Table saw fence

[Geoff Brooker]

Hi all,
I’ve got the cheapo Triton table saw and unsurprisingly the fence is all over the place. I have seen fence upgrades from the likes of Axminster for more than the cost of the table !
I made a wooden one with a bolt as a tensioner but it’s far from ideal.
what I’d like is a fence that slots in front and back and slides across on rails and is cheap ?
anyone got any ideas please ?

 

[pcb1962]

If you search this forum for 'Steve Maskery table saw fence' you will find some details of a DIY fence upgrade which is straightforward to build and is highly regarded. You would have to buy his DVD to get the plans though.

 

[julianf]

It might be the chap mentioned above, but I saw a clever build on YouTube where the person had used some thick threaded bar as the fence fixing rail.

What this meant was that a rotation of the bar (or the fence mounting, I forget which) would move the fence a known amount based on the degrees of rotation against the pitch of the threaded bar.

You could get obsessive and add ball screws and stepper motors and then you could just dial in the distance from a keypad.

If I live an unusual amount of time, I might just get around to doing that...

 

[Terrytpot]

It might be the chap mentioned above, but I saw a clever build on YouTube where the person had used some thick threaded bar as the fence fixing rail.

What this meant was that a rotation of the bar (or the fence mounting, I forget which) would move the fence a known amount based on the degrees of rotation against the pitch of the threaded bar.

That sounds like this one by Jeremy Scmidt

If you can get your hands on the raw material then have a looky at the T style fence that the guys at "Verysupercool tools" knock up as that's not too tricky to make.

 

[Geoff Brooker]

Thanks to all, I’ll take a look

 

[TheTiddles]

You can use aluminium extrusion, it can be relatively cheap, if you know the right fabricators it can be free offcuts
Aidan

 

[partsandlabour]

It might be the chap mentioned above, but I saw a clever build on YouTube where the person had used some thick threaded bar as the fence fixing rail.

What this meant was that a rotation of the bar (or the fence mounting, I forget which) would move the fence a known amount based on the degrees of rotation against the pitch of the threaded bar.

You could get obsessive and add ball screws and stepper motors and then you could just dial in the distance from a keypad.

If I live an unusual amount of time, I might just get around to doing that...

Like this?

 

[Robbo60]

I had the Triton and it was only good for cutting firewood. Couldn't get blade perpendicular to bed or parallel to fence. Fence moved. I bought a Scheppach HS105 for £245 and it is great. Fence fixes front and back. takes a 6mm grooving blade. Recommend it!

 

[julianf]

Like this?

More complex than i was considering.

With a stepper and an Arduino, you could just have a keypad to tap in the position, and not need any other computer or software.

The video is a full on bit of custom software to deal with cutting lists and tessilation etc.

I'm just thinking a keypad where you enter the distance and the fence moves...

Steppers are simple things. You send the driver pulses and the stepper steps. To do nothing more than get them to step a number of steps is not complex work. (And, of course, have a way of setting origin or zero point)

If I had much application I'd certainly consider this, but there are so many more preferable ways I could spend development time!

 

[partsandlabour]

More complex than i was considering.

With a stepper and an Arduino, you could just have a keypad to tap in the position, and not need any other computer or software.

The video is a full on bit of custom software to deal with cutting lists and tessilation etc.

I'm just thinking a keypad where you enter the distance and the fence moves...

Steppers are simple things. You send the driver pulses and the stepper steps. To do nothing more than get them to step a number of steps is not complex work. (And, of course, have a way of setting origin or zero point)

If I had much application I'd certainly consider this, but there are so many more preferable ways I could spend development time!

Yup. That'd be the way to do it. I considered as much myself having done a quite a few arduino/stepper projects. There's a guy out there on the interweb who has designed one with a 'zero' sensor on the fence face and a simple (ish) keypad. He tried but failed a kickstarter I think. These efforts so far are too complex and expensive to realise. It could be done a lot more simply with standard DIY CNC machine build extrusions/ball screws etc. But yeah, for me it's also one of thise things that I won't get around to unless someone is paying me to do something that requires it!

 

[pcb1962]

More complex than i was considering.

With a stepper and an Arduino, you could just have a keypad to tap in the position, and not need any other computer or software.

The video is a full on bit of custom software to deal with cutting lists and tessilation etc.

I'm just thinking a keypad where you enter the distance and the fence moves...

Steppers are simple things. You send the driver pulses and the stepper steps. To do nothing more than get them to step a number of steps is not complex work. (And, of course, have a way of setting origin or zero point)

If I had much application I'd certainly consider this, but there are so many more preferable ways I could spend development time!

You probably want a solenoid or two to lock the fence once it's positioned, and you also want to always approach the setpoint from the same direction to eliminate the effect of any backlash. It's not quite as simple a project as it first appears. (I haven't watched the videos above, these things may have been addressed).

 

[Terrytpot]

further to the "obsessive approach"