Replies

1. 
   CStanford | Sep 16, 2009 09:09pm | #1

   I'm going to runout to see if I can find an answer for you.

   
   

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   Edited 9/16/2009 2:09 pm ET by CStanford

2. 
   RickL | Sep 16, 2009 10:00pm | #2

   Saw plate and tooth runout are pretty much the same to me. 

   2  Arbor runout

   3  Arbor Flange

   are the other two rounouts.

   I think your numbers are a bit low as well.  Woodworking tools never have the tolerances of metalworking. For example the top of a table saw allows .015" or 1/64" for flatness. A damp breeze blowing across your wood can cause more wood movement than that.

   http://www.ts-aligner.com/tsjrman2.pdf

   Here's some more info. BTW you don't need his aligner to check your saw. I have been working on saws professionaly long before such gadget were available and you can cobble up something simple with scraps of wood and feeler gauges or an import indicator which runs $15 from Enco.  TS Aligner uses import indicators.  No need for an expensive Starret.  Understanding whaty to look for and how to check is the key part. 

1. 
   tomwalz | Sep 16, 2009 10:18pm | #3

   I was lumping these under machine runout.    It does make more sense, especially from a troubleshooting viewpoint, to do it your way.

   I agree that wood specs are looser than metal specs but they are getting tighter all the time.  

   My thought was that runout was a pretty good, but not the only way, of measuring saw blade quality.

   Then I made the assumption, rightly or wrongly, that a really good job on stuff I could measure also meant a good job on everything.   E.G. small runout also meant really good tips, good brazing, etc. 

   Anyway your comments have helped me see things more clearly and I appreciate them. 

    

   Tom Walz 

    

    

1. 
   RickL | Sep 16, 2009 11:00pm | #4

   "I agree that wood specs are looser than metal specs but they are getting tighter all the time."You talking machine tolerances? Not true for the smaller hobby machines. Pretty much the same as they always have been as I've seen it over the last 30 years. The professional machines costing tens of thousands of dollars have higher tolerances and always have been. Joe Hobby guy would choke if he had to pay for the higher tolerances and it wouldn't  make his work any better.  " E.G. small runout also meant really good tips, good brazing, etc. "Carbide tips are oversized and ground after brazing to the plate hence they get smaller with each successive sharpening.Warped saw plates can be straightened somewhat. For sawmills it's retensioning and it's done by hammering. Kind of a dying art as few know how to do it anymore. I've had our 36" radial arm saw blades done. A bigger blade is more likely to have more runout than a small blade. 

   Edited 9/16/2009 7:08 pm ET by RickL

1. 
   SARGEgrinder47 | Sep 17, 2009 06:39pm | #9

   Joe Hobby guy would choke if he had to pay for the higher tolerances and it wouldn't  make his work any better.

   Morning Rick. I personally doubt paying for the higher tolerance WW machines would make anyone's wood-work any better as long as the lower tolerances were within reason which they generally are on less expensive WW machines. I am strickly talking about WW'ing as metal-working plays in an entirely different league. :>)

   Regards...Sarge..

   Woodworkers' Guild of Georgia

3. 
   hamelech | Sep 17, 2009 03:08am | #5

   Hi, Tom,

   In practical usage, runout either means a lot, or not.

   I once owned a Craftsman contractor table saw, runout was +/- .007", measured with the blade in the saw, just below the gullets.. For cutting 2 x 4's and plywood sheathing, the saw was more accurate than necessary.

   For fine woodworking, not so much. I totally dismantled the saw, and had a machine shop machine the arbor face. Runout dropped to +/- .002" which was as good as that saw would ever get. Then I solved the run out problem by selling the saw.

   Now, I make stave snare drums. Know that a small cumulative error repeated over 32 or 40 bevels can be big enough to cause open joints, which is visually unappealing. I use a router table with a chamfer bit to make the bevels, and shim the router until the joints are perfectly closed. Whatever the router's runout is doesn't really matter, because the runout is not seen in the final joint.

   Cheers,

   Seth

4. 
   roc | Sep 17, 2009 06:21am | #6

   Glad you started all this thousandths and ten-thousandths talk. When I do it I get death threats and my phone is bugged. Just somethin' Unamurkin about that kinda talk around a woodworking forum.

   Everyone will think I mis took but when I got my little cheepy Delta damaged in shipping table saw home and started in to file the lumps out of the problem areas to turn it into an accurate saw . . .

   I measured these areas of which you speak with a dial indicator ( and I am a metal turner first and a woodworker third so used to using the indicators etc. ) I found less than two thou run out at the carbides and much less at the arbor.

   Totally blew me away.

   Of course one of the three 8 x 1 mm motor housing mount bolts was stripped out in the aluminum case . Hellicoil time. Is one of the so called "Direct drive " saws that isn't. Has a belt inside the case. But that is a different story.

   I think saw plate runout at the gullets is irrelevant; the sides of the carbides are ground and that is what makes the cut. The plate can wobble a bit if the carbides run on track. Of course if the plate is messed up down by the arbor that is a different story.

   No I don't recommend this saw or doing what I did. Just stubborn cause I couldn't buy the saw I remembered from my high school wood shop. Price way up for top of the line and quality is crap in my opinion compared with those old saws.

   roc

   Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

   
   

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   Edited 9/16/2009 11:28 pm by roc

1. 
   tomwalz | Sep 17, 2009 06:29pm | #8

   When I got started in woodworking I knew a guy named Carroll Sizemore.  He liked the stubborn customers that always wanted things better because he said that was where the industry was going. 

   <!----><!----> <!---->

   I do know some sawing applications need ultra precise saws.    See Super Thin Saws.    They don’t do 10” blades.  Say they are too big for them.   http://www.superthinsaws.com/

   <!----> <!---->

   Tom<!----><!---->

5. 
   Frozen | Sep 17, 2009 05:53pm | #7

   I either run out of

   time,

   money,

   or enthusiasm.

   “Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards Opportunity.”

   Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

6. 
   bones | Sep 17, 2009 11:49pm | #10

   Interesting thread.  Now that you mentioned it, I'm just curious how all those masters from long ago that made such works of art in furniture thought about accuracy or even measured it, or even cared.  Not saying this to be a smart arse, just curious.  

   I was married by a judge - I should have asked for a jury.
   George Burns

1. 
   CStanford | Sep 18, 2009 12:33am | #11

   One can knife a workpiece, crosscut with a handsaw, and plane to absolute dead square. You just can't do eighty cuts like that an hour. If you're building furniture a project at a time you usually don't have to.

   Edited 9/18/2009 11:27 am ET by CStanford

1. 
   SARGEgrinder47 | Sep 18, 2009 01:50am | #12

   Life is simple .. until you create a way to complicate it. Put a precision measuring instrument intended for metal-workers in a wood-workers hands and he or she will find a way from what I have observed over the last several years since the digital this and digital that found a way to market and people bought into the .0000  or close before you can use the machine efficiently.

   Where have all the flowers gone? :>)

    Sarge..

   Woodworkers' Guild of Georgia

1. 
   CStanford | Sep 18, 2009 06:33pm | #13

   The average hobby tablesaw usually can't produce as square a cut right off the equipment than I can do with hand tools. If it's not wobble and runout, it's a hump or dip in the cast iron surface, miter gauge out, saw plate out of true, etc.Then there's user error - piece slips a little in the miter gauge or sled. Sled is slightly out. Track on bottom of sled and miter gauge slot has a touch of slop. I could go on and on.I am guaranteed success as long as my Starrett doesn't get knocked out of square. I try not to drop it.I like looking at a set of knifed lines and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I'm looking at a square end. I just remove the wood down to the lines and move on.No angst.

   Edited 9/18/2009 11:40 am ET by CStanford

2. 
   roc | Sep 19, 2009 04:59am | #14

   >people bought into the .0000 <I agree with what you are saying.I just happened to buy a damaged saw that I knew I could fix and already had the dial indicator for years before the wood bug bit. So I wanted to see how bad this dirt cheep saw I bought was and turns out the arbor and blade were way precise.More precise than I needed. So I said yipeee and thanked the poweres that be.End o' the story.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

1. 
   SARGEgrinder47 | Sep 19, 2009 04:18pm | #15

   From 1972-1974 I worked with a J.C. Penny Shopmate circular saw mounted under a piece of ply. A hollow ground planer blade which was the only thing that gave smooth cuts in those days. Then I took a large step up to a Craftsman contractor which I used for about 8 years before getting a PM 66 from a school who was dropping shop. I had to sell it around 1986 for personal reasons.

   The issue of run-out and flat tables were never an issue on any of those saws as I never checked it nor gave it one moment's though after squaring the miter gauge with shims and checking the fence with an engineers square. But.. I did fill two houses with furniture on those saws. I doubt seriously that the circular or Craftsman were within today's so called tolerance levels (one's that include people demanding a .0015 dip in the middle of an extension wing which has no relevance what-so-ever be replaced by the manufacturer) but... there was no physical indication in results that required bothering to inspect.

   So... my conclusion is results walk and BS talks.... ha..ha..

   Have a good day...Sarge..

   Woodworkers' Guild of Georgia

2. 
   roc | Sep 20, 2009 06:13am | #16

   >circular saw under ply for quick table saw<Hey ! You'd be proud of me . . .http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=45006.3even has miter slots for the little panel cutting sled for cutting miniature parts.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

3. 
   SARGEgrinder47 | Sep 20, 2009 05:03pm | #17

   Probably wasn't anything overly quick about my make-shift. I duct taped the trigger and plugging in and un-plugging was On-Off. Mine had a 3/4" miter slot for cross-cuts also... the gauge was a 3/4" strip of hardwood with a 90 degree piece screwed on it. I worked fine.

   The fence was a piece of angle aluminum with C clamps holding it to the table on each end. You had to measure from the blade to fence on front of blade.. then clamp and repeat the procedure from fence to rear tooth of blade. Once done.. you had to re-check the distances and bump it where necessary before you completely tightened down the C clamps.

   So.. nothing really quick about that saw (nor safe for that matter) but.. it was my TS and with a TS I could make things. I was young and didn't mind the in-convenience as I saw it as a triumphant over poverty and not being able to afford a high dollar contractor saw at that time. But.. nothing was going to stop me from making things so... you do what have to do. Sarge is the name and field expediency is my game! ha.. ha... ha..ha..ha..Sarge..

   Woodworkers' Guild of Georgia

4. 
   zolton | Sep 20, 2009 06:57pm | #18

   Sarge, Your tablesaw solution and attitude about using it reminds me of a quote attributed to Hannibal: "I will find a way - or make one." ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon

5. 
   roc | Sep 20, 2009 08:27pm | #19

   Sarge has come a long way since those days of circular saw under the plywood !http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=44128.57I remember this post from way back. Very nice set up !rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

   Edited 9/20/2009 1:31 pm by roc