Project Information
Been awhile since I posted anything at all here. Been neck deep in my dust collection design and build out. Now that it's pretty much wrapped up here is a band saw fence I tossed together with some some scrap plywood I had laying around.
This is version 3 of the fence. The first version was of the same design but its mounting point was to weak causing too much flex. Design 2 was a t-square style that failed horribly. I just dont have enough space on a 12" band saw to build a proper t-square.
Version 3 has a few added features so that it mounts very securely to the table. First is a preloaded sprung metal piece underneath the thumb wheel.
As the thumb wheel is tightened the metal bar is flattened/pressed against the rail causing tension.
The last thing I did to make this hug the table securely is knock the vertical part with the wheel out of square with the bottom side of the fence about a half a degree. This causes the fence to rise up slightly when tightened down. I then added a metal hook at the far end of the fence so it engages the bottom of the cast iron table.
(Yes the metal hook was too tight at first and shaved some paint off…still mad at myself for that one)
With both of the clamping mechanisms in place this fence holds securely enough it will shake the saw instead of the fence flexing or moving. Might not be the most sophisticated engineering but its effective.
And to finish polishing up this turd I replaced all the bearings, shimmed the bottom wheel and table to make everything super square, and upgraded the dust collection.
If you can't afford a nice band saw you may as well make the one you have perform as well as it can. I might not be able to cut veneers on this but it can accurately resaw now. In fact she's tuned up well enough that I will probably try to keep her in the shop with a thin blade for curves and quick cuts when I can afford a much bigger saw.
This is version 3 of the fence. The first version was of the same design but its mounting point was to weak causing too much flex. Design 2 was a t-square style that failed horribly. I just dont have enough space on a 12" band saw to build a proper t-square.
Version 3 has a few added features so that it mounts very securely to the table. First is a preloaded sprung metal piece underneath the thumb wheel.
As the thumb wheel is tightened the metal bar is flattened/pressed against the rail causing tension.
The last thing I did to make this hug the table securely is knock the vertical part with the wheel out of square with the bottom side of the fence about a half a degree. This causes the fence to rise up slightly when tightened down. I then added a metal hook at the far end of the fence so it engages the bottom of the cast iron table.
(Yes the metal hook was too tight at first and shaved some paint off…still mad at myself for that one)
With both of the clamping mechanisms in place this fence holds securely enough it will shake the saw instead of the fence flexing or moving. Might not be the most sophisticated engineering but its effective.
And to finish polishing up this turd I replaced all the bearings, shimmed the bottom wheel and table to make everything super square, and upgraded the dust collection.
If you can't afford a nice band saw you may as well make the one you have perform as well as it can. I might not be able to cut veneers on this but it can accurately resaw now. In fact she's tuned up well enough that I will probably try to keep her in the shop with a thin blade for curves and quick cuts when I can afford a much bigger saw.