Segmenters' Question

[Richard Madison]

Does anyone cut ordinary segments using blade tilt angle rather than miter angle?

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Richard, I'm not sure why you would want to do it that way; at least I've never heard of it being done that way.

[Robert McGowen]

Hi Richard,

I tried it once after I got a Wixley digital angle gauge for my table saw blade. I thought that I could just dial in the blade angle and be set from there. It works in theory, but in actual practice, it did not pan out. You are basically cutting the segments standing on edge. That means for any change of width, and basically every different ring means a change, you would have to reconfigure what ever you are holding down the segments with to adjust for the height change. Also, you are limited by how wide your segments can be based on the height and angle of the blade. Then when you change the angle, your sled gets chewed up and you have a giant kerf cut, so you really need a different sled for each angle anyway. And all of this is based on you getting your stop for the segments exactly perpendicular to the saw blade to begin with, so you might as well have set it at 15 degrees or whatever you wanted it to be in the first place. Did I mentioned that it did not work for me? Let me know if you figure out a way to do it. I still have the Wixley gauge.

[Richard Madison]

Malcolm, Not necessarily wanting to do it that way, but ordered one of the electronic blade tilt gauges like Robert has, so thought it was worth asking about. BTW "Bill's Ribbon" is exquisite! And it helped me make the connection (which should have been obvious to me) between my open stave pieces and ribbons. Have open stave ribbon in progress.

Robert, Would still need a different sled for each different angle, unless your sled has an adjustable miter piece. Think I understand about clamping different width segments. They would need to be clamped to the miter piece rather than the base of the sled. Would have to adjust the stop block for segment length in either procedure.

Meanwhile my table saw (15 year old Delta) needs new arbor bearings, and am trying to learn how to hold the arbor and loosen the pulley nut. Should be obvious to me, but it isn't. The answer will probably arrive tomorrow, internally or externally, and the saw will be running again soon.

Thanks for your replies. I appreciate it.

[Mike Golka]

Richard the Wixley is still a great asset when cutting staves on a sled and setting blade angle for any reason for that matter. As mentioned before keep your wood flat and miter with a sled or miter saw then sand to near perfect.