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Step 3Machine and blade considerations
Although most any table saw can be adapted to work well for puzzlemaking, it's always helpful to have a nice new machine to work with. If you're in the market to buy a new table saw, I strongly recommend the SawStop. It's much safer to work with one of these saws than ANY other kind of table saw. Even setting safety considerations aside, the SawStop is an all around well engineered and well built machine. Man, I wish that I had one... ;-)
Regardless of what kind of saw you've got, you're going to want to get a high quality carbide tipped crosscutting blade for it. For best surface quality and least amount of bottom side tear-out, I recommend using a high tooth count crosscutting blade with 5-10 degrees of positive hook on the teeth and 30-40 degrees of ATB. I'm a big fan of the 10 inch 60 tooth Forrest Woodworker 1. I've got about 20 of them, and they're just about the only kind of blade that I ever put on my saw.
Regardless of what blade you're using, make sure to get it sharpened regularly. Also, make certain that the blade is aligned parallel with the miter slots on your table saw surface. This is usually an adjustment that you make inside the guts of the saw, and it can be a pain to fix sometimes, but it's important to get it right.
The key thing to understand about this adjustment is that your crosscutting sled will always travel parallel to the miter slots, and thus the cut that you make will also always be parallel to the miter slots. If the blade isn't parallel to the miter slots then the back side of the blade will rub against the material as it passes by.
Alternating Top Bevel (shown on left of diagram) is what gives a crosscutting blade that W-shaped cut profile. Hook (shown on right) is the amount that each tooth is tilted forward relative to a radial line coming from the center of the blade. The one that I drew has got 10 degrees of hook and 45 degrees of ATB.
A ripping blade has flat top "chisel" teeth (0 ATB) and typically has a very aggressive hook. These blades are useful for notching (to be covered in the next volume of the primer) but in my experience they're not any better than a good crosscutting blade (i.e. Forrest WW1) when it comes to ripping down puzzle stock.
Regardless of what kind of saw you've got, you're going to want to get a high quality carbide tipped crosscutting blade for it. For best surface quality and least amount of bottom side tear-out, I recommend using a high tooth count crosscutting blade with 5-10 degrees of positive hook on the teeth and 30-40 degrees of ATB. I'm a big fan of the 10 inch 60 tooth Forrest Woodworker 1. I've got about 20 of them, and they're just about the only kind of blade that I ever put on my saw.
Regardless of what blade you're using, make sure to get it sharpened regularly. Also, make certain that the blade is aligned parallel with the miter slots on your table saw surface. This is usually an adjustment that you make inside the guts of the saw, and it can be a pain to fix sometimes, but it's important to get it right.
The key thing to understand about this adjustment is that your crosscutting sled will always travel parallel to the miter slots, and thus the cut that you make will also always be parallel to the miter slots. If the blade isn't parallel to the miter slots then the back side of the blade will rub against the material as it passes by.
Alternating Top Bevel (shown on left of diagram) is what gives a crosscutting blade that W-shaped cut profile. Hook (shown on right) is the amount that each tooth is tilted forward relative to a radial line coming from the center of the blade. The one that I drew has got 10 degrees of hook and 45 degrees of ATB.
A ripping blade has flat top "chisel" teeth (0 ATB) and typically has a very aggressive hook. These blades are useful for notching (to be covered in the next volume of the primer) but in my experience they're not any better than a good crosscutting blade (i.e. Forrest WW1) when it comes to ripping down puzzle stock.
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