SOLVED: Tablesaw woes

[bemis23]

I realized today that what I thought were minor cosmetic blemishes on my fence are actaully blade nicks. the problem is that they are deep and sharp enough that they catch the stock as it slides past and is causing my saw to kickback. Can i fill these with bondo and sand it smooth or do I need to come up with some more extra money?

[cjd]

I would carefully sand them flat and then put a birch ply addition onto the fence - I almost always use a sacrificial fence even if it never gets "sacrificed" Just in case... it's bolted on.

[Hdale85]

I would carefully sand them flat and then put a birch ply addition onto the fence - I almost always use a sacrificial fence even if it never gets "sacrificed" Just in case... it's bolted on.

Good idea, this is also better because it's better to bite into a bit of wood on your fence rather then unsuspectingly hitting metal

[bemis23]

How are you bolting the wood to the fence? The dewalt fence I have doesn't have bolt holes on the blade side.

[ThomasW]

Bondo is to brittle to do the job.

Get a piece of this and attach it to the side of the fence. Very slippery stuff

http://peachtree-woodworking-supply-inc.amazonwebstore.com/UHMW-Sheet-38-x-4-x/M/B001LYHYHG.htm

I have a piece on my aftermarket Unifence insert



Rockler sells universal fence clamps

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17821

[bemis23]

Perfect! Thanks!

[Hank]

What Thomas said. That's why the better fences are faced with that stuff (technical term for UHMW Polyethelene ;-) )

[bemis23]

What Thomas said. That's why the better fences are faced with that stuff (technical term for UHMW Polyethelene ;-) )

$20 shipped for 48" is pretty cheap considering my fence is something like 16" long.

[Brian Walter]

I personally took the UHMW polyethylene off of my saw because it wasn't flat enough and replaced with with some phenolic coated 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood that I got from Woodcraft. I was having problems getting glueline smooth rips and after putting a straight edge along my fence discovered that it waved in and out about 0.015". After replacing the UHMW with the coated Baltic Birch, along with some additional tweaking, my fence is as straight or straighter than any of my straight edges and also perpendicular to the table top, which it wasn't before. It appears to me that the phenolic coated BB is slipperier than the UHMW, but that's just a subjective opinion, no measurements were taken.

[JonMarsh]

+1 on phenolic coated BB ply from Woodcraft- picked some up just last weekend! Great for fixtures and other apps, don't need it on my fence, though!

[bemis23]

well the UHMW is supposed to be arriving today and I picked some fence clamps from the local Rockler. If this doesn't work I'll check out some phenolic BB.

BTW: Is this a phenolic resin coating? I'm not sure I'd be too eager to put my saw blade through that stuff. It's the same material that is used to create billiard balls (well, the quality Aramith ones anyway - not that anyone should ever shoot any other kind of ball, with the possible exception of Brunswick Centennials) and is literally bullet-proof.

[JonMarsh]

It's a fairly thin layer.

[Bill Schneider]

I've always admired the flatness of MDF, but things slide poorly along it when used as a fence. My solution was to use MDF, but add some slippery Tyvek PSA tape to the sides of the fence.



Before mounting the MDF to the sides, I measured flatness of the sheet-metal fence, and used a C-clamp to pull in high spots, followed by sanding and repainting. The final assembly was flat to within 0.005" along it's length. It's HEAVY though.