8 Easy Steps: How to Cut a Taper on a Table Saw? - Best Table Saws

In every standard woodworking shops, the significant of table saw is incomparable to the use of crude tools. It aids users to have intricate cuts and even make accurate precisions.

Table saws are of different shapes and features depending on the very one that you purchased. However, the conventional types that you can find are contractor and cabinet table saws.

The major differences between them are the weight and the type of material used for the construction of their tables.

Notwithstanding, their functions are of no too much differences. In fact, contractor table saws were formerly known to be mounted static/unmovable while the inverse is the case of the latter. Moreover, the iteration in technology has caused a twist in the traditional belief.

In other words, regardless of the type that you’re using, all table saws can effectively cut tapers. Of course, doing this is simple.

Provided you don’t know what a taper means, it simply means the legs of a table/chair that’s irregularly cut whereby the length is slant. It’s constructed in a way that the bottom is thinner than the top.

Therefore, what this article is bound to enumerate is the systematic way that a user can imbibe in having the simple cut of tapers on table saws.

So, check out for more information below:

8 Things to Consider about How to Cut a Taper on a Table Saw?

1. Preparation

Get the unit available by mounting it on the stand immediately you’ve installed the switched onto the table saw.
Put on your safety wears. Put on your hand gloves, shoes, and thick clothes.
Ensure that your surrounding is free from sharp objects and the area that you’re using is illuminated.
Set the fence and the miter gauge. You can even adjust the degree of the blade and lock it onto a fixed position.
Get the woods ready and use the measurement on them.
Use the contractor table saw if you’ve got a project and opt for a cabinet table saw if you’ve got a handful piece of work.

2. Markings

Use a marker to identify the line that you intend cutting on the piece of wood. You can use a ruler to do this after you had made a kerf on the wood.

Please, note that the target is to ensure that the legs are not wholly thin. Apart from the marking of the main part that you intend cutting, you can also mark the additional part that wouldn’t need to be cut.

Thereafter, get an extra piece off guard board and attach it onto the workpiece so as serve as the demarcation.

You can screw both pieces together. Notwithstanding, the workpiece itself have to be underneath so as to avoid accidents.

3. The Setting of the Machine

Get the wood on the table and use the fence to hold it down onto the table.
Many at times, the EZ measurement is used in taking the measurement of the taper. However, it’s optional. You can only use it if you’re a savvy using it.
Set the marked parts tangential to the marked parts. You can use the guard board to appropriately set the fence. Just ensure that the guard board is longer and a little bit wider than a taper.
With the alignment and the locking of the fence on the guard board, you can be sure of convenient cutting. However, just check if the lock is apt.

4. Cutting

Having done all that, you might want to begin to cut. You would have to switch on the power and adjust the position of the blade. Afterwards, pass the kerf on the rotatory blade.

The fact that you use a guard for the taper, you can be pretty sure that you’d make accurate precisions. Just ensure that you gently/steadfastly hold the taper as it passes on the blade.

Please note that precautionary measures have to be taken while cutting off the taper so as to avoid accidents. You can use the extension if in case you intend cutting a long size taper.

5. Evaluation

Check the cut taper and know whether you’ve made the right cut. As a matter of fact, use the measurement ruler again so as to ascertain whether you’ve made the right cut.

Provided you’ve not made an error. You can reattach it onto the guard wood then re-undertake the process so as to get the right endpoint. Try it again, again, and again so as to master the process.

6. Replication

Just as you did to the former, you can try the same process. However, ensure that the precisions are accurately taken.

You can even lay each piece on each other so as to evaluate the correspondence of the sizes. Just switch off the machine whenever you’re done.

You can even use a brake, so as to intermittently operate the unit. Once that’s done, you can proceed the next point.

7. Cleaning of the Unit

Identify the material that’s used in the construction of your table.
Scrape off the dirt on it and keep the environment clean.
Once that’s done, get a bowl filled with soapy water and immense a clean cloth inside.
Remove the blade before you proceed with the cleaning of the table.
Afterwards, clean the table with the damp cloth that you scooped out of the soapy water and wipe off the stains on the table. Do this twice or as many times as possible.
Get some clean water and immense another cloth just as you did at the initial and use the damp cloth to clean the surface that you just rubbed.
Wash the blades and fix them back onto the table saw.

8. Practice

Imbibe the procedures that we’ve provided and you’d find out that you’re close to mastering it. In fact, practicing this would aid you to use it for caring out all manner of tasks.

Final Verdict

I hope that now you’ve learned how to cut a taper on a table saw. The interesting part is that you can inculcate the same process in the cutting of all kinds of wood. As a matter of fact, you can use the tactics here in the cutting of other projects.