Spent 6 hours fighting a stuck miter gauge track

I was setting up a new job last week and my miter gauge slide just would not move in the track on my table saw. Thought it was a quick clean and wax job, maybe 15 minutes. Three hours later I had tried sanding, filing, even a little WD-40 which just made it worse. Turns out the track had a tiny burr near the back that I kept missing because my shop lights are garbage. Finally found it with a flashlight from my phone, hit it with a fine file, and it slid smooth in 30 seconds. Has anyone else had a simple setup take forever because of one tiny defect you couldn't see?

3 comments

3 Comments

park.miles1mo ago

Started with what I thought was a quick fix and next thing you know half the day is gone. It's funny how most of our problems come down to one tiny thing we just can't see at first. My whole life feels like that sometimes, just one little burr somewhere holding everything up.

corap211mo ago

Oh man, that's brutal. So do you think that burr might have been there from the factory, or did you manage to smush something in there earlier without noticing? I'm asking because I had a similar thing happen with my fence rail once, and I spent like an hour convincing myself it was a manufacturing defect before I realized I'd dropped a small screw in the channel the week before. Really makes you wonder how much of our "building time" is actually just fighting ghosts from our own mistakes.

the_sam1mo ago

No way, I think the whole "ghosts from our own mistakes" thing is overblown. Half the time it's actually the factory cutting corners, not us being forgetful.