burn

**LCHIEN** · 03-17-2006, 11:54 AM

Originally posted by billbeery

Regular reader, first time poster (It's my birthday gift to myself).
I purchased my BT3100 a couple weeks ago and have enjoyed getting started (it is my first table saw), and I need a consult.
I get some burning of cuts (maybe two inches here and there), both ripping and cross cutting on almost every cut. I have been cutting 3/4" poplar and 3/4" plywood. I assumed it was alignment and have tuned it according to the manual.
Could it be something else? Blade; Feed rate (speed and/or consistency); Blade height,..??
Or should I just keep trying to get the alignment right?
Thanks for the read.
Bill

Assuming everythjig is aligbed right then then burning is caused usually by too slow a feed rate and the wood dwells on the side of the saw tips too long, overheats and burns. Burning on a properly tuned saw can be resolved by faster feeding and definatley not stopping. On long pieces stopping is hard to avoid but can be avoided by using proper infeed and outfeed support and hand over hand pushstick techniques.

If you feed faster and the saw bogs down, then you do not have enough power. With 3/4 material and the BT that absolutely should not be the case.

If faster feeding does not cure it, then its probably tuning issues. E.g.
pitch and dirt on the blade - blade needs cleaning
Rip fence not aligned properly, should be absolutely parallel to the fence or maybe even toed away from the rear of the blade by the thickness of a dollar bill (about .0035").

**Greg.B** · 03-17-2006, 11:54 AM

Could be a few things. But in order to solve it you have to start with alignment. Make sure that the rip fence is aligned as close as possibe. Another item to check is to make sure the splitter is in line with the blade, at one point my splitter was slightly to the side of the blade toward the fence and cause some burn.

Once the saw is aligned, then feed rate. The feed rate is easy to figure out. Make some test cuts at different rates and note the burn. Also I like to keep the blade so that its about a 1/4" higher than the workpriece.

**venkatbo** · 03-17-2006, 12:07 PM

Check http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/ez...74/qanda.cfm#4

Looks like its in similar lines to what folks have mentioned earlier.
/venkat

**JimD** · 03-17-2006, 03:16 PM

In addition to getting the rip fence parallel to the blade, you have to keep the wood up against the rip fence. My splitter was a bit bent one time and was pulling the wood away from the fence. It caused some slight burning and pieces slightly smaller than the rip fence setting.

I also find it easier to avoid burning with feather boards or a wheeled hold-down holding bigger pieces while I switch my grip.

Jim

**fergusburger** · 03-18-2006, 09:01 PM

Aligning riving knife

Bill, I had similar problems today with some red oak. Based on what others said above, one of my mistakes was feed rate...I was being real careful to feed the material nice and slow since it was my first go at hardwood. But I also took a good look at how I had shimmed the riving knife and noticed that it was biased toward the SMT side (left when facing the saw). Most of my burn showed up on the rip fence side of the kerf, so perhaps the riving knife was pulling the material toward the left against the back of the blade. I'm going to move the knife over to the right one shim width and see if that helps. Actually, I'll probably do both, reshim the knife and increase my feed rate so if I get less burn I'll never really know which it was.

- Tom

**billbeery** · 03-20-2006, 04:34 PM

thanks

i appreciate the responses. i will keep working on it. was working with red oak yesterday and turned it to black oak on the cut. i will concentrate on the alignment (and maybe borrowing a keener set of eyes). bill

burn

burn

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