Rip fence off vertical on Craftsman

[timb]

Fixed mine pretty much as I described above. I cut some wooden blocks the correct height to use as a file guide. With the fence front block on its rail I clamped a wooden block each side of the arm and filed the bosses down a bit with a flat mill smooth file. Took me a couple of goes reassembing the fence between filing sessions - didn't want to over do it.

There are two interior "rails" underneath the top of the fence that sit on the bosses on the front block arm. In my case the front buss had the burr and boss toward the rear of the fence has a casting error and was missing some material where one of these interior rails was sitting. Sorry mislaid my camera so I didn't take any pictures.

An interesting note. Turns out the front block won't clamp to the rail without the rest of the fence as I had hoped . The lever that pushes the end clamp push rod requires the push rod in place and under tension to hold it at the correct angle from the front clamp to work.

Anyhow, got the fence as vertical as it can be considering the face of the extrusion its made from is not dead flat but raises slightly from the top and bottom toward the slot, probably less than 1/64 inch but visible. Still much better than the nearly 1/8 in cant toward the blade my fence had before. And now any fence attachments I make will be vertical hooray!

Got the fence all re-aligned and found that the SMT was out of alignment I already spend two sessions alligning this. Third time lucky I hope. Took me a bit longer than it should have this time because I got confused half way through and was adjusting the miter table angle when I meant to adjust the miter rail angle. Went through this fuiteless exercies about 3 times each time with no improvement in the alignment before I finally realized I was being an idiot I said some nice words like "fiddlesticks" and "bother" to comfort myself

Tim

[timb]

It may look ruff but it was effective. Here is the pic of the final product.

cool. glad it worked. thanks for being first and confirming the rumor.

Tim

[timb]

I suppose the accuracy in being parallel to the blade is more important than this vertical accuracy... but having to "finagel" things around this problem is a little irritating. I'm also trying to get an accurate depth of cut (on non-through cuts) with a throat plate that's not stiff enough... both the factory plate and a ZCTP I made from MDF and oak layers.

With sparkeyjames' experience, I think I'll tackle this problem between ww projects.

rlah

The lack of verticality means the rip scale is inaccurate and you get different width cuts for different height material and a tendency for taller pieces to wobble spoiling the smootheness of the cut.

These things we are doing are not intended to be user adjustable unlike the blade and fence being parallel. The fence should work properly out of the box certainly to within 1/32 in. tolerence between the top and the bottom of the fence which is the accuracy of the rip scale. It's really a warranty issue but who wants to deal with that for something that can be fixed for little or no cost (unless you screw up )

Haven't dealt with ZCTPs yet - obvioulsy I have some more fun to come. My immediate issue (well this weekend if I don't go skiing) is to get the stock plate to be a more similar height to the table. It currrently too low which is better than being too high (ie useless) I suppose and it is a user adjustable part.

[sparkeyjames]

This finally got the better of me and I took it apart. Here is what I found.
Sorry about the crappy lighting. Note the large burr in the upper left.
This is the adjuster hole closest to the lock lever on inside of the fence.
This burr shows some contact wear and so does the inside of the
fence where this would touch it. Also the ring around
the hole seems to cant (when looking at my pic) low-right to high-left.
This combination of these two things may be helping
force the fence to go off square top to bottom.
Once I grind the burr off I'll post my findings.
Won't be till tomorrow night though.

Here is the follow up. Well not only did the burr have to come off
but I had to grind the ring around the screw hole down ALOT.
I took the ring around the screw hole down to just about the height
that the ring on the other screw hole is. Used a minigrinder with a small diamond
bit and went at it by hand. Very fast back and forth motions. Would have used
a file but I only have wood rasps alas no fine metal files.
When tightend down the fence is now quite square top to bottom. I also resquared it
to the blade. It may look rough but it was effective. Here is the pic of the final results.

[rlah]

...an accurate rip fence being a rather important part of a table saw, particularly of this table saw and I can see a lot of people being needlessly disappointed....

I suppose the accuracy in being parallel to the blade is more important than this vertical accuracy... but having to "finagel" things around this problem is a little irritating. I'm also trying to get an accurate depth of cut (on non-through cuts) with a throat plate that's not stiff enough... both the factory plate and a ZCTP I made from MDF and oak layers.

With sparkeyjames' experience, I think I'll tackle this problem between ww projects.

rlah

[timb]

Sparkey - you beat me to it Definately let us know. A new front block is only about $25 plus shipping so your not in too deep if things get really out of hand.

I was thinking of making some wooden blocks of "exactly" the correct height and placing them either side of the "arm" before filling to make sure I got the angle right. I'm hoping the the front block will clamp on the correct position without the fence so I can measure the "exact height" and that will allow me to set it up to file level. Figured a smooth file will take out the aluminum but won't do much to the wood. Pain is I really need the rip fence to make blocks the exact height.

Rlah - yes does seem like there's a bit of a quality control problem here. Its a shame they didn't take more care to get this right, an accurate rip fence being a rather important part of a table saw, particularly of this table saw and I can see a lot of people being needlessly disappointed. I feel a letter to Sears welling up but it could just be the beer i just had

tim

[sparkeyjames]

Burr on inside of rip fence adjustment.

This finally got the better of me and I took it apart. Here is what I found.
Sorry about the crappy lighting. Note the large burr in the upper left.
This is the adjuster hole closest to the lock lever on inside of the fence.
This burr shows some contact wear and so does the inside of the
fence where this would touch it. Also the ring around
the hole seems to cant (when looking at my pic) low-right to high-left.
This combination of these two things may be helping
force the fence to go off square top to bottom.
Once I grind the burr off I'll post my findings.
Won't be till tomorrow night though.

[sparkeyjames]

I have had this problem with my 21829 from day one. No amount of loosening and finegaling with the two top adjustment screws and the back screw has helped this problem. Drives me nuts. I guess disassembly to locate the internal problem is the answer.

[rlah]

Just noticed today that my rip fence has the same problem. Not sure why I didn't notice it before. Looks to be at least 1/16 off top to bottom leaning toward the blade and is consitent along the fence. Didn't have time to fiddle with it today but I leveled the table when I set it up and the fence is not raising up - fixed that problem - so it looks like I've got th get the files out again

tim

I suspect you got a machine from the same run... or maybe most of the machines are off this much... I suspect JimD's solution is the correct one but I haven't tried it yet... if you do, let me know how it goes. For now, I've been careful on my cuts to make sure the wood doesn't raise up when going thru the rip cut.

Thx, rlah.

[timb]

Just noticed today that my rip fence has the same problem. Not sure why I didn't notice it before. Looks to be at least 1/16 off top to bottom leaning toward the blade and is consitent along the fence. Didn't have time to fiddle with it today but I leveled the table when I set it up and the fence is not raising up - fixed that problem - so it looks like I've got th get the files out again

tim

[footprintsinconc]

i have the same problem and i didnt think of filing the extrusion, but now i may have to play with the fence again.

what i was planning on doing is what rod has shown, but in particular, i was going to do a setup like you show with shims. this way, i could do a cut on door panels and use the other side for the router table.

regards,

[hermit]

This isn't exactly your problem, but since you're checking alignment issues, I thought I would mention it. I made a housing for my fence in an "H" design to slip over the stock one. The main reason was to give me more infeed support when starting a cut. One day I noticed the fence wasn't vertically true, but mine went in at the top, not the bottom like yours. I thought I made the add- on haphazardly, so I made another one. Same problem. When I made them I would clamp the side pieces with the fence in place "to keep everything square". Problem was, the fence isn't milled accurately. Its actually a little wider at the base than the top (don't have the actual measurements) causing the add-on fence to exaggerate the difference. So I made a third one, and glued it up off of the fence and it ended up perfect.

So, make sure you check the widths of the top and bottom of the fence also.

Todd

[cgallery]

I think this is fairly common and I'd like to +1 everything Jim says. I, too, had powder-coat on my casting. I scraped that off and the vertical square of the fence improved. I then used a file and was able to get the fence body PERFECTLY square to the table.

[Andrew Benedetto]

I added many screws to the right cover and bent the top lip to go on the outside of the main case which adds more ridgidity to the cab. and the BT3K stand I feel is much better than any other versions. The cab . is thin sheetmetal anyway and the stand effects the saws settings especially with the "erector. set" build of the rails, tops SMT..etc.
My Unisaw w. 50" Bies iron rails is just a whole different class in terms of stablility.
Still like the BT3k for small projects.

[Black wallnut]

I have by bt on a mobile base....but from the sounds of getting everything level...maybe it should be stationaly and the rest of the shop moiblie.

That depends. it depends on what type of mobile base you have. If you just have the splayed leg stand, then yes you might be better keeping the saw stationary. If on a mobile base that has a base structure of a torsion box then I believe that the saw will held square. How the new Sears version works is something that I can only guess about, the one with the fold up base.

What has been found by owners of the BT3K and BT3100 is that if the saws base is not square and level prior to mounting the saw it would tweak the saw out of square. Which in turn made it almost impossible to fine tune.