Blade/table alignment issues

[tbolish]

My blade fits just fine, i only had it off in the picture because I forgot to put it on, ha.


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[tbolish]

Saw Blade and Arbor.png

A question that might need to be answered:

With all of the normal hardware installed and the quill fully retracted, what is the distance from the right side of the aluminum collar to the left side of the blade? Understand that the rubber bumper predetermines separation between the carriage and the headstock. Note where my blade is with regard to the insert cutout. Also with respect to the center line of the trunnions.

The attached depicts these relationships on my 520.

Dusty, what CAD program are you using and where did those drawings come from? Did you import/build the headstock yourself?


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[BuckeyeDennis]

Interesting direction this thread went! Thanks for the advice and thought provocation.

As for my arbor, what’s the benefit from using the newer ones for 510’s/520’s?

Admittedly I’m a terrible woodworker. But I’m trying to improve my accuracy, and keeping things exact and square have always been a challenge for me. So thanks for the tips, and anything else you guys think I should work on would be helpful..


Someday soon hopefully SS will send me the Incra miter gauge I ordered a couple months ago, as I’m hoping that will help a bit.


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Better eyes than mine have now looked at your photo showing the arbor, and concluded that it is indeed a 510 arbor. I was thrown off because it didn’t look like my newer 520 arbor, and the first visual match that I saw in Russ Chapman’s photo was a MkV 500 arbor. But there is indeed a 510/520 arbor with the same shape, in the same photo, as was pointed out earlier.

In my experience, there are three primary causes of non-square crosscuts on a Shopsmith:
1. The face of the miter gauge isn’t square to the guide bar, and/or
2. The quill isn’t stationary (usually because I neglected to lock it), and/or
3. The workpiece is sliding across the face of the miter gauge while cutting.

A fourth possibility is:
4. Funky saw-blade dynamics, usually (but not always) due to the blade being dirty or dull.

Full disclosure: I’ve never encountered issue #4 on a Shopsmith, to my knowledge. But I definitely have on a Makita track saw. It was greatly improved by replacing the stock Makita blade with an expensive Festool blade. But not completely eliminated until I installed an even more expensive Forrest blade.

Back to the Shopsmith realm, another reason for slight non-squareness of crosscuts is:
5. Lateral flex in the main-table mount.

To eliminate problem #5, mount your Aux table and tie it the main table to it with the connector tubes. That will increase the lateral stiffness dramatically.

Did I miss anything, guys?

[DLB]

As for my arbor, what’s the benefit from using the newer ones for 510’s/520’s?

I have used both the 555118 (early 510 arbor like the OP's) and 555608 (current) 5/8" saw arbors and have not noticed any performance difference between them. The primary difference is that the 555608 arbor has far more rotating mass on the headstock side but if there is an engineering reason for the change it is not obvious to me. The newer arbor also has a somewhat longer setscrew. Perhaps the heavier arbor dampens some vibration or runs a bit quieter? Nothing that I could say is a clear benefit. Maybe someone here has more insight.

- David

[rpd]

Or maybe it is less expensive to manufacture (less material removed).

[dusty]

Saw Blade and Arbor.png

A question that might need to be answered:

With all of the normal hardware installed and the quill fully retracted, what is the distance from the right side of the aluminum collar to the left side of the blade? Understand that the rubber bumper predetermines separation between the carriage and the headstock. Note where my blade is with regard to the insert cutout. Also with respect to the center line of the trunnions.

The attached depicts these relationships on my 520.

Dusty, what CAD program are you using and where did those drawings come from? Did you import/build the headstock yourself?


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The drawings are mine and were done using Sketchup. The drawings depict my interpretation of my machines. Sketchup is available for free. Just Google it and download.

[dusty]

Trying to make my machine more accurate as I’m having some issues with getting perfectly square cuts. I read a bunch of posts about how the blade should pretty much automatically be in the center of the insert when all the trunion bolts are loosened and the table pushed all the way to the right. For whatever reason my blade always is off from center, even when pushing the table as far over as I can.

Here’s a picture of the my rubber spacer in between my headstock main table carriage...what is the nominal size for a 510/520?

According to my dial indicator I need to move my outfeed side .009” to away from the blade which currently isn’t possible....getting really frustrated as aligning this thing has been causing headaches since day one.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!



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First, the way tube spacer is only there to make sure when you drop the table down it will go through the slot in the insert. Yours seems to do that. That has nothing to do with square cuts. I would say your spacer is slightly under size but it is doing it's intended job. I had one from the factory that was way off.

Not sure where you read that, but that will not insure the blade is parallel with the miter slot. I suggest you read the table alignment procedure in the SS documentation. It has nothing to do with the way tube spacer.

0.009 is not much in wood working. If you you are tight against the bolts then move the infeed side toward the blade to make it parallel.

There is a good chance that this is something I posted. I follow that procedure but with one caveat. Doing this places the blade in its native position in the cutout but it does not guarantee parallelism with the blade. When I square the table to the blade, I do so with the right /outfeed trunnion bolt firm and use that as a pivot point to position the table.

As for accuracy of the miter gauge, I find both equally accurate for typical wood working.

Simply remember the the face of the blade is the "reference surface" for all of these table related adjustments. Ponder that.

BTW as a matter of practice, I keep my table just a very tiny bit out of parallel with the blade to avoid squeezing the work piece between the outfeed side of the blade and the rip fence. Which way out of parallel depends on whether you prefer to work to the right of the blade or to the left. I very rarely mount the rip fence left of the blade.

[garys]

BTW as a matter of practice, I keep my table just a very tiny bit out of parallel with the blade to avoid squeezing the work piece between the outfeed side of the blade and the rip fence. Which way out of parallel depends on whether you prefer to work to the right of the blade or to the left. I very rarely mount the rip fence left of the blade.

That's interesting. I do a similar but different thing. I have my table parallel with the blade, but set my rip fence a couple of thousandths out of parallel (wider on the outfeed side) for the same reason. It lets me rip boards with less burning and friction. Like you, I prefer to work on the right side of the blade so I have my rip fence set slightly that way.
I wonder if there are any advantages to having that bit of off-parallel set by the table or the fence?

[dusty]

BTW as a matter of practice, I keep my table just a very tiny bit out of parallel with the blade to avoid squeezing the work piece between the outfeed side of the blade and the rip fence. Which way out of parallel depends on whether you prefer to work to the right of the blade or to the left. I very rarely mount the rip fence left of the blade.

That's interesting. I do a similar but different thing. I have my table parallel with the blade, but set my rip fence a couple of thousandths out of parallel (wider on the outfeed side) for the same reason. It lets me rip boards with less burning and friction. Like you, I prefer to work on the right side of the blade so I have my rip fence set slightly that way.
I wonder if there are any advantages to having that bit of off-parallel set by the table or the fence?

If you obtain the offset by using the table you will need to counter that with the miter gauge to achieve a proper cross cut.

[tbolish]

Well I still am getting completely mixed (and unacceptable in my opinion) results.

I’m getting to the point of pulling my hair out on something as simple as making a decent cross cut - I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. Here’s a couple more pictures of setting up my blade and miter gauge...immediately after doing this I made a cut in a piece of scrap 3/4” plywood, and it wasn’t even close to be square (forgot to take a picture, had to leave the shop shortly after) it honestly looked terrible...


Blade wobble when turning the blade from the accessory connector only read about .003”...and there’s about .005” of slop in my miter slot. I try to mitigate the miter slop by keeping a bit of pressure on the same side of the slot for each cut. Occasionally I’ll get an “ok” or somewhat close to 90° cut, but it seems irritatingly inconsistent. When I get back to the shop I’m going to try a different blade as that’s one thing I haven’t done yet. I would be really surprised that my diablo blade is the issue as it seems pretty flat.

I’ve read A LOT of posts about this similar issue, and agree with the conventional wisdom that woodworking doesn’t have to be machine tooling...but I feel like I should be able to make a friggin’ 90° crosscut without too much of a hassle every time.





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