Table Saw Maintenance
The table saw is the heart of my shop and it’s important that it keeps humming along! Here are the four things I do regularly to keep getting great performance.
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The four things I regularly do to keep my table saw humming are.
Keep it clean.
This is pretty self explanatory. I go after the insides with my vacuum and blow out any hard to reach areas with my air compressor. Once everything is clean, I lubricate any parts that rub together with a silicon free dry lube.
Clean / Sharpen / Replace the blades
This is also pretty self explanatory. I used to clean my blades in a 5 gallon bucket with paint thinner. But, Rockler’s cleaning kit is less toxic and a lot easier to use.
As far as when to do those things? Well, if your blade isn’t doing as great give it a look. If it’s dirty, clean it. If that doesn’t help, get it sharpened. If there’s not enough carbide left to sharpen, replace it.
Condition the Top
This is important to keep whatever you’re cutting sliding smoothly, and for rust prevention. For most climates, just paste wax works great to do both these things. My climate is really humid though, so I use a thin coat of polyurethane followed by paste wax.
Align the blade and fence to the miter slot
If your saw alignment is off then at best you’re not going to get good cuts. At worst, your fence could be pushing pieces into the back of your blade causing kick back. How to check this is the same on each saw, but check your manual for how to adjust things.