Table saw guide
Choosing a blade, squaring a crosscut sled, setting up a dado stack, and keeping kickback away: the table saw questions people ask most, answered from the makers' own guides and manuals, with each source named.
Which blade
Match the teeth to the cut. For a 10 in blade, blade makers' guides put ripping at about 24 teeth and fine crosscutting at about 60, with general purpose and combination blades in between and 80 teeth for plywood and melamine.
Median of 4 sources
Grinds, kerf and the speed marked on the blade are in the table saw blade guide.
Square a crosscut sled
A crosscut sled carries the work past the blade on runners in the miter slots, with a fence square to the blade. To check that fence, cut all four edges of a board in turn and then a thin strip off the first edge: the strip's taper is four times the fence's error. The five-cut method calculator turns your two measurements into the error per foot and how far to move the fence.
Dado stacks
A stacked dado set is two outside blades with chippers, and often spacers and shims, between them; the stack's width sets the width of the groove. Each set's maker publishes which parts make which width; Freud's set-up charts, for one, add spacers and shims at some widths rather than only chippers. So set up from your own set's chart, and cut a test groove in scrap before the good stock.
Freud: never run chippers without both outside blades.
One source: Freud / Diablo, the maker of those dado sets , sources [1]
Freud: check the table saw’s manual, or ask its maker, for the widest dado that saw allows.
One source: Freud / Diablo, the maker of those dado sets , sources [1]
OSHA lets the spreader come off a rip saw for grooving, dadoing and rabbeting, since the cut does not go through (1910.213(c)(2)).
One source: OSHA, the federal standard , sources [2]
Sources
Kickback and the riving knife
Kickback is the saw throwing the work back at you. The single rule the most saw makers agree on is below; the full list, and what a riving knife, splitter and pawls each do, are in riving knife and kickback.
Keep the riving knife (or splitter) on and lined up with the blade: it holds the kerf open so the wood cannot close on the blade.
Sources
- Grizzly, G0451 table saw owner’s manual, "Preventing kickback" (p. 16), read 2026-11-07
- RIDGID, R4550 table saw operator’s manual, "Kickbacks" (p. 9), read 2026-11-07
- SawStop, Safety and General Use Instructions for Table Saws (guarding, cutting procedure and kickback warnings), read 2026-11-07
- U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Notice of proposed rulemaking: Safety Standard Addressing Blade-Contact Injuries on Table Saws (staff briefing package, January 17, 2017), read 2026-11-07
What federal workplace rules require of a table saw (hood, spreader, nonkickback fingers) and the CPSC's table saw injury figures are on the woodworking machine safety page.