Thread: Saw blade burn, one side only

Im no expert but to me to be able to do this your fence is tight on the out. That would cause the blade to heat and it would cup, When I was a kid we had a 5 foot blade and if you jammed her a bit this was the result and Ive seen it cup by at least an inch. I dont think you will find a blade fault now its cold, clean it up and it will be fine. Just make sure the guide out is never tighter than the guide in.

Crappy fence = crappy cut.

If the fence creeps over during a cut, then out-going kerf will press up against the back of the blade, causing burning.

If you slide your fence over so it runs along the mitre slot, can you see/feel any deviation? 'Cos if the fence isn't 100% parallel to the blade (which in turn should be trued to the mitre-slot) then, again, the out-going kerf will press up against...

Does your saw have a riving knife/splitter? If you don't, some timbers will move after cutting, closing the kerf so the timber will start to bind on the back of the...

Thanks for the replies. Just went down to the shed to make a few more observations.

The crappy fence's natural position is to diverge away from the blade by about 1mm toward the rear of the saw. When locked down at the front, the rear of the fence can wiggle about 5mm either side of that mark and I usually measure the fence distance at the front and rear of the blade before locking down the rear. Since it was drifting today I had used quick clamps as well as the normal locking system to keep it in place.

Attachment 112538

Measuring it again before unlocking it just now indicated that the fence was set pretty much parallel to the blade. The burning could very well have occurred in the initial cuts before I noticed the drifting blade and locked it down properly.

The second thing I noticed just now is that the riving knife has a very small offset toward the clear side of the blade. I must have stuffed this up when aligning the saw just recently so I suppose this could also be drawing the wood into the blade on the burnt side.

Attachment 112539

Thanks again for your help.

Hmmm, now I've just confused myself again.

In the photo of the wood shown in the first post it can be seen that the blackening of the wood has actually occurred at the front of the blade given the forward stroke of the marking. This was the last piece that I cut today so I'm wondering if this was just caused by the previous build up of crud or whether it's a little more important to the problem at hand?

So I cleaned up the blade, did a bit of a rebuild and some attempted aligning of the crappy fence and sorted out the splitter offset. It seems to have made a fair difference and the results can be seen below.

Attachment 113040

There is still some burning evident however this only occurred where I momentarily slowed down on the feed as I went to grab the push stick.

I made a few cuts today and found that the cleanest cuts occurred when feeding at a rate just short of starting to bog down the motor. Is this normal practice for this type of ripping cut using a combination blade?

Steve,I can certainly relate as to the problem you have with the fence.Some of the garbage we buy in good faith leaves a lot to be desired.I have ended up by putting a stick on measuring tape on the out feed side to marry up with the calibrations on the infeed side.When trying to get an exact measurement of width we start the waltz around the table saw.Adjust the infeed to the required measurement,then around we go to the outfeed side to do the same. Back to the infeed side to lock in the fence I dont know if this will help stop the burn marks,but it certainly tests ones patience.............AL

I know the dance quite well AL...

Hadn't thought of using a tape on the back end of the saw though. I'm more leaning towards getting hold of a decent fence and hopefully giving up the dance altogether.

Steve,let us know as to what fence and price you are leaning towards, Regards.....AL

I've seen this one recommended a number of times on the forum AL so this might be the way to go.

Xacta Fence

Though at $325 it's almost half of what I originally paid for the table saw. A little more research is probably needed.

Its not hard to make a fence like the xacta fence, I made one for my cabinet saw cost about $100.00 just have a bit of a search. Quite a few people have already done this.

Cheers Jerry

here it is
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f44/table-fence-clone-8268
cheers Peter

Thanks guys,

Guess I'll just have to give it a go then and see if I can come up with something usable.

Realised that I just didn't have the free time to try making my own fence.

So I went down to MWE today picked one up. It looks pretty good.

Attachment 118480

The only problem is that the rails are so much longer than the ones I had on it previously and I don't really have the room for it now.

Attachment 118481

I'm considering cutting them down to make it more suitable for the shed but they just look so good I don't know if I can take the angle grinder to them...

Steve, before you attack the rails with the grinder, have you ever considered using the rails to mount under the table router. I did it to mine and it works well. Regards.....Al