I usually cut larger boards and never noticed anything off. But today, I was making some crosscuts with my Dewalt Tracksaw. Pieces are less than 3 inches in width, and I notice a very slight, almost imperceptible slant on the finished cuts. Is this normal? Is there any foolproof way to square the blade to the table? It's so slight that I don't know what I'm looking for. When I put a square to the blade, everything looks kosher.

Any advice?

 

About all you could do is use a small machinists square on your circular saw. The angle on most skilsaws is adjustable, and there is no real good way to make precise fine adjustments. It's the nature of using any skilsaw.

Table saws are best for cuts that require precision.

 

For me a track saw is one of those wish I could have tools, I just dont do that many big cuts that my circular saw and straight edge have not been able to handle.

It would seem to me that it's just the nature of the tool, trying to line it up for a cut that small would just introduce to much error for a straight cut.

Get a nice miter saw, that is absolutely the most used wood working tool I own!

 

This issue had me curious and I went to take a closer look at bigger boards that I've cut in the past, and now I see the error. So this isn't relegated to small pieces. Here's an image with a red line to show the issue, it's exaggerated to make it clear...

So it's starting the cut where it should, but it ends beveling out a little. So it's wider at the bottom. So if you measure the top surface vs the bottom surface, you'll get two slightly different measurements. My bevel is set to zero. I will uninstall blade, reinstall, play around with the saw to see if I can fix this, but any advice would be appreciated.

 

Do you want a different answer? Reread post 2.

Your zero is clearly not zero. That's why I said it's not precice and you need a machinist square to check for what is truly square.

 

I have a woodpecker machinist square, and looks square to me. So yeah, I'm simply looking for ideas brainstorming other than checking for square.

 

What else would it be? The cut isn't square, so the saw must not be square. Simple as that. Set the saw as deep as it will go, flip it over, put your square on the bottom plate with the blade between the teeth.

Can you take the saw out of the track and make a cut without it in the track? Eliminate the track as part of the problem.

 

You can also check if the blade is true without using a square. After you make a cut flip the cutoff over and butt it up against the other piece. If there is a gap at either the top or bottom of the cut then the blade is not squared.

If you butt the two pieces together without flipping one they should fit together with no gap even if the blade is tilted. If a gap appears then there is another problem. Maybe fence or miter gauge is skewed.

Just realized that track saw won't have fence or miter gauge. That comment would apply to table saw.

 

You're right XSleeper... it's just so weird that you can't see it when putting it against the square, or maybe I need to see an optometrist. I compensating the bevel about 1/16 of an inch, and the error is gone. Adjusted the indicator to the new zero.

Problem solved. Thank you guys.

 

Shining a light behind the square can help show those small discrepancies when "normal" eyesight might not.