I have the Biesemeyer commercial fence system. It's only about a year old. I guess I never had the right setup tools when I got it, but now that I do, I notice that the left side of the fence is not 90 deg to the table and the right side is also off, but closer. I see no way to adjust this and can't find anything on the web.
Is there some way to make the fence exactly perpendicular to the table surface?
Make and shim an auxillary fence. My Bies isn't perpendicular to the table surface either. I no longer worry about it... )
Dave
The instructions state that there no adjustment for that. You will need to either: (a)change the fence boards (might not fix the problem) (b) make a shimmed out aux fence.
Mike Pio wrote:
My Bies is like that too, damned annoying for a fence of that price.
You can level one side, but not both, by adjusting the pads on the bottom of the tee. Requires shims IIRC. Just shoot for square on the side you use most often, the left.
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******** Bill PoundsI ended up removing the original face on the left side of my fence and replacing it with a taller piece of beech for the purpose of attaching anti-kickback rollers (a la the ones David Marks uses on Wood Works). Anyway, if you want to replace your fence face you'll need to cut through the laminate in nine different places to remove the hex-head sheet metal screws that are holding it on. Biesemeyer laminates the
1/2" ply after it's attached to the tube. I used a rare-earth magnet to find the screw heads by sliding it along and letting it self-center as much as possible. I then drew around it with a pencil and used a Dremel plunge router to pierce the laminate at the center of that circle. That allowed me to find the head of the screw and then carefully remove only enough laminate to get a hex driver on the screw.Now that I have my new face attached I have a flatter face than what was originally installed (not that it was bad) and I can shim it from above or below to square to the table (which wasn't necessary. The 9 screw heads remain exposed on my fence but are not a problem. And I did have to move the little plastic hairline guide on the right side of the T so that I could zero-out my new fence but that just required drilling and tapping a couple of new holes.
Sorry if that's too much info... :)
Kevin
Do you have this fence on a contractor saw or a cabinet saw? Are you talking about the fence edge being parallel to the blade and/or miter gauge tracks? Have you tried using an allen wrench to adjust the perpendicular angle on the T-Square head?
Sometimes in a retrofit on a cabinet saw that has been moved/restored the tabletop's relationship to the blade might be off a skoosh. Mounting the T-Square system to the table top is not going to make this better. First step I would think... is to make sure your blade is dead nuts on to the table top... that is, make sure there's something like .002 variable (or less) between the blade and the miter gauge tracks. If the bade is not dead nuts with the table, you'll never be correctly aligned.
Biesemeyer fences are usually dead-on out of the box. That is, the T-Square head and fence are exactly 90° perpendicular.
Hmm...I must have the "unusual" Bies--it is neither perfectly straight, nor is is perpendicular to the table. And there isn't enough movement in the rail's attachment bolt holes to make up the difference so that the fence face comes into perpendicularity. I've learned to ignore the dished leading portion of the left face, and I also ignore then lack of perfection in the perpendicularity. I also ignore the lack of perfection in the flatness of the table. When it was new I was concerned about all that stuff, but now I see the world still spins and I can cut wood as accurately as I need, and I'm pretty damn fussy.
Dave
The last FWW had another rehash of tablesaw tune-ups. And a video:
Kevin,
I remember seeing some instructions on Owen Lowe's site
Bob S.
Yeah, well, here's the thing... apparently it's not there anymore. I really gotta pull all that down and start over. Criminey... last updated '04...
Anyway, yes Bob, that's how I did it. Warmed the laminate (but may have used a heat gun very gently) and peeled it off. My purpose was to try UHMW faces on the fence but I eventually went back to the laminate. The UHMW was wavy down the length of the rail.
Owen, Did you remove the substrate after taking the laminate off when you wanted to use UHMW faces? I 'm inquiring about the construction of the fence under the laminate on them. I would like to make a sacrificial fence and attach it to the existing one, either with blind nuts or by drilling into the existing structure and using recessed screws without damaging the existing fence. Your thoughts and ideas on this would be appreciated.
Thanks CC
I did take off the ply substrate before mounting the UHMW but I suppose you could leave it on if you can accommodate the extra thickness in the fence indicator adjustment or you don't care about the indicator. The substrate is a birch plywood type material with about 9 countersunk hex-head screws holding it onto the rectangular metal fence.
Be aware that if you leave the original plywood on the fence the surface will still be very sticky from the cement.
I put the pics and description of what I did to put the UHMW on the fence back up onto my webspace:
If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask.
All,
FYI, I contacted Biesemeyer today about this problem. They confirmed no way to make this adjustment and offered me a replacement. Because I'm local to their headquarters here in AZ, I'm going to make the exchange tomorrow. The rep said they would build one up for me today (making sure of the accuracy) and have it ready for pickup by tomorrow. I'll let you know if the new one's build quality is any better...
-m
I got the replacement fence today. It's perfect. I checked the entire length of the fence (both sides) and it's _exactly_ 90 deg to the table. They did a very nice job and their customer service was excellent. They took my old fence in exchange and it didn't cost me a dime -- other than the drive to the facility.
If any of yours is in need of help, perhaps you could benefit from a call to Bies?
-m
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