has a 70~ inch capacity so it will not do a full 4x8 sheet of plywood. It's not a problem for me since I rarely work with panels or I can break them down with my Festool track saw.
The good thing about the Grizzly is that it comes with a lot of standard accessories like the crosscut table and fence. The only real down side is that Grizzly doesn't seem to carry extra accessories, but luckily Felder/Hammer Accessories fit. I just bought a clear blade guard from Felder, I don't know why but for some reason, I need to see the wood in the blade! I will probably order an edging shoe at some point, but can likely just make one.
I use the carriage to take the first cut, with a hold-down at the front and me at the rear. Then use the fence to the right of the blade like any tablesaw. But even a very small bit riding on the carriage makes the cuts glide quite easily.
We regularly glue up tabletops and such right from the rip cuts (no additional jointer) and never have a problem because the angle might be affected by the height difference you mention. It just isn't an issue.
As others have said, 1/16" is
As others have said, 1/16" is a rather high step between the fixed and the sliding table, and it will cant stock of small section rather too much. I've been using these sliding table saws since the 1970s and, apart from occasionally ripping an initial straight edge using the sliding table I've always just used the rip fence for ripping jobs.
For the most part the sawn edge isn't the finished edge anyway as a pass through the thicknesser usually finishes the job off and ensures trueness.
I think your first task is probably to adjust that sliding table down setting it more like 0.1 or 0.3 mm above the fixed table. I guess those suggested measurements equate to something like 1/128" or 1/256"-- pretty darned small anyway, ha, ha. Slainte.
Had The Same Problem
Even a 64th is not good for precision joinery. I looked at my instruction manual and the lesser of two evils was definitely to shim and raise the table and not mess with the slider. I went ahead and bought a bunch of different size precision shims at aloma.com and got everything to exactly level. You will see some slider die-hards have a religious opinion about these things, but there is no serious drag when using the slider and I find having the wood firmly planted on the slider and the table reduces some tearout situations.
Having an American cabinet saw previously with an aftermarket slider that always fell out of parallel I was also scared to mess with the factory setting on the slider.
Before I got out of procrastinating that fix I would do the rip with a smidge extra and then rip again so the piece was not overlapping the slider to get a perpendicular cut.
An American cabinet saw certainly excels at easy ripping, but I appreciate that a true slider design kind of forces you to not stand directly behind the blade to prevent a kickback injury.
You've got two pair 17mm bolts on the front/rear of the slider
It can be time consuming but I got it right. Get a couple of straight edges, at least one that's 50 inches to cover the width of the saw, extension table to slide. The bolts above small bar 1" x 3" under the slider can be rotated to raise and lower the slider. The four on the underside are used after you got it to the correct height. There are two nylon bolts, one at each end of the slider to snug things up when you've got it right.
If you don't want to mess with the slider you could put 1/4 inch hardboard under the stock you're ripping, maybe with some double sided tape. Have the smooth side of the hardboard against the table. That should help keeping the stock square to the blade. Add one or two feather boards to the rip fence to help control the stock.
"If it can't be fixed, it's broke."
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