Rip Fence Advice

[Steve Maskery]

It makes perfect sense that the blade shouldn't be exactly parallel to the fence, but only after I'd read it several times.

Steady on a mo.

Those who advocate a slight clearance mean it is measured in THOU.

Personally I set my table up to be as parallel as I can measure. The main reason for this is that not all cuts are made between the blade and the fence to the right!

My saw is a traditional right tilt - the blade tilts towards the fence. This is a bit of a pain as it makes bevel cuts a bit risky - the workpiece can gest caught in a triangle of table, blade, fence, risking it getting trapped and thrown back at me. So I bevel with the fence to the LEFT. So a fence that is slightly out is going to make matters worse in that situation. It's true I don't want to do that very often, but I want to set my saw up once and forget about it.

I also have my tenon jig which rides on the fence. A bit of clearance on one face would be fine, but then when it comes to the other cheek, I would get rubbing and burning. So I like it straight and true and parallel.

If you set yours up out of alignment, be very sure you know exactly how much is acceptable, and what the unintended consequences are.

 

[PAC1]

As Steve says we are talking about one or two thousandths of an inch over the length of a large saw blade. If the blade is less than 300mm I would aim for as perfectly parallel as your measuring ability will allow.
With a short fence it is just as important to set the fence carefully it is short and any error will telegraph

 

[andersonec]

The fence on a table saw for ripping wood should only extent to the gullet of the tooth (not even half way).

I've got a different take on that. I was once working at a workshop when they were having a long exchange with the HSE on just this matter, the HSE's advice was that for timber ripping the fence should not extend past the centre of the saw blade. That makes sense to me, it's enough to accurately guide the board through the cut but there's no sideways pressure or restriction from the fence once the workpiece is in the "lifting" quadrant of the blade.

Interesting, as I tend to set it between the gullet and the centre. However the HSE written advice is still no further than first gullet. The further along the blade you go the greater the need for the fence to be very precisely parallel to the blade or running out slightly.
If you have a full length fence it is worth making a short rip fence that can be clamped to the full length fence. I made one for my Felder full length fence and find it very useful.

Once the timber has been cut it has passed the gullet of the teeth,,, what then is the point of the fence being past this point? it only has to keep the timber parallel at the point of the cut.
What is more important is that the part of the fence being used to guide the timber into the cut is parallel to the blade and the timber must be pushed into the blade against the full length of the fence and not let it wander off (if you understand that)

If the posts timber is lifting at the rear then it sounds to me like he is not using a riving knife or it is thinner than the blade.

Andy

 

[woodbrains]

Full length fences seem to be the norm nowadays, perhaps because it's imagined that most of us work chiefly with sheet materials. My Axi TSCE-12R, in all other respects a very satisfactory machine came this equipped. I however, do not often use sheet materials, so made up my own rip-fence attachment, which is in place 95% of the time. A slide fit, I can remove or replace it in a couple of seconds. I normally set it so that the fence extends just beyond the gullet of the tooth at the point where the blade enters the top surface of the stock.

Hello,

Daft question, but the alloy fence on that saw slides backwards to provide a short rip fence, many saws do this. Why don't you do that?

Regarding the other point on fence to blade parallelism, it should always be the case. If fences which are poorly constructed cannot be adjusted to lock parallel every time, then the only acceptable situation is for the fence to be as little as possible set wider at the back. But parallel is the best practice.

Mike.

 

[Iwf]

Again thanks for all the advice over this matter.

I'll be setting the blade to be parallel to the mitre slot and the rip fence just beyond the gullet.

I see several folk use a plastic edged rip fence. Anyone tell me what material that is ?

 

[Bodgers]

Again thanks for all the advice over this matter.

I'll be setting the blade to be parallel to the mitre slot and the rip fence just beyond the gullet.

I see several folk use a plastic edged rip fence. Anyone tell me what material that is ?

Not sure where you are seeing plastic faced/edge rip fences, but if its US tablesaws then I see Biesemeyer fences and modified fences using UHMW. I never quite understand why to be honest because in my experience of the stuff it is a little on the soft side and when you have drill into it etc. it tends to distort. I used some on a tablesaw sled runners and found it slippery but soft.

 

[custard]

Once the timber has been cut it has passed the gullet of the teeth,,, what then is the point of the fence being past this point? it only has to keep the timber parallel at the point of the cut.

It's a bit more complicated than that, the timber is unlikely to run true on the outfeed table (try pushing a plank across the floor and see if it runs straight!) so without a fence to stabilise the situation it's snaking all over the place.

In a bigger workshop solid timber ripping is often considered a two man job, the sawyer feeds in and his assistant standing at the outfeed end guides the ripped board for the final few inches, then removes and stacks the sawn board.

And done as either a two or one man job it's easy to forget that there's actually a fair bit of skill to sawing, it's about experience, confidence, and muscle memory just as much as knowing the theory of how to perform a certain cut. A guy ripping timber all day long in a joinery shop will be far better and more accurate than someone who rips the odd board once or twice a month.

That's important, I talk to a lot of small furniture makers like myself and it's surprising just how little solid timber ripping any of us actually does. I rip mouldings and drawer slips from wider boards, but apart from that the majority of my solid timber ripping is done on the bandsaw and then cleaned up either with a bench plane or by passing it through the thicknesser. Consequently even though most of the guys I talk to are full time furniture makers with good quality saws, none of us is particularly good at ripping on a table saw, certainly when compared to some of the joinery boys who are doing it for many hours each week. And if you look at the latest generation of saws that skills discrepancy is only likely to grow larger, increasingly big workshops have saws where the workpiece is held stationary with air cramps and the it's the blade that moves, travelling the length of the table under power, or alternatively the workpiece is secured to a sliding table and passed through the blade that way, in both cases there's no fence involved at all.

 

[Sawyer]

Full length fences seem to be the norm nowadays, perhaps because it's imagined that most of us work chiefly with sheet materials. My Axi TSCE-12R, in all other respects a very satisfactory machine came this equipped. I however, do not often use sheet materials, so made up my own rip-fence attachment, which is in place 95% of the time. A slide fit, I can remove or replace it in a couple of seconds. I normally set it so that the fence extends just beyond the gullet of the tooth at the point where the blade enters the top surface of the stock.

Daft question, but the alloy fence on that saw slides backwards to provide a short rip fence, many saws do this. Why don't you do that?

Mike.

I can, and initially did do this, but it leaves me with an alloy extrusion sticking out into thin air about 30 inches in front of the machine. In the way and likely to get damaged

 

[andersonec]

Once the timber has been cut it has passed the gullet of the teeth,,, what then is the point of the fence being past this point? it only has to keep the timber parallel at the point of the cut.

It's a bit more complicated than that, the timber is unlikely to run true on the outfeed table (try pushing a plank across the floor and see if it runs straight!) so without a fence to stabilise the situation it's snaking all over the place.

In a bigger workshop solid timber ripping is often considered a two man job, the sawyer feeds in and his assistant standing at the outfeed end guides the ripped board for the final few inches, then removes and stacks the sawn board.

And done as either a two or one man job it's easy to forget that there's actually a fair bit of skill to sawing, it's about experience, confidence, and muscle memory just as much as knowing the theory of how to perform a certain cut. A guy ripping timber all day long in a joinery shop will be far better and more accurate than someone who rips the odd board once or twice a month.

That's important, I talk to a lot of small furniture makers like myself and it's surprising just how little solid timber ripping any of us actually does. I rip mouldings and drawer slips from wider boards, but apart from that the majority of my solid timber ripping is done on the bandsaw and then cleaned up either with a bench plane or by passing it through the thicknesser. Consequently even though most of the guys I talk to are full time furniture makers with good quality saws, none of us is particularly good at ripping on a table saw, certainly when compared to some of the joinery boys who are doing it for many hours each week. And if you look at the latest generation of saws that skills discrepancy is only likely to grow larger, increasingly big workshops have saws where the workpiece is held stationary with air cramps and the it's the blade that moves, travelling the length of the table under power, or alternatively the workpiece is secured to a sliding table and passed through the blade that way, in both cases there's no fence involved at all.

As I said in my post, the fence must be parallel to the blade as it is used as a guide to feed the timber into the teeth of the blade and the op was asking about using his one-man home-made table saw not production line, large commercial workshops.

Andy



Andy

 

[custard]

Once the timber has been cut it has passed the gullet of the teeth,,, what then is the point of the fence being past this point? it only has to keep the timber parallel at the point of the cut.

As I said in my post, the fence must be parallel to the blade as it is used as a guide to feed the timber into the teeth of the blade and the op was asking about using his one-man home-made table saw not production line, large commercial workshops.

Andy



Andy

I guess I wasn't clear enough. Let's say you're ripping a 2 metre long board of timber, unless you're an experienced sawyer there's every chance that once you get down to less than about 150mm of board bearing against the fence the cut will start to wander off the line as the board starts to snake around on the out-feed table and the inexperienced operator can't regulate it just with a push stick. So if the fence only extends as far as the gullet the cut won't be true for roughly the last 150mm. A guy that's ripping all day every day could probably work around that, the guy that only rips the occasional board every now and again won't have the skill or the experience.

Taking the rip fence to the centre of the blade helps a lot, it's still not perfect as there's no way to apply side pressure to push the board against the fence for that final bit of the cut, but it's still a material benefit that will improve the success rate.

I'm a full time furniture maker, but like many other full time furniture makers that I know I don't actually do enough solid timber ripping to become all that slick at it! I'd really struggle to hit the accuracy I need with a fence that terminates at the first gullet. I can manage it with a fence that extends to the arbour, but not any shorter.

 

[Sawyer]

I don't find that a problem (but then, I do rip a lot of solid timber). On the other hand, for sheet materials, I find the full length fence better.