The reality of a contractor’s saw

forestgirl | Posted in John White on March 18, 2006 11:01am

There have been a couple of threads recently about this or that contractor’s saw that was out of adjustment .001 with the blade raised (or lowered), or .003 — you know, to the miter slot…..

I haven’t set my new dial indicator to the saw yet, but what’s reasonable to expect, given the way they’re built (motor hanging off the back and such). Does a .003 difference (or .001) cause real-world problems? Can they be dealt with by simply toeing out the fence?

I’m not going to put my saw through psychoanalysis until I know what not to worry about, ROFL!

BTW, my saw cuts just fine as long as the operator is paying attention to details.

forestgirl — you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of the girl 😉

Replies

JohnWW | Mar 19, 2006 02:14am | #1
Forestgirl,

The standard contractor's saw was never intended to be a precision tool for cabinetmaking and almost everything about their design works against getting them properly lined up in the first place or keeping them in line for very long.

They were, as their name suggests, meant to be used to build houses, and that meant mostly ripping construction stock with the blade vertical to the table, and they do that pretty well, but when trying to crosscut, or cut with the blade tilted, the saw's limitations start to show up.

So it isn't worth getting worked up over having a contractor's saw tuned to the last.001". You'll notice that I almost never get involved in threads discussing tuning up contractor's saws and this is because they just aren't capable of being lined up all that well no matter how hard you try. Contractor's saws are also the most difficult saw to adjust, they seem to have been designed to frustrate attempts to tune them up.

So take an hour to tune it up as best you can, and then make furniture with it, with the understanding that not every cut will be perfect right off the saw but that you can compensate and adjust fits as you go. Also, you'll get a lot more accuracy out of a contractor's saw if you never tilt it off of vertical.

John