Ripping on a slider using fence as bump stop - toe-out

[Andy Giddings]

does the tow out you guys are talking affect your square cutting? or its a seperate setting, I would assume for cutting squaring a panel you want it dead nuts square with no tow at all?

If properly adjusted and if using the same reference face then it doesn't affect the square cutting. Even if you use the rip fence as a reference the error should be small when set correctly. We're talking about a few thou over the length of the blade. Making it dead square (even if that's possible) is not helping as you want to avoid contact with the back of the blade as described by Dave's post

[David Kumm]

A kerf will always be wider than the tooth. Very few blades are perfectly flat and there is usually some runout on the arbor. I true my flanges so the difference between kerf width and tooth is entirely due to blade runout. A large diameter blade with 12-18" of distance front to rear gives you a frame of reference. Toe out can also be measured using the offcut but I'm happy if the square stock is firmly against both the crosscut and rip fences and the tooth looks to be centered in the kerf. Another way to judge is to crosscut a piece wider than the blade but stop the cut as soon as the front teeth have cleared. Look at both offcuts. If the mdf shows a ridge from the blade on either piece from the back edge of the blade, you know something isn't right. Only one side will show it. Dave

[Andy Giddings]

Bingo!

Thanks Andy. I used my 5-cut blank against the crosscut fence to register the piece to be cut, and was able to rip a 1" wide strip to within .004" over its 4 foot length.

The saw is officially ready for action after I add in a little toe-out to the fence for safety. Now for the J/P setup.

I also need to cut down the 48" square 3/4" birch blank I used for the 5-cut alignment to something more manageable for use as a future square reference, maybe a 24" square ? Whaddya think?

Mark, depends on what you are cutting - for example if you are trying to cut thin strips off the side of a 6ft long by 1ft wide blank, then your additional blank could be 5ft long by whatever space you have left on your crosscut fence. I'd only do this if I wanted the strips to be very accurate. Most of the time I'd use the F & F jig as described by Jim to cut strips, bumping the blank against the rip fence. You can always use the planer afterward if the variance is too much

[Warren Lake]

I understand ripping on the fence ive always had it out a bit I make a rip then just tweak it never measured it. Im stronger then my cabinet saws so material moving has never been an issue if it got severe I could power off with my knee. Now ill set up a small slider and have to respect it more with 7.5 HP. my question is not the rip fence but on the sliding table I always thought t would track perfect and not have any tow at all but then never used one so its all new. Ill digest what is here then will see what this one does when its running. We are also talking two different things when cross cutting a panel and solid wood on a fence tension release is one thing on the solid and another if any on the panel.

While not what the post is about ill just blurt out I also see people pull stuff back after their pass, both on saws and shapers with sliding tables I was taught not to do that. Make your cut remove the material after the full pass

[Mark Bolton]

I think you may be overestimating the toe on the wagon. For me personally, if you have the wagon toe-d out enough to have any effect on a cut its too much. I adjust the toe on both the fence and the wagon by sound, and cut quality. When I go all out on the slider I use a combination of the 5 cut method and sound/cut quality to dial in the wagon. Then I do a sound/cut quality adjustment on the rip fence. When I do the 5 cut method on the slider I start with largest piece of material I can (4x8). At the moment I have our slider dialed in to an immeasurable amount of error on a 4x8 square up (no error what so ever in a diagonal measure or 5th cut measure on a 49x97 sheet.

As you say, when I rip longer than the stroke of the slider the rip fence extends slightly past the end of the blade cut to a minuscule amount of toe out is necessary. Same with the wagon. I'd guess the toe on the wagon is not measurable with out NASA level instruments. No saw marks, no burn, glue line rips off the wagon every time.

If you get your wagon to that level, and still need a touch of toe on the rip fence for longer than stroke rips, like I say, Just put your fence in Hi position if you have a hi-lo and clamp a small piece to the fence. Your bump will register against that scrap as opposed to the entire fence length.

I guess it all depends on how you work as to how accurate your hoping from the rip. I cant imagine the toe of the slider every being enough to blow the tollerance on a woodworking project. With the slider you are already several orders of magnitude more accurate than conventional table saw. Not to mention increased blade life, and cut quality.

[mark mcfarlane]

Thanks everyone for the help and support, all is well in saw-land now.

[Chris Parks]

Typically a few thou toe out is plenty - you might need it one day if you ever use the rip fence on its own (as per a US table saw working method) as per Mark's comment. It still works as a bump stop just fine - use the cross cut fence (if the blank is wide enough) to ensure your work is square to the blade and don't try to align it with the rip fence as its a stop, not for alignment. If the blank is narrow use a known square additional blank to give you something to register against the cross cut fence with.

Just try to use roughly the same position on the rip fence as the stop.

Another way I have thought of to get around this issue is to make a point stop in the form of a round bar, either attached to the face of the rip fence and which can be removed or in place of the rip fence. This takes away the toe out issue entirely on the rip fence.

[James Zhu]

I adopted the method David Best described in the following post, simple and effective, it works perfectly when using rip fence as a stop on the slider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidp...57686155149385

James

[mark mcfarlane]

I adopted the method David Best described in the following post, simple and effective, it works perfectly when using rip fence as a stop on the slider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidp...57686155149385

James

Very cool idea, thanks James for sharing this.

[Jim Becker]

I adopted the method David Best described in the following post, simple and effective, it works perfectly when using rip fence as a stop on the slider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidp...57686155149385

James

Wow...very interesting method.

[Chris Parks]

I have had the idea of a point stop on the fence for a while now and finally made it tonight so I thought you might like to see it. The idea overcomes the toe out/parallelism problems depending on how the rip fence is set up as the bar eliminates that problem. It does introduce another issue though in that if the bar was taken away as it would be if the rip fence was needed to rip then zero is no longer zero. For me I could overcome that problem really easily by having two Wixey heads, one each side of the Hammer rip fence clamp and each with two different zeros or one Wixey and rely on the tape that the rip head is normally set by. The short fence was obtained when I bought a new extrusion and four of us got a bit just long enough to do the job. I would not do that again, rather I would cut enough off the standard fence as it is too long IMO.



IMG_1973.jpg

[James Biddle]

I always thought setting a toe-out was unique to US cabinet saws because many did not have riving knives and fences continued past the back of the blade. Shouldn't a slider's wagon and sled be set dead-on parallel? We also keep the fence dead-on parallel as well because if it's toed at all, the fence distances will vary according to where end of the fence is set relative to the blade.

[Walter Plummer]

I don't know about the newer Altendorf sliders but the tune up manual for the old ones has five steps to setting one up. The sub rollers under the carriage need to be adjusted to take the weight of the sliding table in the correct order. Then what they call "free cut left" is adjusted so the slid travels just slightly away from the blade. Then "free cut right" where the rip fence is toed away from the blade. Then you do the 5 cut square up, and finally you set the scoring blade . I will try to find my copy of the manual and post some scans.

[Chris Parks]

I always thought setting a toe-out was unique to US cabinet saws because many did not have riving knives and fences continued past the back of the blade. Shouldn't a slider's wagon and sled be set dead-on parallel? We also keep the fence dead-on parallel as well because if it's toed at all, the fence distances will vary according to where end of the fence is set relative to the blade.

That is a good point James. My CC fence and rip fence are set dead square to one another and I don't seem to have problems for the few times I use the rip fence for its intended purpose. Yesterday I used the point stop I made and posted above for the first time and it is a winner as far as I am concerned. Using it on a full length fence would negate having a short one as I have done. The single reason for me using the short fence in the first place was if the rip fence is pulled back it has a huge overhang that has to be walked around and my saw has a round bar that the rip fence rides on and even if the rip fence is clamped to the bar very hard it can still fall backward due the the large overhang. The rip fence IMO is way too long as supplied by Felder and I think is a sop to the users converting from cabinet saws in the US and other markets where they are used heavily.

[John Sincerbeaux]

In 40 years of owning and operating tablesaws, I have always had my fence(s) set perfectly parallel to the blade. After reading this thread, I checked my new Martin T60C.... its dead on parallel.