Raker/Pin Gauge (Drawing MTDC-1021)

A crosscut saw's rakers remove wood shavings that have been severed by the cutting teeth. To remove the severed wood efficiently, the rakers should be slightly lower than the cutting teeth. If the rakers are too long, they will sever uncut fibers, rather than lifting and removing severed material as they were designed to do. If the rakers are too low, they won't remove all the cut material and the saw will drag.

The raker depth is determined by the raker gauge (figure 2). The raker gauge has an adjustable slotted steel filing plate, which fits over the two tips of the raker. The filing plate is adjusted to the desired raker depth and the rakers are filed even to the plate. After the rakers have been filed, they need to be shaped.

Figure 2—A saw raker fits into the slot of the adjustable raker gauge for filing.

There are two basic methods of shaping rakers, the straight method and the swaged method. The straight method is relatively simple. The swaged method, although more difficult, produces a chisel-like tip that allows the raker to pick up severed material more easily. Swaging uses a hammer to form the leading edge of the raker. An 8- to 16-ounce upholsterer's hammer or a tinner's riveting hammer works well for swaging.

The pin part of the raker gauge (figure 3) is used to compare the height of a raker to an adjacent cutting tooth. When the pin is set to 0.002 or 0.003 inches, the appropriate setting for most wood, the raker will be 0.002 or 0.003 inches shorter than the adjacent cutting tooth.

Figure 3—The pin on the raker gauge can be adjusted to the desired raker height.

The rakers on some saws may be too hard. Their tips may break when they are swaged. To reduce the rakers' hardness, they can be heated with a propane torch. Apply heat only to the rakers, not to the cutting teeth.