Main Table Alignment

[Ed in Tampa]

As you stated that this was for verification, I think I like this jig for a quick-and-dirty verification. I don't think I'd align to it, though, but you didn't make it seem like you were doing that, either.

Aaah but I do align to it. I did so for almost a year. During that time I would periodically verify alignment by using the dial indicator. This jig has worked well for me and I will continue to use it.

I have come to believe that we make far too much of precision when doing alignments in the wood shop.

I was told that by several, here on the forum, over the past few years. I have come to believe that they were right. Dial gauges and Starrett Rulers and straight edges are not really needed in a typical home work shop. They are nice to have but are not really needed.

If you disagree, so be it but please tell me how a .005" (or even .015") misalignment of the main table miter slots to blade or fence to blade will adversely effect performance in the shop.

AMEN! I totally agree! That will probably make Dusty question his position! :

[dusty]

As you stated that this was for verification, I think I like this jig for a quick-and-dirty verification. I don't think I'd align to it, though, but you didn't make it seem like you were doing that, either.

Aaah but I do align to it. I did so for almost a year. During that time I would periodically verify alignment by using the dial indicator. This jig has worked well for me and I will continue to use it.

I have come to believe that we make far too much of precision when doing alignments in the wood shop.

I was told that by several, here on the forum, over the past few years. I have come to believe that they were right. Dial gauges and Starrett Rulers and straight edges are not really needed in a typical home work shop. They are nice to have but are not really needed.

If you disagree, so be it but please tell me how a .005" (or even .015") misalignment of the main table miter slots to blade or fence to blade will adversely effect performance in the shop.

AMEN! I totally agree! That will probably make Dusty question his position! :

NOPE, I thought about the fact that I have been seen as an advocate for precision; maybe precision that was not necessary to create impressive wood working projects. Some think precision beyond Shopsmiths' capability.

However, I still contend that the Shopsmith is capable of precision greater than it is credited with and that once properly aligned it maintains that level of accuracy despite its mobility.

getting mellow in my old age

[reible]

I really don't want to wade in this pool. Alignment matters, it is a physical thing and things like safety will come in to play. If you want to experience kickback just get it too far out of alignment. To a lesser degree is cut quality, if you have a bunch of saw marks on the finished cut it can be from alignment.

The issues becomes more complex because there a many factors involved. Not least of which is the blade being used. With out looking at things like wood that has stresses and moves while cutting to bearings in the quill to warped blades to cheap blades to bad practices to human errors it all comes to be a big mishmash.

Now I could sit here and write for an hour and still not make this issue clear so I will not waste my time. The .005 number came from Nick. It was based on the kerf width verses body of the blade and the results of that gave him the .005". I personally have not done the math so is that number right, was Nick right?

There was a rage here of using the new dial indicator to do alignment. I went and purchased one just to see what the hype was about. I found it frustrating to use and gave up on it. I do use it for verification after I do an alignment.

Going back to the age old methods given by shopsmith I have found I ALWAYS come with in the .005" number and this is not doing it 10 times to get it there. I do the alignment and I check, bang done.

The alignment also stays. It is years before I have to redo the alignment and remember I'm the one that has to drag his shopsmith out on to the driveway for a lot of operations not one just having it sitting on a nice flat concrete shop floor.

I have no idea where the line in the sand has to be drawn but I know it is somewhere and it is more then .005". I know that at some point if the fence to blade space is smaller at the back you will get a kickback or at least it will try to kickback. I know that you will get burning at some point because the side of the blade is touching the wood and the space that should be there isn't.

Could I spend hours figuring all this out, well yes I could but I see no reason for me to do that since I know the .005 works and it isn't a big deal to just do it.

I don't have dusty setup so I can not say if it works or not. I will say I can see errors creeping in and I don't think I want to dealing with yet another thing to work on right now. I see this because when I make zci they wear out even if I use the same blade...... now if this didn't happen then I might be a more inclined to embrace it.

I don't think (in fact I know) that every time you slide the headstock into position it is in the same relative place. I worked on that issue for a while and never came up with a solution that resulted in perfect registration. So if this is off then so is any fixed alignment tool based on blade location(what I was attempting to do)don't work well. Doing measurements I found that being off from only a couple of thousands to 10 or more is quite common.

Anyway I went on a longer then I should have.

Ed

[dusty]

Thanks for the feedback, Ed and for the stated concerns.

I am well aware of the kickback issues and I do what I can to guard against them.

[Ed in Tampa]

I really don't want to wade in this pool. Alignment matters, it is a physical thing and things like safety will come in to play. If you want to experience kickback just get it too far out of alignment. To a lesser degree is cut quality, if you have a bunch of saw marks on the finished cut it can be from alignment.

The issues becomes more complex because there a many factors involved. Not least of which is the blade being used. With out looking at things like wood that has stresses and moves while cutting to bearings in the quill to warped blades to cheap blades to bad practices to human errors it all comes to be a big mishmash.

Now I could sit here and write for an hour and still not make this issue clear so I will not waste my time. The .005 number came from Nick. It was based on the kerf width verses body of the blade and the results of that gave him the .005". I personally have not done the math so is that number right, was Nick right?

There was a rage here of using the new dial indicator to do alignment. I went and purchased one just to see what the hype was about. I found it frustrating to use and gave up on it. I do use it for verification after I do an alignment.

Going back to the age old methods given by shopsmith I have found I ALWAYS come with in the .005" number and this is not doing it 10 times to get it there. I do the alignment and I check, bang done.

The alignment also stays. It is years before I have to redo the alignment and remember I'm the one that has to drag his shopsmith out on to the driveway for a lot of operations not one just having it sitting on a nice flat concrete shop floor.

I have no idea where the line in the sand has to be drawn but I know it is somewhere and it is more then .005". I know that at some point if the fence to blade space is smaller at the back you will get a kickback or at least it will try to kickback. I know that you will get burning at some point because the side of the blade is touching the wood and the space that should be there isn't.

Could I spend hours figuring all this out, well yes I could but I see no reason for me to do that since I know the .005 works and it isn't a big deal to just do it.

I don't have dusty setup so I can not say if it works or not. I will say I can see errors creeping in and I don't think I want to dealing with yet another thing to work on right now. I see this because when I make zci they wear out even if I use the same blade...... now if this didn't happen then I might be a more inclined to embrace it.

I don't think (in fact I know) that every time you slide the headstock into position it is in the same relative place. I worked on that issue for a while and never came up with a solution that resulted in perfect registration. So if this is off then so is any fixed alignment tool based on blade location(what I was attempting to do)don't work well. Doing measurements I found that being off from only a couple of thousands to 10 or more is quite common.

Anyway I went on a longer then I should have.

Ed

Ed I also agree with you. I too became frustrated using the dial indicator. I too use it to verify my alignment after I do the Shopsmith prescribed way and it is always well within tolerance. I also agree if there isn't some extra room at the rear of the fence versus the front you will probably experience kickback sooner or later. I also agree that a fence perfectly parallel to the blade will produce burn marks.

One thing I will add to this mix is from my experience if you use the main table to leverage (move) the Shopsmith accuracy will suffer.

Use the Shopsmith method for alignment, do it patiently and with care and you will end up with a properly aligned machine.

[dusty]

I really don't want to wade in this pool. Alignment matters, it is a physical thing and things like safety will come in to play. If you want to experience kickback just get it too far out of alignment. To a lesser degree is cut quality, if you have a bunch of saw marks on the finished cut it can be from alignment.

The issues becomes more complex because there a many factors involved. Not least of which is the blade being used. With out looking at things like wood that has stresses and moves while cutting to bearings in the quill to warped blades to cheap blades to bad practices to human errors it all comes to be a big mishmash.

Now I could sit here and write for an hour and still not make this issue clear so I will not waste my time. The .005 number came from Nick. It was based on the kerf width verses body of the blade and the results of that gave him the .005". I personally have not done the math so is that number right, was Nick right?

There was a rage here of using the new dial indicator to do alignment. I went and purchased one just to see what the hype was about. I found it frustrating to use and gave up on it. I do use it for verification after I do an alignment.

Going back to the age old methods given by shopsmith I have found I ALWAYS come with in the .005" number and this is not doing it 10 times to get it there. I do the alignment and I check, bang done.

The alignment also stays. It is years before I have to redo the alignment and remember I'm the one that has to drag his shopsmith out on to the driveway for a lot of operations not one just having it sitting on a nice flat concrete shop floor.

I have no idea where the line in the sand has to be drawn but I know it is somewhere and it is more then .005". I know that at some point if the fence to blade space is smaller at the back you will get a kickback or at least it will try to kickback. I know that you will get burning at some point because the side of the blade is touching the wood and the space that should be there isn't.

Could I spend hours figuring all this out, well yes I could but I see no reason for me to do that since I know the .005 works and it isn't a big deal to just do it.

I don't have dusty setup so I can not say if it works or not. I will say I can see errors creeping in and I don't think I want to dealing with yet another thing to work on right now. I see this because when I make zci they wear out even if I use the same blade...... now if this didn't happen then I might be a more inclined to embrace it.

I don't think (in fact I know) that every time you slide the headstock into position it is in the same relative place. I worked on that issue for a while and never came up with a solution that resulted in perfect registration. So if this is off then so is any fixed alignment tool based on blade location(what I was attempting to do)don't work well. Doing measurements I found that being off from only a couple of thousands to 10 or more is quite common.

Anyway I went on a longer then I should have.

Ed

Ed I also agree with you. I too became frustrated using the dial indicator. I too use it to verify my alignment after I do the Shopsmith prescribed way and it is always well within tolerance. I also agree if there isn't some extra room at the rear of the fence versus the front you will probably experience kickback sooner or later. I also agree that a fence perfectly parallel to the blade will produce burn marks.

One thing I will add to this mix is from my experience if you use the main table to leverage (move) the Shopsmith accuracy will suffer.

Use the Shopsmith method for alignment, do it patiently and with care and you will end up with a properly aligned machine.

"Use the Shopsmith method for alignment".

The Shopsmith method for alignment being to adjust the table so that a miter track is the same distance from the blade both front and back AND set the rip fence parallel to the blade using those adjustment screws/bolts on the fence provided for that purpose.

I agree.

[reubenjames]

The Shopsmith method for alignment being to adjust the table so that a miter track is the same distance from the blade both front and back AND set the rip fence parallel to the blade using those adjustment screws/bolts on the fence provided for that purpose.

That is done, "by the book", using a dowel attached to the miter gauge. I swapped out the dowel for my dial indicator, but it's serving the same purpose (and verifying it with a certain degree of measurable accuracy). I do this because ShopSmith, via Nick Engler, promoted this method in the Hands On videos. To me, using the dial indicator *is* a legitimate "ShopSmith method" for alignment. The process isn't changed, just the tool (dowel vs. dial indicator).

Anyway, I am not nitpicky about alignment, but perhaps that has been causing some of the issues I had been seeing (such was suggested here on these forums), which is why I went back with a finer-toothed comb than I usually do. I agree that much fine woodworking can be done with good technique over and above the best / perfectly aligned tools. I am a perfect example of fine tools (ShopSmith) producing mediocre work (mine) due to the operator (me). So I'm definitely not hung up on alignment accuracy down to the thousandths of an inch (although I mentioned it before because that's where mine happened to end up).

I did hesitate with the alignment jig only insofar as most every saw blade or sanding disc will not be perfectly flat, and I felt that those variances, if large enough, could cause some issues if using the same jig to align with various blades, or with a blade that is too far out of whack.

Dusty asked how 15 hundredths could cause an issue in the shop--most cases it probably won't. But if my miter slot is off .015" and my miter gauge is also off by .015" because I've deemed that acceptable, and I start cutting pieces for an octagon, I might have an issue by the last piece. I am of the woodworking mindset that marking is better than measuring, and new pieces should be cut to fit the existing pieces, as opposed to being slavish about measuring. But my octagon won't be perfect. Again, that might not be a *problem* in terms of visual or stability issues of the piece, but it might at least be a pain in the rear.

[dusty]

.....
Dusty asked how 15 hundredths could cause an issue in the shop--most cases it probably won't. But if my miter slot is off .015" and my miter gauge is also off by .015" because I've deemed that acceptable, and I start cutting pieces for an octagon, I might have an issue by the last piece. I am of the woodworking mindset that marking is better than measuring, and new pieces should be cut to fit the existing pieces, as opposed to being slavish about measuring. But my octagon won't be perfect. Again, that might not be a *problem* in terms of visual or stability issues of the piece, but it might at least be a pain in the rear.

15 thousandths i.e. .015"

Yes, if you have bent/damaged saw blades or fences that could cause you all sorts of grief and those will not be resolved by doing more alignments no matter how accurate you get.

[reubenjames]

15 thousandths i.e. .015"
Yes, if you have bent/damaged saw blades or fences that could cause you all sorts of grief and those will not be resolved by doing more alignments no matter how accurate you get.

Oops--I did mean thousandths.

I'm not talking about bent or damaged blades, I just meant regular blade bodies which aren't perfectly flat.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, or even your alignment jig, just offering a perspective to consider.

Plus, I like to see you get riled up.

[dusty]

It may sound like it in some of what I post but I do not get riled up. I outgrew that way way back in my military days.

IMO, blades that are far enough out of flat to cause an alignment problem are damaged. They either go in the trash or get hung on the wall to wait for a "shop clock" project that needs a saw blade.