Tried to level a wonky table saw with a shim and it backfired hard

I was setting up my old Delta saw in the garage last weekend and the blade was tilting about 2 degrees off. Threw a shim under one corner and tightened everything down, next cut the thing started vibrating like crazy and threw the belt off. Anyone else ever make a simple fix way worse than the original problem?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_ben15d agoTop Commenter

...and here I thought the easy fix was just shimming it and calling it good. In my experience, if a saw is that far off, there's usually something else going on under the table, not just the legs. Might be the trunnions are loose or the whole base is twisted from being stored wrong. A shim can throw the whole frame into a bind and make things rattle apart like you saw. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd check the mounting bolts and the flatness of the top before touching any shims again.

troyc1715d ago

You ever check if the table top itself is warped? I've seen guys chase leg shims for hours only to find out the cast iron had a dip in it from the start. A straight edge and a feeler gauge might save you a lot of headache before you start messing with the base.

wyattramirez15d ago

Yeah no kidding, I once spent a whole weekend shimming a saw only to realize I was basically just straightening out my own terrible technique. Like, the saw was fine, I just sucked at cutting straight lines lol. But seriously, that bit about the base being twisted from storage hits close to home. I had a saw stored on its side for a couple months once, and it was like the whole frame decided to take a nap and never wake up right. At this point, I just grab a level and a straight edge before I touch anything, because chasing shims when the cast iron's got a mind of its own is a recipe for way too many curse words.