: I had this problem ripping strips from a 17' board. 4 strips ripped fine and
: then this. I had the same problem torwards the end of a 9' board, but was
: able to cut the problem part off. The question is, whats causing this?
: There are no visible defects in the board, there are many a feather board
: being used as well as some blocks (not the ones in the picture, they're
: just there to keep the strip standing for the pic) to keep the board
: against the fence. When I saw it start, I continued to slowly feed the
: board while checking to make sure the board was flat on the table and
: fence (which it was). Im using a Freud Diablo thin kerf (.050) 7.5"
: blade. Best I can figure is that the thin blade is being pulled by grain?
: Any thoughts? Thanks in advance. -Ted

: BTW I've got 4 strips up on either side of my Guillemot (stapleless) and its
: looking like Im makin me a boat *yeehaa* (providing Isabel doesn't nail
: Annapolis)

Hi Ted

Wow, that's an interesting problem...
I've seen some cuts from hot blades, but with the RPM that they were turning the kerfs were wide and very rough, with a little waver in them. This was a 10" steel blade, back in "those" days.

The blades will warp if they get hot, but usually only thousandths of an inch and with high rpm, will more likely just make a wide kerf that's VERY rough. And they will really shake the crap out of the saw or the wood.
I wouldn't think that cutting thin strips would be enough to heat a blade up that much. The ones I saw warp were cutting thick hardwoods... 2"+ thick.

Was the blade slowing down and speeding up?

With that big of variance I would think more in line with the motor getting squirely... ?? Have you checked the tightness of all the bolts holding the motor ( this is assuming that this model is a direct drive. If not, then I would suspect that the trunion is loose.

If you don't have too many hours on this saw, and you didn't check it when first purchased, you should do so. I have yet to find any tools that were completely tightened down everywhere.

Sears is a bad-guy in that department, but most saws are put together with minimum wage employees that know little or nothing about them... I suppose the high price tools get a little better attention...

My next door neighbor purchased a new saw two years ago and we built a nice table for it with all the bells and whistles, but upon testing the saw, it was off a tad in the arbor/trunion area and had to be loosened and realigned.

Also, in case the blade is the culpret... does it have relief cuts about every 4 to 8 teeth. It should...
Is there a lot of buildup behind the carbide tips of the blade. This resin is a major cause of heat buildup and can be cured quite easily. A little Easy-Off Oven cleaner does the trick in about 5 to 10 minutes.

If you are using a plywood blade with mega teeth, that could be a problem as well. They are much too close together for cutting wood and heat up tremendously.

Grain can do things to your wood, but usually it's just pulling away from the fence or closing on the blade. Not likely an issue here.

I too would be interested in what you find... That's a really big pattern there for warped blades, and it seems you should have felt the movement if the motor was moving that much... ???

Rehd

P.S. ( a good test to figure out what's going on would be to make a ZERO-CLEARANCE plate and cut something to heat up the blade and see if it wobbles in the plate. that would probably eliminate everything but the "Warped Blade" and "Loose Motor/Trunion" theories.)