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After you have spent 'whatever amount of time it takes' for you to have completely aligned your Shopsmith, which tool are you mostly likely going to use to "verify a proper cut" made by that Shopsmith when building that "must be right project"?

dusty wrote:After you have spent 'whatever amount of time it takes' for you to have completely aligned your Shopsmith, which tool are you mostly likely going to use to "verify a proper cut" made by that Shopsmith when building that "must be right project"?

Typically, I no longer do test cuts to verify a proper cut after alignment.

Instead, I typically use a dial indicator to do all my alignments (the miter slots to the blade, the rip fence to the slots and even to make sure the miter gauge face is 90 degrees to the slots). My goal is to get all of these measurements within 3 thousandths variance and sometimes I am in the 0-1 thousandths range. All the measurements are verified multiple times. By the time I'm done with the alignment procedure, I KNOW that the Shopsmith is properly aligned to the best of my abilities and that any noticeable errors in cuts made after alignment are going to be due to user error (i.e. bad technique) versus alignment error.

One relatively recent exception to all of this was when I got my Shopsmith 5000 miter sled. Just for the heck of it, I decided to go old school and align the fence to the blade using a precision square. Afterwards I used the 5 cut method on a big plywood scrap and measured the final cut off using a digital caliper and got ridiculously good results. That was more to test how large a work piece the sled could reliably handle than to test the alignment, however.

For a quick 'verification' of the miter gauge, I like the one cut method. Using a workpiece about a foot or longer, mark a straight long edge. Place that edge against the miter gauge and cut through the narrow width(the wider the better!) at the center of the length. Set the just cut ends on the table with the marked edges facing the same direction. Any deviation from 90 will be apparent(the longer, the more apparent).

Then there is the 'Miterset'.

For adjusting a sled, the 5 cut is preferable.

For fence alignment, anything that can be used to verify a single blade tooth distance* from the fence. A marked board will do.

Miter slot(table) I like the SS tool kit* as well as anything.

Remember the key word was verify!!!

* Used to compare at front/back.

Great stuff. You guys should make a youtube video.

I'm impressed, JPG but you did not answer the question which was:

"....which tool are you mostly likely going to use to "verify a proper cut" made by that Shopsmith when building that "must be right project"?

After you have spent 'whatever amount of time it takes' for you to have completely aligned your Shopsmith, . . .

That is the leading phrase that set the stage for more than one to answer differently from what you intended.

It implies verification of alignment prior to undertaking an important project(the part that came after the repeated phrase).

So the answer to your intended inquiry would be a square or a straight edge or an angle gauge as appropriate. Mine are made by Starrett or B&S.

In rough order of frequency:
1) Mitutoyo dial calipers
2) Starrett combination square (12" or 4")
3) Starrett 24" builder's combination tool

I lucked into the Starrett stuff for free. A whole bunch of vintage Starrett instruments were in a goody box (Gerstner, no less) along with my 10ER, all from the estate of a pattern maker in Cleveland. The combination builder's square is one of those things that you have to use for a while to truly appreciate. It's the 24" version of this one. Beefy, versatile, and dead accurate. The Starrett tools are so good that my try squares have fallen into disuse. Now that I know how good they are, I'd pay the retail price for new ones if I had to.