3612 Blade Heel Question

[danthewoodman]

I bought a 3612 table saw a few months ago and can't seem to get the blade heel/rip fence equation just right. I have spent countless hours (and many skinned knuckles) trying to adjust the trunnions. After determining that the stock Ridgid blade runnout was causing my work to burn, I bought a Freud Diablo blade and have had much better luck.

However, with my last alignment I got the blade as parallel to the miter guage slot as I could get it with a combination square. I measured the same point on the plate of the blade at two points along the miter guage slot. When I aligned the fence to the same slot, I still got significant noise at the back of the blade when I made a cut. I even canted the back of the fence out from the miter guage slot by wedging four sheets of paper at the rear of the 4" level I was using to align the fence to the slot. I still get noise at the back of the cut. Is this supposed to happen? Do I have a problem with the trunnion assembly? Or, am I being overly picky?

[Charlie P]

I was hoping someone with more table saw experience would reply, but... (I have been woodworking for almost 50 years, but primarily with a RAS - I got my first table saw when the 3612 came out.)

I wouldn't worry about noise - for example I have one blade on my RAS that is FAR more noisy than the others, but it cuts great.

I would look for two symptoms of a table saw problem...

a) are there scratches in the cut in the direction that indicates they are coming from the work touching the rear of the blade? Any marks from the rear curve up, while those from the front curve down (depending on your point of view).

b) is sawdust blown up (like a rooster tail) when you are cutting, or is most of the sawdust going under the table. A roostertail with more than a few percent of the sawdust indicates a problem.