Grizzly G0623x Sliding Table Parallelism Adjustment Frustrations

[Brent Ring]

All,

I wasted nearly 8 hours yesterday trying to get my sliding table parallelism adjustment back into alignment. It started when I was checking my crosscut fence using the 5 cut method. The 4th cut always ended up tapering 1/2 way thru the cut, so that it was not flat, when I turned to take the 5th cut. I checked the parallelism, and it looks to be out anywhere from .030 to .060 out at the starting end of the sliding table, I cannot seem to get it any closer than that.

I am using the marked tooth on the blade-miter slot measurement method that Grizzly recommends, and have tried a known good combination square, and digital calipers. I got it as close as .020, but the manual recommends that it should be at least .004. I cannot get it closer.

The slider on the Grizzly uses two allen bolts with a lock nut for adjustment. The difficult part for me is knowing what distance to adjust. If I close one side, the other opens up.

I am using a Forrest WWII blade. It recently, and unknowingly, knicked a pin nail in a piece of wood. The cut quality does not seem to be diminished, but I wonder if the blade has somehow changed its properties.

Anyway, I really need to get this aligned back and running correctly. I love my slider when it is working correctly. I am going to need to be able to cut some 1/8" and .090" thin strips for laminations I will be doing and need the saw working correctly for that.

I may be overadjusting. Normally a 1/4 to 1/2 turn of the adjustment bolts.

And one last question - how far away is the sliding table generally supposed to be from the blade and fixed cast iron portion of the saw? 1/8" inch? Less or more?

Any advice?

Brent

[David T gray]

I use a dial gauge with a magnetic base i made a steel plate that bolts to the t slot for mounting the magnetic base . you could also clamp it to your miter gauge just make sure it wont move. remove the outrigger. tighten down one side of the slider so it wont move now zero the dial on that side of blade move slider to other side of blade pull the slider till the dial guage zero or the amount the bolts move the table mine is around .005 and bolt it down into place move it back to other side of the blade dial reads zero tighten every thing down even more check it again still zero your done you saw is now within .001 over 7 or so inches.

Don't set the t slot (miter slot) to the blade set the movement of the slider to the blade the aluminum extrusion isn't straight or flat and they can also be twisted.

when i tighten the bolts on mine the slider moves away from the blade your might also so tighten it down with the dial on the blade and see how much it moves and pull the slider out that much then tighten back to zero on the dial just try and get a feel for what happens when you tighten it down and you should be able to get within .001 mine was .0000 on my digital dial gauge

if you don't have a dial gauge go buy one.

now use the five cut method to square the fence to the blade.

also before you do any of this make sure the slider isnt to high in relation to the cast iron mine was way off i fixed it a few days ago got it down to +/-.002.

[Craig Shewmake]

My whole slider was out of alignment day one. I ended up taking the outrigger portion off the slider and started from scratch. Removing the outrigger is a MUST when adjusting anything on the slider!!!! The slider itself was lower in height than the the cast iron table top and it was also not level with the cast iron top from the blade edge to the outer edge of the slider. It was not fun getting that lined up using the 4 bolts underneath the slider. As you say, you adjust one of the four and it changes the others. It took me many many hours of trial and error to get that all straightened out. Just yesterday, I got the slider, cast iron top, and two side tables all lined up and level. I then added the outrigger and made sure that was level with all the other surfaces.

Last but not least checked I the parallelism and sad to say it is off .006. from one side of the blade to the other. Arrrrrghhhh

Tomorrow I will attempt to adjust one of the bolts that align it but as you know, i have to loosen those damn 4 bolts under the slider to get it to move. I am dreading even touching them because of the movement caused with even a slight turn so i feel your pain . You also have to compensate a little for that last final wrenching since there seems to be a little give and or movement in the direction of the turning.

I am using a dial gauge screwed into a piece of wood clamped down against the fence that is set at 90 to the slider.

Hopefully, I can slightly loosen those four bolts without changing the slider height/level orientation enough to be able to adjust one of the parallel bolts to get it in line.

[David T gray]

wow it only has 4 bolts thats madness.

[Craig Shewmake]

wow it only has 4 bolts thats madness.

This is how the G0623X is on one end. The two bolts adjust the height and levels on one end of the slider. The bolt to the left is the parallel adjustment. It was a real pain to get the slider hight adjusted and level with the saw table top. Lots of trial and error because a 1/8 turn on any of the 4 bolts made a difference and of course changed the levels at the other 3. Now that its all level the only issue is like the OP's. But to adjust the parallel bolt you have to loosen the 4 bolts holding the slider up. Hopefully it wont be too difficult.

For the OP, the gap between the slider and the cast iron top is 1/8" on mine on one side and a hair more on the other. That will be fixed tomorrow. Thats my plan and I am sticking to it.

[Brent Ring]

I use a dial gauge with a magnetic base i made a steel plate that bolts to the t slot for mounting the magnetic base . you could also clamp it to your miter gauge just make sure it wont move. remove the outrigger. tighten down one side of the slider so it wont move now zero the dial on that side of blade move slider to other side of blade pull the slider till the dial guage zero or the amount the bolts move the table mine is around .005 and bolt it down into place move it back to other side of the blade dial reads zero tighten every thing down even more check it again still zero your done you saw is now within .001 over 7 or so inches.

Why would I not want to try to get it zero over the entire length of the slider? Grizzly says that it should be possible by using the miter slot.

I also need to get it flat. Its a pain for sure.

[David Kumm]

Did you also check the fixed table for flat first? That is always my first step. I use a Starrett Master Machinist level but there are other ways. If the corners have a droop or twist, you will never get the slider to a uniform height across the entire stroke. Not a huge deal unless you do a lot of bevel ripping but it amazes me how often the cast iron table needs tweaking. Dave

[Brent Ring]

Fixed table has a .002 to .003 dip on either side of the blade. Corners front to back are even, if sliding my dial guage works as a test. I have a aluminum straight edge that is 24"

[David Kumm]

That's not the worst problem. High corners are worse. Having the adjustment bolts on an L bracket looks like a bad idea as I bet you can move the slider a few thou just with weight on it but as long as it stays at least flush along the blade, the dip on the ends will compensate for any give that might be in the bracket when the table is extended. Dave

[Brent Ring]

So priority is to get the sliding table level or close (+- .003 to .005), across the length of the sliding table, then worry about parallelism. I definately have a leveling job to do, as I noticed its higher close to 3/16" on 1 end. Any suggestions on how to make leveling faster?

[Craig Shewmake]

So priority is to get the sliding table level or close (+- .003 to .005), across the length of the sliding table, then worry about parallelism. I definately have a leveling job to do, as I noticed its higher close to 3/16" on 1 end. Any suggestions on how to make leveling faster?

My only suggestion, as noted before is to remove the outrigger before attempting or you will get very frustrated. I also removed the support legs so their weight didn't play into it. After many many many hours of trial and error I got it all level then reattached everything to support the slider where it is supposed to be.

Good luck!

[David Kumm]

Doughnuts, coffee, and a bathroom make long jobs better. Dave

[Craig Shewmake]

Hey Brent,

I hope you don't think i derailed or hijacked your thread. I just happened to be adjusting my G0623X the last few days and thought I would share my experiences.

So as I stated above I had everything level with respect to cast iron table, extension tables, and slider along its length. And that was by far the difficult part. So today I adjusted the parallelism fairly simply. I did not do it the way the manual describes. I have done this many times with my old contractor saw so I did what was familiar to me. Making sure the blade was exactly 90 degrees and the crosscut fence 90 as well I attached my dial indicator to a square piece of wood as shown in the pic in the previous post and clamped it down along the fence. When I move the slider the dial indicator showed a .006 difference from front edge of blade to back.

Before loosening the for bolts that hold up the slider I backed off the parallel adjustment bolt on on side. I then slightly loosened the four bottom nuts on the slider table bolts and made sure that the ones sitting on top of the L bracket didn't move any when doing so. I did not want to go through the leveling nightmare again if at all possible so I went slow and cautious. lol I was then able to slightly nudge the side of the slider in a tad where I back of the parallel adjustment bolt not even to the point of it touching the actual bolt. There was still a gap there. After a few nudges and tightening of the four slider table bolts I was able to move the slider and the gauge showed no movement at all from front to back of blade. I even marked a specific tooth and measured at that same tooth when at the back and front. All good! Then I just tightened up the backed off parallel bolt to touch the table edge and I'm done!

As a note. The gap between the slider and the cast iron table edge is 1/8" on front of the saw and a tad larger (1/16 to 1/32 beyond 1/8") on the back end. It's minuscule but noticeable by eye. I only mention that cause it can be deceiving. What really matters to me is the accuracy of the slider to the blade.

I have done the 5 cut method and all is good. I also did some vey thin rips (1/32) and it's perfect.

I wish you luck. It's a frustrating process for sure and I am glad its over... for now.

[Brent Ring]

Hey Brent,

I hope you don't think i derailed or hijacked your thread. I just happened to be adjusting my G0623X the last few days and thought I would share my experiences.

I so appreciate hearing about your experiences and I don't think you have hijacked the thread at all. I am still confused by the concept of why the sliding table does not need to have to be parallel to the blade along its entire length? When you did your parallelism adjustments, where was your dial indicator on the sliding table - in the middle, front, or back?

[Craig Shewmake]

I so appreciate hearing about your experiences and I don't think you have hijacked the thread at all. I am still confused by the concept of why the sliding table does not need to have to be parallel to the blade along its entire length? When you did your parallelism adjustments, where was your dial indicator on the sliding table - in the middle, front, or back?

I had my crosscut fence somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 from the back. My reasoning, right or wrong, is that the dial indicator is perpendicular to the slider (90 degrees) and as I slide the table the 10 inches so the indicator goes from the back to the front of the blade if it stays at 0 it really doesn't matter if I move it the 10" or the whole length of the slider. Parallel is parallel so to speak. I would think if I am getting zero change on a dial indicator that measures movement of .0005, across the 10 inches of the blade, then I am good for the length of the slider. I also, marked a tooth and measured while the tooth was at the back of the blade and front and got no change. This takes out any imperfections that might be in the blade itself across its width.

In the past, with my contractor TS I did the same with the miter gage slot. No difference here but instead of moving the dial indicator along the mitre gauge slot I simply clamped it down in place at 90 degrees and moved the slider. Again, If I saw a change from the back of the blade to the front then of course it would be slightly more exaggerated at the ends of the whole slider length. But since I had it dialed in with zero change then I assume (I know I know ) its good for the whole length.

All I care about is that Im at a perfect 90 degrees with respect to the crosscut fence to the slider and they in conjunction are parallel with the blade. I haven't yet checked the rip fence with regards to the blade but I think the whole rip fence mechanism is a bit hokey to begin with and not very consistent when clamping down and only use it as a stop for measuring repetitive crosscuts. I do my ripping on the slider side.

Make sense?

Hers a video link of how I have always done it on my contractor saw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5eUMVzTJio