Making a riving knife out of 2mm mild steel plate

[sickasapike]

Nearly there, I now have the RK from the other saw (which turned out to be pretty much ideal thickness) drilled and filed so it sits in well and curves nicely around the blade, I just need to cut a few mm off the top so it's flush with the top of the blade, tidy it up and spray it nicely :^)

 

[sickasapike]

...and here it is ! - finished the knife, you can't see from the angles but the top is bang on level with the uppermost slice of the blade at the full displacement, and both disappear through the insert simultaneously.

The knife is closer at the bottom than the top, the curve was for a 50mm larger blade, slightly more than 5mm away right at the top, is that a problem ? - there's a little bit of play on the bottom bolt so I'll be able to lean it to bring the top a little closer and file down the back a little so it doesn't poke up.

Only just slotted it in, not tried it yet, I have a load of cuts to make today that have been piling up in waiting !

Darn, my maple zero clearance insert is now a little bit of clearance insert - I want to make another anyway as I messed up the hole placement slightly on that one, I have to do the right hand bolts first or they don't seat properly.

I'll assume that every cut is going to kickback for a while, I always have a face shield, use a grr-ripper when I can and stand aside, but very wary !! - it was still bang on after the drilling but not checked it still lines up post final filing but I shouldn't have bent it, it was mainly front to back pressure and I'm no Hercules.

So now I have a choice of 40 and 24 tooth blades of identical diameter, kerf and plate (I got a Freud 2-pack), the blurb says one is excellent at cross cuts and good at rips, the other, the other way of course - but if I can't be bothered to change blades for /every/ cut, am I right in thinking go for the 24 tooth as a general purpose blade so it can still clear the bigger chips I'll get from ripping and slightly sacrifice cross cut quality - then change to cross cut blade if quantity/quality of wood to cut justifies it - and always change back to the 24 for any non-trivial rip cuts.

Added a photo of the knife and blade from as directly above as I can, the measurements/stats say 2mm is a good size, but nice to see it confirmed by eye, happy with that.

A little later, done some cuts and wow, so much quieter and smoother. See third photo of comparison, top one is Freud 40 tooth, bottom is supplied 24 tooth, feels planed smooth to the touch

Thanks very much to all above for the hand holding, am really pleased with my new saw !

 

[sickasapike]

Gosh yes, I made 6 cross cut half lap joints in pallet wood, a couple of long rips on 44mm pine studs and a bunch else yesterday, all with the 24 tooth, and what a pleasure it is.

The Freud blade, apart from being noticeably easier at cutting, is so quiet. I have a pretty beefy saw (Sheppach TS82) with a fairly quiet motor, the blade used to make quite a racket even spinning free, the new one is surprisingly quieter, whether cutting or not, I'm a little gobsmacked at how a thinner blade and some cut out question mark shapes could make such a difference !

I finally have the setup that I've seen on YouTube and wanted in my little workshop, where the saw purrs away rather than screaming - I've always been keen to turn the thing off after making every cut just to keep the noise down but now it's fine to leave it going while I check the cut and not have to stop/start it all the time (usually restarting it before the blade even stopped, has to be better for the motor surely, if a little more expensive to run ?), and I can still listen to an audiobook.

I had one kickback example, on my cross cut sled, I was ripping some short, thin resawn pallet boards to the same width, 4 in a pile, and one of the shards found its way through the slot in the sled and poked out of the back of the big mdf block that stops the blade sticking out the back when the shed pushes forward but wasn't thin enough to come out completely - see photo (the slot was already there, it didn't punch through )

I was happily to one side, the problem is my zero clearance sled isn't zero clearance any more with the slimmer blade - will have to make a new one.

The dust extractior is now lots louder than the saw itself, I still turn that on and off and don't bother when doing very small cuts, just fire it up to clear the debris once in a while - think I'll make an acoustic box for that next... well, when the bathroom is useable again that is (8 days now, kinda need a shower !