kapex adjustments

[fin]

ok guys, i bought a kapex recently. cracked it out for the first time on a kitchen job the other week. didnt notice if it was out but i was only cutting small ish kitchen mouldings with it. today ive been cutting kitchen cornice from howdens that is quite big and its noticeably out when i join 2 45 degree angle cuts.

so am i right in thinking the suplemental manual has details of how to fettle it to make it cut bang on? how long does it take to do it and what do i need to do it?

cheers

 

[johnleve]

Here is a short video going through the process of checking the saw, mine was pretty much perfect out of the box so I did not get into making adjustments but there are instructions in the supplemental manual.

 

[Gary in Texas]

Fin,

To answer your question, yes, the supplemental manual will walk you through the steps required to calibrate your Kapex.

Gary

 

[Doug S]

My Kapex was out when it came. Had to adjust the mitre gauge to get it right, this involved moving it in and out as well as side to side. Quite fiddly but worth it when you get it right. Lasers also needed adjusting but don't really use them anymore.

Doug

 

[fin]

my left laser is pretty much bang on. but the one to the right seems to be out by a couplea mm

 

[Doug S]

I have seen a few Kapex where the left laser was ok but the right one was out, mine  came like that also. It's like the factory setting is make the left one spot on to the cut but leave the right one a few mil to the right?

Doug 

 

[SoonerFan]

My lasers were good enough for me right out of the box.  I came from a Dewalt w/o lasers.  However, now that I am more used to the Kapex I am thinking of adjusting a little to refine the tolerances.  I have reviewed the videos and manual and am comfortable with the adjustment process.  Any suggestions that might improve my setup based on your adjustments/setup?

 

[Doug S]

I would like to hear other peoples opinions on how they set up the lasers, mine are bang on the cut but this just obscures the pencil line so never use them. I find it easier to drop the blade on to the pencil line, lift it up again then make the cut or just start somewhere near and feed it towards the line, never use the laser.

Doug

 

[fin]

i also noticed the lasers turn themselves off after a time?

 

[peter halle]

i also noticed the lasers turn themselves off after a time?

The lasers will turn themselves off after about 30 minutes by design.

Peter

 

[fin]

ahh ok cool. thanks for that.

what im gonna do is check what the mitres are like on skirtings and that. see how it goes. but i should imagine the suplemental manual would be a handy thing to read through

 

[xtrememtnbiker]

When you do get around to adjusting it, I'll share some tips from my very long, frustrating ordeal when I did mine.

It started as a simple, let me check my 45's and see if they're perfect. You set up a stop and cut all left hand 45's flipping the piece after each cut to make 4 triangles that go together. That makes any gaps 8 times the actually error of your saw. Mine was 3/8" off so I knew I needed to adjust it. I'll save all the problems I worked through and figured out (with a few phone calls to a great guy on here) and tell you what I ended up doing.

I spent 6 hours on a Saturday working on this and never finished it and learned a lot of stuff. The next Monday at work I did the whole process in about 40 minutes.

All material must be perfectly parallel on two sides for this to work properly (one of my mistakes)

I started with a piece probably 10" wide by 2' long. Cut it in half, and then flip one piece over, and cut again. Then you flip it back and butt the two pieces together and this shows you the error of the 90° cut multiplied by two because of the flip. You must start with getting 90 perfect, then do the 45's. Loosen all 3 screws but keep the outer two lightly snugged. Then you bump the saw left or right to adjust the error (very, very small bumps) and repeat all this till there is no gap. It took me 6 or 7 cuts the second day I tried this.

Tighten all 3 screws.

For the 45's I used material that was about 4 5/8" wide by usually 4' long. (Day one I almost filled a Brute trashcan with scrap...)
Set the saw to the left 45 and make a cut, then flip the board, slide it down, and make it that when you cut the next 45, you have around a 1/2" flat spot between the short point of the miters. This is helpful for assembly at the end. Set a stop block at this dimension and cut 3 more blocks. Then lay them all on a table and clamp the ends with Collin's clamps or the like and see if you have gaps at the long point or the short point.

If you need to adjust the 45, loosen the left screw and push the miter scale towards the saw if the gap was at the long point and pull it away from the saw if the gap is at the short point. Again, very small adjustments are needed.

I didn't adjust either of my 45's because one was almost perfect with no measurable error (I didn't have feeler gauges at the time, I do now.) and the other was close enough that since it was multiplied by 8 it wasn't worth touching.

Again, the second time I did this, it took under 40 minutes start to finish.
The first time was a long frustrating process but a very good learning experience for me. Hopefully this post will help somebody out a bit or save someone a bit of time.

This is the left side 45.

[attachimg=2]

This is the right side 45.

[attachimg=4]