Spent 3 hours trying to fix a mitre saw fence that was off by 2 degrees

I got a used DeWalt mitre saw from a guy near Cleveland and the fence was way out of square. I figured it'd be a quick adjust with a speed square and 10 minutes. Three hours later I was still tweaking set screws and the thing kept drifting because the base plate was slightly bent. Ended up shimming it with a thin piece of aluminum from a beer can. Has anyone else dealt with a crooked fence that just refuses to hold a setting? I'm about to just buy a new saw.

2 comments

2 Comments

stone.evan1mo agoMost Upvoted

Honestly man, I had the same thing happen with a Ryobi saw and I ended up using a thin strip of an old gift card as a shim under the fence pivot point. It finally held true after that, but it took like four tries with different thicknesses before I got it. It's annoying when a beer can shim is the answer, but hey, if it works it works.

ruby_grant1mo ago

Using a shim is just cheating, you should have just returned the saw and gotten one that actually works right out of the box.