For a through cut, raise the blade so a little gullet clears the top of the stock — thickness plus ⅛ to ¼ in. That is a chip-ejection and cut-quality setting, not a kickback spell. A non-through cut (groove, rabbet, tenon cheek) is simply the depth you want; that depth is the height above the table. No tooth-count square roots.
For a through cut, raise the blade so a little gullet clears the top of the stock — thickness plus ⅛ to ¼ in.
Use it for setting up both through cuts and non-through cuts such as grooves, rabbets and dadoes, where the blade height is the depth of cut. Set the height against a tooth at the top of its arc with a gauge or combination square, then make a test cut in scrap before the real part.
A table-saw blade is set by how far the teeth stick up through the throat plate. For a through rip or crosscut the usual shop picture is: the gullets just clear the top of the board so chips have somewhere to go. That is a small, fixed clearance — commonly ⅛ in, sometimes ¼ in on a coarse rip blade — added to the measured thickness. It is not a function of tooth count. Rules that raise the blade by the square root of the tooth count or a fraction of the diameter invent a formula the tooth geometry does not ask for.
Through cut: height above table = thickness + gullet_clearance
Tip exposure above the workpiece = gullet_clearance (⅛–¼ in typical)
Non-through cut: height above table = target depth of cut
Remaining uncut = thickness − depth
Raising the blade steeper makes the teeth exit the top face at a sharper angle, which can increase tearout on that face and puts more of the tooth in the air. Dropping it so the teeth just break through packs chips in the gullets and heats the plate. The ⅛–¼ in window is the compromise. A 24-tooth rip blade with tall gullets often wants the high side of that window; a 60-tooth crosscut often wants the low side.
This number is cut quality. It is not how you stop a kickback. A riving knife or splitter that rises with the blade, a guard, a square fence, and standing out of the line of the board are what keep a pinched kerf from throwing the stock. Height will not save a missing knife.
| Stock | Clearance | Cut | Height above table | Tip above work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.75 in | 0.125 in (⅛) | Through | 0.875 in (⅞) | 0.125 in |
| 0.75 in | 0.25 in (¼) | Through | 1.00 in | 0.25 in |
| 1.50 in | 0.125 in | Through | 1.625 in | 0.125 in |
| 0.75 in | — | Non-through 0.375 | 0.375 in | buried 0.375 |
| 0.72 in plywood | 0.125 in | Through | 0.845 in | 0.125 in |
Those rows use the same math as the calculator (height = thickness + clearance for through; height = depth for non-through). The default example is ¾ in stock + ⅛ in clear → ⅞ in above the table.
For a through cut, thickness plus a little gullet-clear — ⅛ in is the usual starting point, ¼ in if chips pack on a coarse rip blade. Set it with a rule or a scrap of ⅛ in hardboard on the stock, then lock the wheel. For a groove or rabbet, set the height to the depth you want and ignore clearance; the teeth never break the top.
No. Tooth count does not set chip-ejection height. A 24-tooth rip blade and an 80-tooth plywood blade can share the same ⅛ in of tip above ¾ stock. What changes is gullet volume, not a square root. This page uses the Freud/shop gullet-clear rule: a small, chosen clearance on top of measured thickness.
No. Blade height is cut quality, not kickback magic. Kickback is a workpiece pinched between the rising teeth and a fence, or a missing splitter that lets the kerf close on the back of the blade. Keep the riving knife in, keep the guard on, keep the fence parallel, and do not stand in line with the board. Raising the blade does not replace any of that.
The riving knife should rise and fall with the blade and stay in the kerf, a hair thinner than the plate. If your knife will not reach a low non-through cut, that is a dado or a buried-knife job — use a dedicated stack or a splitter that fits, not a pulled knife on a through-cut saw. The guard belongs on for through cuts. Unplug the saw to change blades; height tweaks are done with the wheel, stock clear of the teeth.
If the waste falls off, it is a through cut: thickness + clearance. If a floor of wood remains (dado, groove, rabbet, tenon cheek, lap), it is a non-through cut: type the depth. If you type a depth greater than the thickness, this page will tell you that you have actually asked for a through cut.
Use the calipers. ¾ hardwood-ply is often 0.70–0.73 in. Adding ⅛ in of clear to the stamp instead of the board leaves the gullets buried. The default 0.75 is true ¾ hardwood, not a sheet-good.