Angle adjustment on TSC 55 REQ

[Markiee77]

Hi everyone.  I just ripped some 45° cuts on some cherry hardwood assuming that tilting the saw to 45° would be accurate. It turns out every rip is off by 1 1/2°. Is the saw adjustable by myself or do I need to send the saw in to Festool? 

Thank you!
Mark

 

[Gregor]

How did you measure that? Is the angle too high or too low?

 

[ear3]

While you can fine tune the 90 degree setting by playing around with the grub screw, the 45 degree is set by a fixed metal insert that you would have a hard time configuring without also setting off the 90 degree setting.  Keep in mind that locking down the knobs correctly (back first, then front) can also affect the angle.  My 45 degree stop is also off, but only by .2 or so, so what I do when I need true 45 on the miter saw is to set it with a digital angle gauge with the saw plate taken off, then do some test cuts just to make sure.  Here's an outline of the process (albeit, when setting the saw to plumb).  1.5 degrees is a lot to be off, however, so I might consider sending it back in if you rule out everything else that could potentially be affecting how you set the saw.

 

[Markiee77]

[member=53905]Gregor[/member], when I tried to mate two of the 45's to each other for a right angle, they would not square.  So I measured each piece and found both were 1.5° too low.

[member=37411]ear3[/member] thank you for the advice and reference to the earlier post.  Never occurred to me to use a Wixey to measure it.  I'll try all your suggestions and re-post with my results.

Mark

 

[Rick Herrick]

Take a look at this video by Peter Parfitt.  There is a piece on that adjustment.

 

[Rob Z]

Edward,

Thanks for the repost to your method described a few years ago. I missed that post by you and this is helpful.

 

[Gregor]

[member=53905]Gregor[/member], when I tried to mate two of the 45's to each other for a right angle, they would not square.  So I measured each piece and found both were 1.5° too low.

In case the 'too low' angles are 43.5° instead of 45°:
The saw might have slightly tilted on the rail while doing the cut,
which can easily happen on 45° cuts as the center of mass is beside the rail, pullig the saw out of alignment with the rail.

Should this be the failure mode the solution would be to hold down the baseplate of the saw onto the rail, while doing the cut.

 

[Markiee77]

Thanks for this idea.  The tilting is entirely possible as, in fact, the angles are 43.5°.  And since you mention it, just last week I watched the Festool trainer guy instruct that very technique (always holding down the saw on the left side).  I'm going to try re-cutting tonight and see what happens.

Thanks!

 

[HiCal]

Also important when using a track saw tilted is to use a scrap of the same thickness at the in feed and out feed of the tracks to prevent the track from sagging at the ends of the cut. Probably just need to work on your technique.