more about dial indicators

[Chris Johnson]

How do use a dial indicator with a magnetic base to check your saw blade and fence. The way I understand it the base would need to be moved back and forth, from the front of the fence to the back to check its alignment. Same idea with the blade. I have seen indicators with miter bars but they cost at least twice as much. Obviously I have never used one of these before and I would like to tune my TS3650. Thank you all for the advice.

Chris

[Ken Garlock]

Hi Chris. You are on the right track, you just need the correct tool. I bought an A-Line-It that has a bar which fits in your miter slot. Just attach the gauge to it you you can slide the bar along to miter slot to make your readings. It makes life reatively easy

Welcome to the Creek, and Happy New Year.

[Gregg Mason]

Same question as Chris.

[Tom Jones III]

I wanted the a-line product but did not want to spend the money, so here is what I did:

#1 Mill a piece of hardwood so that it slides in your mitre slot with no slop.

#2 Cut a 4" square from cheap sheet metal. Screw it into the wooden strip you made in step 1.

#3 Mount the magnetic base to the sheet metal.

#4 Set the sled and dial indicator at one end of the mitre slot. Bring the fence close enough that it registers on the indicator. Set the indicator to zero. Slide the sled down to the far end of the mitre slot, watching how the reading changes as you move. Adjust the fence to get it as parallel as you want it.

You should be able to do the same thing as step 4 to the blade to check it for parallel to the mitre slot.

[Rick Lizek]

Tom has the better idea, except do the miter slots to the blade first then adjust the fence. I've been setting tools professionally long before all these alignment gizmos became available which are more geared toward the hobby guys. We made our own with simple stuff around the shop. You can do all the alignments with a $15 indicator and cobbling some simple alternative holders. Clamping right to the miter gauge will work for your miter slot and fence alignment. The magnetic base is somewhat limited for wood working. A block of wood for a base is more useful (you don't want a magnet for this) for jointer knife adjustment and 1/2" flat tip is more useful than the standard tip in this application.

[Mark Singer]

One inexpensive way is to use digital calipers...lock the fence and read both sides of the blade...the outfeed side should be about a 32 wider for safety..

[Rick Lizek]

1/32" waas the rule of thumb with the old jet lock fences. Once the Bies and improve retro fences came out many years ago the idea was to set them right on the money perpindicular. The old jet locks would have so much slop you would measure front and back of the blade to skew it 1/32" With the improved fences they stay perpindicular so skewing the fence may seem like a good thong but if you use it on the other side of the blade you create a "heeling" condition which would be unsafe and throw your rip measurement off by the extra 1/32" that would be skimmed off.

The digital calipers is a good point. You could also use a simple brass screw on a wooden stick and a feeler gauge. My favorite low tech alignment tool we used on expensive beam saws was to cut a piece of MDF in half and read the cut. As soon as you had the blade marks from the front and back of the saw blade on the left and right pieces of the cut MDFyou knew the blade was centered in the saw carriage. Sometimes only the3 simple way will work. I think the hobbist woodworker gets too hung up on unnecessary gadgets.

[Phil Ordway]

I use the miter gage bar (adjusted to fit with no wobble). I cut a piece of angle iron and bolt it to the bar and attach the dial indicator to the other end - important to get the length correct. Mark the saw blade and measure from the mark coming up and going down. Make it exact.

[Dan Forman]

I did what Rick suggested, clamped the indicator to the miter gage, didn't use the magnet.

Dan

[Barry O'Mahony]

1/32" waas the rule of thumb with the old jet lock fences. Once the Bies and improve retro fences came out many years ago the idea was to set them right on the money perpindicular.

I agree. If you skew the fence so it is not parallel to the blade, as you feed the board in against the fence, the left side will follow a trajectory into the blade as it is advanced. At a minimum, it will be hard to feed, and you'll get burning of the wood as it rubs against the blade.

I use a splitter so no worries about the wood getting pinced between blade and fence. If I was worried, I'd use a partial fence that started at the front of the table, and stopped just short of the blade.