marc: the wood whisperer is sponsored by festool, faster, easier, smarter, and by powermatic, thegold standard since 1921. well, we've got a new table sawin the shop, time to set it up. (groovy brass music) wouldn't it be nice if toolsjust came perfectly tuned up, ready to go, youbasically plug them in and you're ready to have some fun in the shop? unfortunately that's not the case.
nearly every single tool that you ever buy will require some type of tune up, and at the very least you need to check it to make sure that it is set up properly, even if the manufacturer claims that it comes properly set upright out of the box. that goes for hand tools, it goes for power tools, no matter you use. to get these things to perform as good
as they can, you've got to tune them up. setting up a new saw, kind of like in the bandsaw setup and tune up video, setting up a new oneis very similar to the process that you woulddo to tune it up as well. this applies for both cases. there are a few thingswe'll probably do with the setup that we may nothave to do with a tune up, but it's good to know those things anyway,
in case you wind up witha new tool at some point. because this is my secondtop, i can guarantee that my slot is not going to be inalignment with my blade, and that's okay, becauseit's really good to make sure that this is set upproperly in the first place. every saw is probably going to be a little bit different, but theprinciple is the same. there are going to be somebolts underneath the top, that hold the top in place,and if you loosen those you
can knock the top into alignmentwherever it needs to go. make sure you consultthe manual and find out what they recommend foraligning the miter slot to the blade if you need to loosen those. (bouncy synth music) now we need to take themeasurement from the slot to the blade, and there's a fewways that you could do that. i have this little kithere that i got from grizzly years ago, itwas like 30 or 40 bucks.
it has a dial indicator in there, it's also got a calliper and a magnetic base. if you actually have built a jig for this, and i've seen some great ones, where they secure thedial indicator into the miter slot and you couldmove it forward and back and check alignment thatway, that's fantastic. i just never really had a chance to do it, and i'm always in a littlebit more of a rush than that.
i'd also guarantee thatmost of you probably don't even have a dialindicator, so it's not going to make much sense forme to show you that. what i like to do is use avery finely-graded ruler, the finest one you can find,whether it's millimeters ... this one that i havegoes down to a 64th of an inch, and i take mymeasurements that way. i know a lot of you are probably saying, "a 64th? that's not accurate enough."
well, i'm not really countingon the lines that i see here, i'm counting on being ableto see in between the lines, and if you can see in between the lines, technically you can resolvedown to 128th of an inch. don't rely on my naked eye for that, and i don't have a mechanical bionic eye, i have what i call my sexy specs. not only will these helpyou tune your table saw, but they're pretty goodwith the opposite sex.
the first thing is to pick a lucky tooth. this is going to be my luckytooth and we want to stick with that lucky tooththroughout this procedure. press the ruler upagainst the lucky tooth, not so hard that i deflect the blade, which actually wouldbe kind of hard to do. just nice and firm. sometimes it helps if you close one eye. i've got 32, 33, 34, 35 ...
it's about 35 and a half if youwere to look really closely. we will take this tooth andwe'll rotate that to the back, and take the measurementagainst that same tooth. i'm reading 32, 33, 34,about 34 and a half. we're really only about a 64th off, so let's plan on making an adjustment. now what i'm going to do is loosenthree out of the four bolts. by leaving one tight, that willgive us a nice firm hold in one corner that we can pivotthe rest of the top around.
should work really well. now i put the sexy specs back on, i get prepared to takeanother measurement, and this can really bit ahit or miss type of thing. we're taking measurements thatare down to 128th of an inch, and we're using a deadblowhammer to make the adjustments. it doesn't exactly fit together but we do the best we can, andit will be hit or miss. if you're lucky you'll getit on the first few tries.
the back needs to go a littlebit further away from the blade, so if in order to toget that corner out that way, the easiest thing to do isactually bring this corner in this way, because that was thebolt that i left tightened. i'm going to give it alittle bit of a tap here. i'm going to hold the ruler up against the tooth with my finger. use my left hand to give it a few taps. actually may have beena little bit too far.
now we'll rotate back, checkat the back of the blade. i think i got it prettyclose, and what i like to do from here is moreof a empirical test. here's another great wayto check the alignment. if you don't have a dialindicator or a really sensitive ruler, this iscertainly a third option. i'm actually just using this to test the results of the setup that i just did. it's really, really simple.
this is a three-eights inch dowel. the miter gauge i have here hasa little t-track on the inside, which is really perfect forlaying this down right inside, i just need somethingto secure it in place. if you don't have a mitergauge like that, you can always try making a little block ofwood with a v-notch in it, that will nest over topof the dowel and give you a nice secure connectionto the miter gauge. you just don't want it flopping around.
i just place mine intothis slot, and pull these pieces of blue tape overthe top to secure it. then i'm going to actuallyadd a clamp, just to be safe. you also want to make surethere's no play in the gauge itself, because thatwill skew your results. the idea here is to make a quick cut, and go all the way through the cut, so it contacts at the front and the back. let's do that really quickly.
now that the cut is made,we want to make sure this whole assembly staystogether and nothing moves. before we do anythinglet's unplug the saw. now we want to bring the assembly back, to the back set of teeth here, until i hear it make somesort of contact with the wood. usually one or two teethwill still make contact, even though they actually cut the piece. one or two will be slightly offset.
once you find one, you canmark it with some chalk or just hold it with yourfinger, and bring it forward. now we should have the same type of sound, or the same frictionthat we had in the back, if it's in perfect alignment. and we don't. now the questionis how much space is there. this is where one of those littlefeeler gauges come into play. i have a two-thousandthsfeeler gauge here. that one goes through solet's pick up another one.
this one is three-thoudandths. that one barely, just barely,i kind of have to force it in. the error here is about two-to three-thousandths from front to back, and honestlythat's good enough for me. here's a method that i find tobe the easiest of all, actually. if you just have anadjustable square like this. loosen it up, put it into the miter track, and again pick a tooth. pull it back just enough sothat you, you want to listen
for the point that the toothactually contacts your square. push the square into the tooth. (clicking) you hear that? it's just contacting. when i tightened itdown it shifted a little bit so i'm going to loosen it up again. pull it back just a hair. what i'm doing, justin case you can't see, i'm holding the end ofthe adjustable square against the miter slot,pushing in this direction.
right at the tip it makescontact, but toward the back end it doesn't seem to bemaking as much contact. not sure why, it mightnot be square, but that's a trait that we're goingto pay attention to, because we want to see thesame thing in the back. we'll take this tooth, we're going to rotate it all the wayto back, and we're going to see if we can get thatsame thing to happen. definitely rubbing in the back,and it goes away in the front.
that to me is perfect. if that wasn't the case wewould loosen three bolts, get your deadblow, give it a few taps. but if that's that good atthat point, you're done, you don't really need to go any further. if you do any other empiricaltesting at this point i would just about guarantee you're goingto find that you are really, really accurate, and all youneeded was an adjustable square. the next thing on the agenda isto attach the extension wings.
this saw has a small oneon the left, and two large ones on the right, andthese things are heavy. i wouldn't even think abouttrying to lift these on your own. this one you might be able to move around, but holding it in positionwhile you attach the bolts can be a dicey procedure, so iwould definitely get some help. pieces like these over here are really a two, at least two if not three man job. this one it's nice to have a helper on.
what i recommend doing is attaching them and then finger-tightening all the bolts. you can see we still have some play there. i've already attached this once,put my straight edge across, and i saw that there was alittle bit of a dip at the joint, enough that i want to take careof it and try to shim it out. what i'm going to use for thatis a little bit of blue tape. actually i cut it in thirds,three little strips here. i insert these strips at the top.
now clearly, this is not an exact science. one more piece in the middle. if it sits up above the surfacethat's okay, we could always slice it off later. first thing i'm goingto do is tighten it up, finger tight again, no need to use any tools until we have itwhere it needs to be. once it's tightened up to the point that it's pretty much self-supporting,
you want to make surethat the front is flush. you might be, eh, the frontand back might be slightly different, i'm just going toflush it up to the front here. you could use a deadblowhammer just to ease it into place, or use a block of wood that crosses the joint, spans the entire joint. a few taps should bring it to the point that it's nice and even with the front. now how do you level thesetwo surfaces together?
there's a few things that you could do. you could tighten it up a littlebit more, cinch it closed, and then use the hammerto knock it in place. for me i like to use the mostdummy-proof method possible, that doesn't require meto do a whole lot of work. what i like to do is placea block of wood that's been jointed so it's niceand flat on one side. place that across the joint. in fact i'm going tofavor the main side of
the table, most of thematerial is over here. i then take a clamp. secure it to the tablehere, nice and tight. now the bottom of thispiece of wood is flush with the top surface of thetable saw, which means that if i now clamp this wingto this piece of wood, it's going to lift it up andbring it, hopefully, to the point that it's completelyflush with the top surface. crank down on it, tightenit up really good.
you should be able to feelthat starting to get flush. now with both the frontand back clamped in the same fashion, we'regoing to tighten it up. you don't want to go too tightat this point, you just want to start to snug it up so thatit holds itself in position. you could remove your clamps. that's actually really good. if you do need to make anadjustment at this point just a nice little tap with thehammer should do the trick.
you tighten it too much, you've really got to hit this thing hard to move it. i think that's good enough toreally lock down at this point. now i'm going to do theexact same procedure that we did for the left side, onlythis time on the right side. everything is the same,i'm going to use the wooden blocks and clamps untileverything is nice and level. (bright blues music)