I have come across an interesting corner bar clamp.  On the head end it has two clamp points angled 45 degrees from the main bar.  The clamp can be used as a regular bar clamp.  It can also be used to clamp both corner pieces together at one time.  When you need to clamp both pieces of a 45 degree miter joint together, this clamp, because of its head design will grip both pieces at the same time!

I don’t know where my father-in-law found these clamps.  I will post the manufacture’s name and a link to the manufacture’s product page in a future post.

This is the fourth post in a series of table saw alignment articles.

Here we will talk about aligning the sliding miter table.  The sliding miter table is an interesting twist on the standard miter gauge.  It offers a larger working area to hold the material being run through the saw.

Because of its design it there are two things that need to be checked for alignment the height of the sliding miter table relative to the main table saw and run parallel to the saw blade, within 0.004”.

What are we trying to accomplish?

1. The sliding miter table will be parallel to the table saw blade.
2. The sliding miter table will be even or slightly higher than the top of the main table.

What is the effect when the sliding miter table is out of alignment?
If it is not parallel, the cross cuts will not be square.  If the sliding miter table is below the main table the stock may catch on the main table and result in a dangerous situation.  If the sliding miter table is too high, it can lead to chipping and tear out on the bottom of the stock, or worse, the stock jambs the saw blade and becomes a dangerous situation.

Alignment process
 

Safety First
Unplug the table saw.

Adjust the side free play
The sliding miter table uses a set of plastic guides to control the free play and the friction of the table.  Loosen the lock nut on the top of the table.  Adjust the cam until there is as little free play as possible.  If the guides are too tight the table will not slide.  Once the free play has been adjusted, tighten the lock nut.

Over time these guides will wear down and will need to be replaced.

Adjusting the height of the sliding miter table
The sliding miter table’s height is controlled by the four clamps.  On each clamp are two set screws that control the height of the table and the table angle relative to the main table.  The height can be check with a straight edge and a feeler gauge. Adjust the set screws on he clamps as needed.

Adjusting direction of travel
A simple jig will be used to measure the alignment.  The jig consists of a scrap piece of wood and a screw threaded into the end of it.  Slide the jig and screw head over to the table saw blade until it barely touches the marked saw blade tooth.  Clamp the jig to the sliding miter table or to the cross cut bar. This is the ‘zero’ or reference point.

Turn the table saw marked tooth towards the back of the table saw and slide the miter table until the screw touches the marked tooth. 

If the screw head barely touches the marked saw tooth, the sliding miter table is parallel to the table saw blade!

If there is a gap between the screw head and the marked saw blade tooth, the sliding miter table is angled away from the saw blade.  Measure the distance with a feeler gauge.  Any gap greater than 0.004” needs to be adjusted to bring the sliding miter table into alignment.

If the screw head protrudes the saw blade, the sliding miter table is angled into the saw blade.

To adjust the sliding miter table’s alignment:

1. Unlock the sliding miter table’s clamp levers.
2. Loosen the infeed side clamp plate screws.
3. Adjust one of the screws.
4. Retighten the clamp plate screws.
5. Lock the sliding miter table’s clamp levers.
6. Recheck the alignment to the saw blade.

If you can’t get the sliding miter table to be in exact alignment, then it is better to have the table be slightly angled away from the saw blade to prevent kick back.

Once the sliding miter table has been aligned it should keep its alignment until the rip fence rails are moved.

This is the third post in a series of table saw alignment articles.

Verify and align the rip fence.

What are we trying to accomplish?
Straight rip fence

1. The rip fence to be parallel to the rip fence.
2. The face of the rip fence to be perpendicular to the main table.

What is the effect when the rip fence is out of alignment?
If the fence is slightly out of alignment one side of the cut wood will have slightly more saw marks than the other.  One side of the wood will have a slight cove cut to it.  On a piece of 3/4” thick stock it will be difficult to see the effects.

When the fence is more out of alignment, the saw blade cuts will be more pronounced on one side of the cut and the cove will become more obvious.  If the riving knife is installed it may begin to effect the cut and either pull the board away from the back of the rip fence or push it into the back of the rip fence.  Boards will not be cut straight; this will be especially obvious on longer boards.

If the fence is really out of alignment, there is a significant risk of kick back.  The riving fence will help prevent it.  Also there is a greater risk of jamming the saw blade and damaging the drive belt.

Alignment process
 

Safety First
Unplug the table saw.

Rip fence straightness
Check the rip fence for straightness.  Using a straight edge check the straightness of the fence.  There should be no gap greater than 0.002”.  If it is not, replace it.  Even after aligning the fence to the saw blade the cuts will be messed up because of the bow in the fence.  Potential sources for a replacement fence are: local classified ads, craigs list, Ryobi, and eBay.

Aligning the rip fence
Unfortunately the rip fence’s alignment mechanism is quite crude.  To adjust the alignment, unlock the rip fence, and then loosen the two screws on the top of the rip fence.

A simple home made jig is required to set the alignment.  The jig consists of a scrap block of wood with a screw threaded into it.

Raise the saw blade up almost to the top.  Mark one of the teeth of the saw blade with chalk.  This saw tooth will be the reference tooth.  Position the jig and rip fence so that the screw is almost touching the saw blade.  Adjust the screw so that it barely touches the saw blade.  This is the reference point or ‘zero point’.

Rotate the reference saw tooth to the back side of the table.  Position the jig against the rip fence and slide it toward you until the screw is next to the marked saw tooth.  If the screw head barely touches the saw blade the rip fence is in alignment.  If the screw head protrudes past the saw blade then the rip fence is angled toward the saw blade.  If there is space between the screw head and the saw tooth, then the fence is angled away from the saw blade.

In either case, adjust the rip fence adjustment screws until the fence is parallel on the front and back sides of the saw blade.  For the angled away case, use a feeler guage to measure the distance of the gap.  If the distance is less than 0.004”, leave the alignment alone.

Once the rip fence has been aligned it should stay aligned during normal usage.  Whenever the rip fence rails are repositioned, check the alignment of the rip fence rails and the rip fence.

This is the second post in a series of table saw alignment articles.

The Ryobi table saw rip fence rails are rather unique in that they are designed to be moved quite easily.  The problem is that most likely when they are moved any fine tuning alignment that was done is lost.  Most likely they will be out of alignment once they have been repositioned.  My recommendation is set the rails where you want them, align them, and then never move them again.

Rip fence rail alignment is crucial to the overall alignment of the table saw.  The rip fence and the sliding miter table depend on the rip fence rails to be properly aligned.

What are we trying to accomplish?

1. The rails are a uniform depth below the table saw top.
2. The rails are parallel to each other.
3. The rails are level with each other.

When they are out of alignment, what effect does it have?
The sliding miter table should be 90 degrees to the table saw blade.  When the rails are out of alignment, the sliding miter table’s angle to the table saw blade will be either greater then 90 degrees, or less than 90 degrees.  Either way, when using the sliding miter table the cuts will not be square.

The rip fence will also not be at a 90 degree angle to the table saw base.  The result will be stock that is ripped to an angle other than 90 degrees.

Alignment process 

Parallel rails
The rails are attached to the table via milled bosses.  The rails should be parallel to each other, if normal care was taken when the unit was assembled.  Use a ruler or tape measure to measure the distance between the rails at several points, far left, middle, and far right.  If the rails are not parallel, it will require shimming the rail to get them parallel.  It is better to shim the rear rail.

Uniform depth below the table top
The challenge here is that the main table top is very narrow.  It does not provide a very large surface to measure against when checking the depth of the rails.  To increase ‘size of the table top, clamp a straight edge to the main table.  This will provide a longer span to measure the depth of the rails.

If you have the extension rail kit, bolt it onto the main rails.  Then perform the depth alignment.  If one of the rails it too low or high, loosen the mounting bolts on the table saw and the extension leg.  Adjust the rail’s height from the extension leg adjustment screw.

Clamps are one of the few unpowered tools that you need lots of.  You can really never have enough of them.  In one of The New Yankee Workshop Norm Abram build a clamp cart.  It looks like it holds most of his clamps.

Clamps give you the ability to have ‘extra hands’ without the challenges of finding or prying them away from their friends.  Clamps have some advantages over human helpers, first they don’t complain or fuss, second they typically provide more compressive force than what humans can and they don’t jiggle the piece.

The list below is my recommendation of the type of clamps that a beginning woodworker should consider acquiring.  Granted, you don’t have to go out and purchase all of them at once.  Although, if your tool budget can handle it…

Shop around for your clamps, there are some good deals available on line as well as locally.

• A variety of ‘C’ clamps, skip on buying the small ones.  The smallest I have is 4” and up.
• One pair QuickGrip style clamps similar to the Irwin Quick Grip clamp.  These are so much better than the old style screw bar clamp.
• At least one pair of pipe clamps.  The pipe can be any length you want it to be.  I recommend starting out with 4’ pipes.  After a while you can determine what other lengths you need.
• Vice Grip© “C” Clamps
• A pair of web or band clamps.  They are constructed of a nylon mess straps with a ratcheting tightening device.  They are great for clamping together odd sized and faced projects.  Try using a pipe or bar clamp to hold together an octagonal picture frame!
• Corner clamps.  They are great for holding together all sorts of 90 degree joints.  I have used to hold picture frames together to cabinet carcasses.
• A collection of large spring clamps

woodworking clamps
woodworking shop clamps clamps

Does your table saw blade leave ‘chatter’ or vibration marks on the stock you are cutting?  Most of the economical table saw blades vibrate while they are spinning.  When ripping stock, this vibration leaves a slightly uneven cut.

An edge joiner is the way to square up and clean up the edges of the wood.  However, not every home wood worker has an edge joiner.

The typical solution to remove the unevenness is to use a sander.  Be it either a quarter inch vibrating sander, random orbital sander, or a belt sander.  Sanders work well, although there is a good chance that the sanded surface will be slightly uneven, due to uneven pressure.

Consider using the bench top planner.  The potential problem here is that the board is being run through the planner on edge so that it could tip over and the planner would destroy the edge.  So, group a set of boards of the same width together and plane them at the same time.  This will prevent the stock from tipping over while being run through the planner.

Note: I have only tried this technique on a group of boards that were two inches wide.  The wider the stock the more boards you will need to run through the planner at the same time.

I am working on a Christmas project where I needed four 2” x 3/4” x 48” legs.  Cut the stock and eight wider at 2 1/8 inches.  Set up the bench top planner to 2 1/16.  Take all four pieces and hold them together as a bundle.  With the table saw cut side facing up towards the planner’s cutter head run the four pieces through, at the same time.  Lower the planner cutter head to 2 inches and run the other side through.

Edge joining
woodworking joining tip

Hand planes hearken back to the old days before electrically powered tools.  Back in the day of craftsmen who would cut full dove tail joints with a hand saw and chisel.  I recalled reading about apprentice wood workers would be required to build their tool box.  The master woodworkers would judge the apprentice by the quality of the joinery.

So, for the modern weekend woodworker, is it necessary to own let alone learn how to use a hand plane?  Yes, it is a worth while skill.  Hand planes serve a useful purpose in wood working.  How about cutting a 45 degree miter and when you fit the pieces together there is a slight gap on the inside of the joint.  What to do?  With the right hand plan you can carefully plan off the excess material on the miter to make a nice tight fit.

I am an owner of a ryobi BT-3000 table saw with the factory base. I like the table saw, but I don’t like the base. The base consists of a set of stamped steel that are bolted together. The frame makes the table saw light weight and more portable. However, because of its design the saw is more susceptible to vibration when cutting stock.

Generally what I want to accomplish is to ‘bolt down’ the table saw and frame to the shop floor. The heavy duty commercial cabinet saws are constructed with a lot of mass. The top is typically constructed from cast iron and the base is made from heavy gauge steel. This effectively anchors the saw to the floor and any vibration from the motor, arbor assembly or saw blade does not allow the table saw to vibrate very much. Granted the more expensive contractor and cabinet saws’ trunions and arbor assemblies are better balanced.

Vibration is caused by the motor, arbor assembly, and saw blade being out of balance. Even if one of them is ever so slightly out of balance will produce some amount of vibration. In my opinion the biggest contributor to blade vibration is the saw blade. For my main table saw blade, I have switched from a no name brand carbide blade to a Freud 10” 50 tooth blade.

Ok, back to table saw base vibration. There are a couple of solutions to minimize the saw vibration. A quick solution is to weight down the frame with some sort of ballast. For the Ryobi BT-3000 reinforce the base with two 3/4” pieces of plywood. Then stack on top of the plywood ballast, such as paver stones, concrete blocks, or bags of sand. Paver stones are nice because they allow you to control how much weight you want to stack on the base. The draw back is it can be a lot of pavers to load and unload. Especially if your shop is in the garage and portability is a must. You know, the wife wants to park her car in the garage every night.

Note: Depending on how the table saw frame is designed, you might have to strengthen the base.

Another option is to cast your own concrete slabs. Depending on how much weight you need three or four slabs should be enough. This translates into fewer number of ballast to load and unload when the saw needs to be moved.

A third option is to build your own portable table saw base. When I purchased my Ryobi BT-3000 table saw it came with the extension rails and table. Unfortunately when the extension rails are bolted onto the table saw makes the saw much less portable. The base I am planning to build will have retractable wheels, and will be wide enough to hold the table saw and the extension rails permanently mounted to the base. The under the saw and under the extension rail will be built out with storage cabinets. If I needed I may put additional ballast into the base.

Quick tip: Make sure that all of the fasteners on the frame are tight. If any of them are loose the more vibration you will get. Use lock washers, or lock nuts. I like the nylon lock nuts. If you are not planning on taking the frame apart, consider using locktite or some other thread locking adhesive.

After a few years of using a quarter sheet vibrating sander, I wanted to step up to a random orbital sander.  After evaluating the various random orbital sanders I settled on the DeWalt DW421.  The DeWalt DW421 uses 5”, eight hole hook and loop sanding disks.

Overall the sander is solidly built with a good fit and finish.  It provides a very smooth operation with minimal noise level and vibration.  The sander weights in, by my scale, around 3 pounds.  The palm grip of the sander has a good comfortable feel to it.  The motor is strong and durable.  The orbiting sanding pad is made of thick high quality rubber with hook and loop facing.  It comes with a 6 foot long, 18 AWG double insulated electric cord that is securely attached to the sander.  I have accidentally tested this more than once.

The real test of a random orbital sander is how well does it work and how hard is it on me?  The sander is balanced very well.  When running it feels comfortable in my hand with minimal vibration.  The sander is heavy enough to sand with its own weight, all that is necessary is to guide it to where you want it to sand.

Tip:  Random orbital sanders work best with minimal pressure.  If you press down too hard it can cause the orbiting pad to slow down or stop orbiting.  So, use as little pressure as needed to get the sander to sand.

I have found that I was able to work on horizontal, vertical and overhead surfaces with equal ease and minimal fatigue.

The biggest disadvantage is the dust collection system.  It is designed with a highly touted ‘Controlled Finishing System’ which is basically a small dust collection bag attached to the rear of the sander.  The bag works ok in collecting dust.  However, the sander still kicks out a fair amount of dust while sanding.  So be cautioned, always wear safety goggles and a respirator when operating this tool! 

Removing the dust collection bag exposes a dust collection port that you can hook up to a shop vac or dust collector.  The design is for the hose to slip over the dust collection port.  There is no locking feature to keep the hose connected, so there is a pretty good chance that the hose will slip off during use.

My other frustration is the CFS gasket.  This is a large gasket that fits between the sander’s orbital pad and the body.  Gasket tends to wear out rather easily, why did they choose to skimp on this component I don’t know.  The easiest way to determine if the gasket is worn out, besides a larger that normal cloud of dust when sanding, is orbiting pad’s rotation would accelerate dramatically when not in contact with any surface.  An addendum to the owner’s manual attests to this being due to the gasket being worn out. 

Replacing the gasket is a fairly straight forward procedure: remove the orbiting pad (held in place with three screws), remove the old gasket and put in the new one, reinstall the orbiting pad.  The whole procedure took about fifteen minutes.  The gaskets are fairly pricey at $7 each!

Even with these issues, I am very pleased with the DeWalt Random Orbital Palm Sander DW421 and recommend anyone looking to add a random orbital sander to consider this one.

Table saw blades; I never gave them too much thought other than number of teeth, sharpness, and intended application. I have a couple of 10” carbide tipped 40 tooth blades that I use on a regular basis. They cut fairly well with the typical amount of vibration marks on the cut face.

I finally decided to try out the Freud 10” 50 tooth perma-shielded thin kerf saw blade. The blade is coded in the perma-shield coating to reduce the friction on the material as it is being cut. The thin kerf reduces the amount of material the saw blade has to cut out. And the blade has laser cut anti vibration slots. I am wondering how well it will cut and how smooth of a cut it will make.

Wow! What a difference it makes in cutting. When using it in my ryobi BT-3000 table saw, it made the saw perform so much better! I ran a 3/4” red oak through the table saw and the little ryobi felt like I was cutting on a contractor saw.

The Freud TKR906 strikes a nice balance between a cross cut and rip saw blades. It provides a nice smooth cut with very little chatter or vibration marks.

The Freud combination 50 tooth blade is not the ultimate in saw blades; however, for the home woodworker, this saw blade will meet most all of your cutting needs. It is always good practice to keep at least one old crappy, but relatively sharp saw blade, around for the times that you need to cut stock that is impregnated with sand or dirt.

Dove tails, they are a beautiful strong joint.  In the old days, it was a test of skill to cut them by hand.  Now days with a dove tail jig and a router has a simplified the task of cutting dove tail.  But not all dove tail jigs are made the same nor full fill the same needs. There are a few dove tail jigs that I am considering for my home wood shop.

Keller Dovetail System 135-1500 Journeyman DoveTail Jig

This dovetail jig is an economical choice for the beginner or hobbyists doing small to midsize projects. The back-to-back model handles wood 1/8 to 3/4 inches thick of any width with a single template precision-milled from phenolic plate.  You have to mill a support board that the jig sits on.  The instruction manual details the dimensions of the board.

Rockler Dovetail Jig with Half Blind Dovetail Template

This jig supports cutting half bind and through dove tails.  Comes with the plastic dove tail guide, 1/4” shank 14 degree dove tail bit, 7/16” guide bushing.  I am not sure for which router bases it will work with.  Most likely it will not fit my 2 hp Craftsman router.  The jig has easy to use lock down handles and adjustment knobs.

This post is more about Ryobi bt-3000 sites that I have found helpful in maintaining and modifying my table saw.

Ryobi BT-3000 modifications – contains a very detailed description about how to deal with the shim problem.  If you haven’t already had to face this, you most likely will an unfortunate design problem of the BT-3000.  In the BT-3100 Ryobi has changed the shim design.