I'm struggling with my tenons. I usually use a stack dado and run it up into a sacraficial fence and then run my board with a mitre gauge. the problem is that as i turn the stock to do the 4 sides i usually end up with one or more of the cuts not flush with the shoulder of the previous cut. i have checked to make sure the gauge is square to the blade but am still having issues. Starting to get a little frustrated at this point and am wondering if anyone has advice? I'm making some dining room chairs right now and it involves alot of tenons and i need to iron out my procedure before i give up and go order some from ikea.

Hey Chris, welcome to the 207, as Tiny would say, pull up a pallet and set awhile.

Your problem could be for a couple of reasons.
Fence is out of square to the blade.
Sacrificial fence is cut on a very slight taper.
Sacrificial fence may have a bump in it, use a straight edge along its length to check for flatness. Plane if necessary.
Possible piece of sawdust or shaving got between the fence and the work piece.
The piece is sliding on the miter gauge. I have a very fine piece of sandpaper glued to my miter gauge.

Do you have your table top waxed? Drag on the piece can also slightly cause the piece to cant while going through the blade.

All of these can contribute to the piece being out of square to the blade, thus resulting in cuts that do not match as you go around the piece.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, that gives me a great starting point. One of the things i suspect is the table saw and it's various alignments or lack there of. It is a craftsman and i hate it, when we first got it i thought it was awesome (especially since i didn't have one yet). Now as i try to do anything accurate i find that things dont' work out the way i hoped. i was spoiled using some high end machines years ago in a custom furniture shop and now i'm eyeing an upgrade, hard sell when i've got so many other things to do around the house.

Hey Chris, I have a very old craftsman cabinet saw 10" Best thing I can say is go back to square one, which can be accomplished in any number of ways. Get a sanding plate for the saw, with the plate mounted up in the saw, set it square to the table, then check square to the miter slots, then the fence square to the blade. I have done that on mine and its not that easy to do when everything is cast iron and my blade was only off about .001 from the miter slot.

If I was cutting tenons on the table saw, I wouldn't cut all four sides. Instead I would cut the two shoulder cuts, I would move the rail back a 32nd or a 16th, so that can be cleaned off with a chisel, when you have cut the cheeks off.

thanks, never thought of that.

I would advise using a block on the back end of your sacrificial fence to align your work rather than using the fence itself, and that the block is clear of the front edge of the blade. Kickback can be a bitch, even with a dado cutter.
The sandpaper on the miter guage is a great one too.

Paul
the little guy

If the blade-to-fence-to-miter gauge has been properly aligned, a non-through cut is unlikely to kick back when using the fence as a reference. Poor alignment is another situation altogether and it won't mater WHAT kind of cut you are making, bad things WILL happen.

Pulling a non-through cut BACKWARD over the blade after making the cut is the most likely time for bad things to happen in a non-through cut. After making the cut, pick up the workpiece clear of the blade before sliding the gauge or sled backwards. Same goes for a through cut.

The piece that is shot directly back is one that is trapped between the blade and the fence because it can ride up the fence as the back teeth grab it. This lets the whole piece get on top of the blade and fly. The piece on the outside will be thrown more to the side unless you have something rigidly blocking its movement to the left.

Adding the sandpaper to the miter gauge is a good idea. The spacer block is required for through cuts with a miter gauge where you want to use the fence as your reference stop. As Tiny said, make sure that the spacer is positioned such that as the material enters the blade, it has completely cleared the spacer block.

Check the snugness in the miter slot itself, ours was a bit wobbly...

My table saw has no mitre slot, i have a sliding table that is a bit of a pain to align. i cut some more tenons last night with better success, not sure what i changed but my fence and blade both seem to move around more than i'd like.