In praise of the TS-Aligner, and other ramblings
Jon Endres, PE
A month or two ago, I used a crowbar on my wallet (ref. the Crowbar FAQ at
http://www.shavings.net/CrowBarFAQ.HTM) and bought a TS-Aligner Jr.
(http://www.ts-aligner.com/) in anticipation of using it solely for setting
up my new Unisaw. After receiving it, I sat and watched the included video
and realized I could tune my drill press, jointers, saws, damn near
everything in the shop that had a rotating part or cutterhead.
Then it sat for several weeks. No time to use it.
This past weekend, I finally got the fence off my old saw and installed it
on the Unisaw. The fence is a Mule Accusquare, which I value greatly and
would not likely trade for a Biesemeyer or equivalent. I was getting decent
cuts from the old saw, but encountered the occasional bind, burn or pinch,
especially when cutting sheet goods. Plus, the parts were sometimes not
identical, off by a 32nd or so.
Between the TS-Aligner and a new Starrett 120A dial caliper (bought solely
for anal-retentive woodworking - hey, I'm an engineer!) I determined that
my Unisaw has about 0.0015 arbor runout, the new blade (a Marathon Gold 50t
combination - blah, but it *was* hangin' on the wall) has about 0.003
runout, and that the fence on the old saw, which I *thought* was parallel to
the blade, was actually tailing away from the rear of the blade by almost
0.040 (that's *40* thousandths!). Damn, no wonder the old saw had a few
quirks.
So now the fence is on and adjusted to give 0.003 tailing from the rear of
the blade, the miter slots are parallel with the blade (dead nuts), the
fence is square to the table, and I'm just getting started. It's more fun
to play with the TS-Aligner than to cut wood (ummm, well maybe not). I cut
three pieces of poplar for support pieces for my router table extension, and
all of them were within 0.002 of width of each other. With a new blade, a
freshly waxed table top, and a 3-horse tuned-and-tested Unisaw, things
couldn't be smoother.
Thanks, Ed, for a great product. I did promise you a review after all, and
while it's not engineer-technical, it's definitely praise for your
TS-Aligner Jr. Next up, the jointer and drill press get tuned.
--
Jon Endres, PE
West Mountain Engineering
Civil/Survey/Site Development
wmeng...@adelphia.net