: Stan,

: I just finished ripping strips for a kayak I will build this winter using an
: old 10"Craftsman table saw with a 7 1/4 " blade. For some reason
: it left the strips thicker at the top of the cut, which I solved by
: flipping the board over between cuts. I'm not sure what caused the problem
: in the first place, but I suspect the 7 1/4" blade did not have
: enough teeth projecting above the cut. Another thing I noticed was that
: the amount of pressure on the feather board affected the thickness of the
: strips. This tended to vary as the width of the boards I was using was not
: consistent along their length. Due to the uneven strips, I'll use the
: rolling bevel method rather than bead and cove. Next time I think I will
: try "board buddies" and a 10" blade.

If the strips come out thicker on top, it means the saw blade is tilted away from the fence. By flipping the board over, it only make the problem worse. By cutting on the same side, you get a strip that has two flat sides parallel to each other but not right angle to the side next to it-- sort of like a parallogram in cross section. By flipping the board, you get two long sides converging on one side but diverging the opposite side-- kind of like a flattened ladder. The right thing to do is to adjust the tilt of the blade to make sure it sit right angle to the table. Some Craftsman has the saw assembly adjustment, which is on the right hand side under the table, supported on only one side of the enclosure which is made from thin sheet metal. The enclosure can buckle and throw the whole saw out of alliment. Bad news. Fixing it is out of question. I rigged up a MDO tilding table on top of the cast iron table to align the blade so I can make right angle cut. May be I should chuck the whole thing. Well, I hope yours is not as bad that alignment is still possible. First, use the crank in front to raise the blade to the very top. Second, use the crank on the right hand side to adjust the blade to right angle. (measure the angle by pressing a right angle against the blade or cur a 2x4 and measure the angle cut -- you know you get perfect 90 degree when you flip a cut 2x4 and press against another one and cannot find any gap in between. Feather board helps by holding the board down to prevent movement which happens a lot when saw blade tilted from right angle. Oh, a sharp saw blade helps a lot, too. Good luck to you.