Ridgid R4512 Table Saw Fence Alignment

[John Nicoletti]

Let me preface this with I'm a complete beginner to woodworking....

I picked up a Ridgid 4512 saw a couple of weeks ago and just got around to assembling it this weekend, it's quite the upgrade from a $200 Delta portable saw! Everything has gone well, except for the fence. Out of the box, the fence would not sit on the rail. With the clamp open, the fence wasn't open enough to grab the back rail and push down into the front rail. Unfortunately, nothing in the manual 9that I saw) stated how to fix this, so I had to tinker with it. I eventually found that if I loosened the nut on the back of the fence, it opened the jaw, allowing me to fit the fence in the T-Channel in the front.

However, no matter what I try, I can't seem to get consistent results with the fence, aligning it to the Mitre slot. I am using a Mag-Dro in the Mitre slot with a Digital Caliper. At this time, below are three arbitrary readings I took:

.8500 Front
.8480 Back

.7880 Front
.7895 Back

.7970 Front
.7880 Back

So I'm anywhere from 0.0015 - 0.0090, and it looks like the back is tipped in to the blade consistently, which I believe is a bad thing, right? Shouldn't the back be, if anything, tipped away from the blade 0.0015 or so? Anyway, here's what I'm seeing....

I can align the fence to the slot but the minute I clamp the fence down, it's shifting and kicks in toward the blade a bit. I messed with it for about an hour last night trying the following:

Fence unclamped:

Loosen the 4 fence bolts and do the major adjustment
Use the nut on the back of the fence to add tension
Ensure the rails are tight

Other then thinking it's a bad fence since it came way off out of the box, is there anything I'm missing with the adjustments or alignments?

Any help is appreciated! I'm itching to get this fired up and cut some lumber!

Thank you in advance!

[Brian Tymchak]

So I'm anywhere from 0.0015 - 0.0090, and it looks like the back is tipped in to the blade consistently, which I believe is a bad thing, right?

John, welcome to the Creek! IMHO, I think these results are well within acceptable deviation, especially with a contractor style saw. Woodworking is not an exact science. We aren't building space ships. And I suspect most times after making a cut, you will be further massaging the cut, either by sanding, planing, jointing, or other joint fitting.

Yes, it is better to have the tail end of the fence slightly off the blade compared to the front, maybe a couple thousandths or so. I have a Ridgid 3650 and found it difficult to make that adjustment on the stock fence. So, I left it alone, making sure it was consistent front to back vs the miter slot. I have since gone to the Incra fence system which was a bit of a splurge justified by adding a router table to the left side of the TS table. However, the stock fence, used with the splitter, was very adequate in my opinion.

[john bateman]

There is a Ridgid woodworking tool forum. You might find more specific knowledge of your saw there.

I think we're not allowed to post links to other forums here, but you can google ridgidforums.

[Chad Bender]

I have the Craftsman version of that saw, and just re-did the fence alignment this past weekend following a cross-country move. (I don't know if the fence is the same, but from your description, it sounds like it is.)

I only have an analog dial indicator, which I attached to a small jig that rides in the miter slot. But I had no trouble getting the fence to toe out a few thousands. It sounds like you're almost there.

Setting aside the tension adjustment nut on the back of the fence, there are 4 adjustment screws on the front.

Two control vertical tip-tilt. I adjusted those by eye with a 12" ruler, so that they were roughly even. If they are out of adjustment and the fence is tilted, it will be difficult to slide in the rail. When they are in adjustment the fence should slide easily.

The large adjustment screws on the front can be tweaked (try very small turns - 1/8 of a rotation or less) to control the parallelness of the fence and the toe.

It also helps with this fence to push it forward firmly against the rails before tightening it down.

I'll also agree with the previous comments that 'it's wood, not metal'. Precision is good, but don't go crazy aiming for perfection. There is a point where your joints will closeup just fine, and corners will be square. That's "good enough". There's no reason to continue fiddling, no matter what your dial indicator says.

[John Nicoletti]

All,

Thank you for the information!

@Chad Bender -
Your post is really helpful, because I didn't realize that out of the four allen head bolts in the fence, each set does a different thing! I was loosening all 4 at once and trying to adjust. My fence looks like this. So the two screws closest to the table deal with the height of the fence and the two closest to the operator align the fence left/right? One thing I will say is that my fence's height isn't even. The front of the fence, closest to the operator is a nice distance off the table. The rear of the fence slopes down pretty hard to where it's almost touching the table.

@John Bateman -
Thank you! Registered there and posted the same question.

@Brian Tymchak -

Thank you for the welcome! I'm glad to hear I'm on the right track. I'm just hoping to get it a little bit closer in deviation between the best

[Chad Bender]

John - Based on that picture, the locking/rail piece of your fence is different than the craftsman model.

However, those difference may be mostly superficial.

I suspect that two of those bolts still control vertical tip-tilt. Try adjusting the two closest to the blade, one at a time, with the fence unlocked, and see if it adjusts the height of the fence off the table. If so, adjust those so the whole thing is even and moves smoothly.

[John Nicoletti]

Hi everyone, just wanted to give an update...

It turns out that two of the four fence adjustment screws on my fence are stripped so it wouldn't fully tighten down after I adjusted the fence. I called up Ridgid and my replacement should be here tomorrow! I will update once I align the replacement.

[scott spencer]

John, you may already be aware, and I doubt this is the cause of any deviation you're finding, but those Ridgid dual lock fences tend be more consistent if you push forward after setting the fence before locking them down.

[John Nicoletti]

John, you may already be aware, and I doubt this is the cause of any deviation you're finding, but those Ridgid dual lock fences tend be more consistent if you push forward after setting the fence before locking them down.

Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I have read that in the past and am doing that before locking.

Alright, so the new fence is here! Out of the box, the fence, once again, would not fit on the table rails. The clamping mechanism was too tight and it wouldn't hook the back and sit in the front rail. So I loosened the nut again, got it to fit and am still having problems aligning it. Here are my steps:

1. Unclamp fence, loosen 4 nuts, setup caliper in Mitre slot with Mag-Dro.
2. Measure from front of fence at the start of the mitre slot.
3. Measure from the back of the fence at the end of the mitre slot

At one point, I got the fence, in that state above (unclamped, bolts loose) to within 2 thousandths of an inch, toed away from the blade. I was so happy! I tightened the fence bolts and checked, we were still good! BUT, the minute I clamped the fence down, it jumped to about 4 hundreths of an inch off.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can make sure when I actually align the fence, I can get it to STAY that way?

Here was a thought I had...I'm thinking of removing the fence, coating everything with some SC Johnsons Paste Wax (including the front and back rails), attaching the fence, tightening the nut down as tight as I can so the fence doesn't move on the rail, then slowly, at a 1/4 turn a piece, loosen that nut until I get the fence to glide smoothly.

I'm starting to think that my problem is the nut that adjusts the back clamp is too loose. So no matter what I do to align the fence, there is too much play in the whole assembly and it shifts when locked. If I tighten down now and try the above (without the wax), the fence is too hard to slide and move on the track. By time I loosen it enough to where I can move it, it simply is too loose and I wind up with this problem.

Does anyone see a problem with this? Is it ok to give the rails and maybe even part of the fence assembly (where the T is that sits in the front) some Johnson's paste wax for better movement? I'm thinking this may give me the best/tightest fit of the whole assembly, yet still allowing me to slide it.

Any opinions are appreciated, as I plan to go get the wax later tonight and see what I can do!

Thank you!

[Patrick Lesher]

Hey John,
I had that same saw for a few years and never had an issue getting the fence on and off. I would have to wiggle it back and forth a little and then it would pop down into place. I did wax the rails which helped a lot.

Could the rear rail be on backwards or upside down?

I ended up putting the Incra TS/LS combo on it after the movers bent the Ridgid rails. It bolted right on and was amazing. Incra has some sales every once in a while and are great to work with. I liked the TS/LS so much I moved it to my new sawstop.

[John Nicoletti]

I verified that the rails were installed correctly, parallel and level. I fought with the fence (both old and replacement) for over 3 hours the other day and got no where. The new fence was consistently 1/10th off. The original fence was a little be better but did get deviations to 4/100ths off. I was so annoyed that I spent the following 1.5 hours breaking the saw down, throwing it in the box and returned it to Home Depot on Monday. I understand there are saws way more expensive then that, however, no matter what, a $600 saw should at least have a fence that can be made accurate.

With that said, after returning the saw on Monday, I popped over to Lowes and picked up a Delta 36-725 as a replacement. The box was pretty beat up so I'm hoping everything is ok for installation. I did do a quick check once I got home and all parts seem to be OK and the hardware bags are unopened. Here's to tackling this build over the next week!