Woodpecker's Align-A-Saw

[alltracman78]

Very informative and interesting thread.

I have a bunch of woodpeckers stuff and the couple of times I've had a problem I picked up the phone and they've promptly fixed it.

 

[4nthony]

Regarding the surface ground and blanchard ground sides, when I did the warranty claim and asked if both sides should be surface ground, the tech wasn't sure and said he'd get back to me.

I received shipping confirmation this morning and the email mentioned:

FINAL UNIT INSPECTED AND CHECKED ON VISION EQUIPMENT.

FINAL POLISH IS ONLY ON ONE SIDE BY DESIGN. BLANCHARD FINISH ON OPPOSITE SIDE.

In the videos, both sides are used.  Maybe early models were surface ground on both sides or the blanchard ground side was used by mistake.

I have a bunch of woodpeckers stuff and the couple of times I've had a problem I picked up the phone and they've promptly fixed it.

This is the only time I've received a product and something didn't feel right. The other times I've had to call customer service were for a missing Rack-It and a wrongly-sized ruler.

 

[4nthony]

I got my replacement plate a couple weeks ago and had some time to mount it on my saw today.

In lieu of taking a bunch of photos showing blade alignment and measuring how flat the plate may or may not be, I'll just say that the new plate shows a nice linear progression from 0.0 at the start, to .003 at the arbor, to .006 at the far end.

Exactly the type of results I was expecting to see.

[cool]

 

[krudawg]

A few days ago, I received the Align-A-Saw kit from Woodpeckers. I've never had any table saw alignment issues but I've got some strong OCD tendencies so I placed an order when this was announced.

I set it up on my saw, grabbed my trusty Woodpecker's Saw Gauge 2.0, and started taking some measurements.

At the front of the Saw Plate, I set the gauge to zero.

I moved to the middle of the Saw Plate and the gauge moved very slightly + of 0

I moved to the back of the Saw Plate and my gauge moved to .004.

I moved the Saw Gauge to the opposite miter slot and took a measurement on the "rough side" of the Saw Plate.

At the front and set to 0.

Middle of the Saw Plate, just a hair -0 (-.0998?)

At the rear of the Saw Plate, (-.094-ish)

I noticed in the Deep Dive video, [member=7266]jeffinsgf[/member] takes his measurement on the side of the Saw Plate without the logo markings.

I wanted another measurement with the rough side of the Saw Plate and the Saw Gauge back in the left miter slot, so I remounted the Plate.

At the front I set the Saw Gauge to zero.

I centered the Saw Gauge and the front half measured ~.0075 (sorry about the glare).

And finally, at the back of the Saw Plate, my measurement remained at .0075.

So it looks like I've got a Saw Plate that is incredibly flat for 6", then it goes beyond the tolerance for the remaining 6". According to the specs, the Saw Plate should have a tolerance of .002.

In the video, Jeff gets "about a thousandth of an inch" across the entire width of the Saw Plate.

Also, the rougher side of my Saw Plate has, what looks to be a faded sharpie marking of "344". No clue what that means but the number is very close to the .004 I got above (.00344, perhaps?).

Anyway, I'm not going to adjust my table based on measurements from this tool as I don't think my table is out of alignment enough to warrant an adjustment. As shown in the video, it would've been nice to see a near perfect measurement across the entire width of the Saw Plate rather than half of the plate. Or, a gradual increase from front to back and not from center to back.

Based on this unscientific review, I'll give this Woodpecker's product 2-1/2 out of 5 stars.

Seems pratical but my "Over-Priced" Meter is pegged