I have the jet jts-10 hobby tablesaw. I have managed to fine tune it to work accurately.
I recently replaced the blade to the 3.2mm kerf (the old one was a thin kerf… around 2.5mm). I am now getting alot of kickback, and seems to be because of the riving knife being relatively thin. The riving knife is also slightly bent at the back, slightly pushing against the right hand side (fence side).
Has anyone else experienced issues similar or does anyone know…
Firstly, how to correct/ replace the riving knife as I cant find an aftermarket replacement. It is impossible to bend back!
Secondly, is the riving knife is now too thin for 3.2mm blade?
Many thanks!
It’s critical that the thickness of your riving knife is slightly wider than the plate of the saw blade, but thinner than the saw kerf - the idea being that if material tries to close up on the blade it’ll be supported by the riving knife, with just the teeth digging into the material (much less risk of having the whole workpiece thrown at you, vs it grabbing the whole blade plate).
Thin sheets of mild steel plate are usually pretty cheap, and will cut with a hacksaw, metal blade on a jigsaw, grinder, and will file and sand - it’s usually not too hard to make yourself a replacement; just make sure it’s thicker than the blade plate and thinner than the kerf.
Sounds like good advice from Gordon - although I would suggest that the riving knife thickness should be only just less than the blade kerf, so that it eliminates the possibility of kickback.
I’m sure that you will be able to ‘flatten’ the existing riving knife, ie bend it back to the original shape, but will need to remove it from the machine first. Jet should be able to supply a replacement if you need one. Try Customer Service at AT&M if you decide to use that route.
Remember that the wide kerf blade will be doing more work than the original blade, ie removing more material, and will need a gentler feed rate to ensure you do not slow/stall the motor.
Riving knife aka Kickback device.
