Ripping on a slider using fence as bump stop - toe-out

[mark mcfarlane]

Still dialing in my new slider.

My plan is to use the fence as a bump-stop for ripping narrow pieces to the right of the blade.

If I toe-out the fence at all, this seems like it will cause problems.

The ideal setup for this cutting scenario seems to be a perfectly parallel fence and blade, with the fence pulled forward of the blade for such rip cuts.

I can't think of any situation on a slider for having toe-out on the fence, since you would typically pull the fence to the infeed side of the blade, so binding would never be a problem.

What do you all think?

[Mark Bolton]

We keep our fence nearly parallel (it ma y be toed out a few thou. You can always clamp a scrap just ahead of the blade for your bump and that would eliminate any toe. We still rip material longer than the stroke with the fence so a litte toe is essential.

[Dan Friedrichs]

If you have a few thou of toe-out, what problem would that cause? Presumably, you aren't positioning the fence/stop with that much accuracy, so a little error in parallelism shouldn't hurt...

Mine is set for just a few thou of toe-out. Makes it a bit safer when using the full-length fence in the "traditional cabinet saw" mode. But I often pull it back and just use it as a bump stop, too.

[Andy Giddings]

Typically a few thou toe out is plenty - you might need it one day if you ever use the rip fence on its own (as per a US table saw working method) as per Mark's comment. It still works as a bump stop just fine - use the cross cut fence (if the blank is wide enough) to ensure your work is square to the blade and don't try to align it with the rip fence as its a stop, not for alignment. If the blank is narrow use a known square additional blank to give you something to register against the cross cut fence with.

Just try to use roughly the same position on the rip fence as the stop.

[mark mcfarlane]

... use the cross cut fence (if the blank is wide enough) to ensure your work is square to the blade and don't try to align it with the rip fence as its a stop, not for alignment. If the blank is narrow use a known square additional blank to give you something to register against the cross cut fence with.

Bingo!

Thanks Andy. I used my 5-cut blank against the crosscut fence to register the piece to be cut, and was able to rip a 1" wide strip to within .004" over its 4 foot length.

The saw is officially ready for action after I add in a little toe-out to the fence for safety. Now for the J/P setup.

I also need to cut down the 48" square 3/4" birch blank I used for the 5-cut alignment to something more manageable for use as a future square reference, maybe a 24" square ? Whaddya think?

[Andy Giddings]

Bingo!

Thanks Andy. I used my 5-cut blank against the crosscut fence to register the piece to be cut, and was able to rip a 1" wide strip to within .004" over its 4 foot length.

The saw is officially ready for action after I add in a little toe-out to the fence for safety. Now for the J/P setup.

I also need to cut down the 48" square 3/4" birch blank I used for the 5-cut alignment to something more manageable for use as a future square reference, maybe a 24" square ? Whaddya think?

Mark, depends on what you are cutting - for example if you are trying to cut thin strips off the side of a 6ft long by 1ft wide blank, then your additional blank could be 5ft long by whatever space you have left on your crosscut fence. I'd only do this if I wanted the strips to be very accurate. Most of the time I'd use the F & F jig as described by Jim to cut strips, bumping the blank against the rip fence. You can always use the planer afterward if the variance is too much

[Chris Parks]

Typically a few thou toe out is plenty - you might need it one day if you ever use the rip fence on its own (as per a US table saw working method) as per Mark's comment. It still works as a bump stop just fine - use the cross cut fence (if the blank is wide enough) to ensure your work is square to the blade and don't try to align it with the rip fence as its a stop, not for alignment. If the blank is narrow use a known square additional blank to give you something to register against the cross cut fence with.

Just try to use roughly the same position on the rip fence as the stop.

Another way I have thought of to get around this issue is to make a point stop in the form of a round bar, either attached to the face of the rip fence and which can be removed or in place of the rip fence. This takes away the toe out issue entirely on the rip fence.

[James Zhu]

I adopted the method David Best described in the following post, simple and effective, it works perfectly when using rip fence as a stop on the slider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidp...57686155149385

James

[mark mcfarlane]

I adopted the method David Best described in the following post, simple and effective, it works perfectly when using rip fence as a stop on the slider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidp...57686155149385

James

Very cool idea, thanks James for sharing this.

[Jim Becker]

I adopted the method David Best described in the following post, simple and effective, it works perfectly when using rip fence as a stop on the slider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidp...57686155149385

James

Wow...very interesting method.

[Chris Parks]

I have had the idea of a point stop on the fence for a while now and finally made it tonight so I thought you might like to see it. The idea overcomes the toe out/parallelism problems depending on how the rip fence is set up as the bar eliminates that problem. It does introduce another issue though in that if the bar was taken away as it would be if the rip fence was needed to rip then zero is no longer zero. For me I could overcome that problem really easily by having two Wixey heads, one each side of the Hammer rip fence clamp and each with two different zeros or one Wixey and rely on the tape that the rip head is normally set by. The short fence was obtained when I bought a new extrusion and four of us got a bit just long enough to do the job. I would not do that again, rather I would cut enough off the standard fence as it is too long IMO.



IMG_1973.jpg

[James Biddle]

I always thought setting a toe-out was unique to US cabinet saws because many did not have riving knives and fences continued past the back of the blade. Shouldn't a slider's wagon and sled be set dead-on parallel? We also keep the fence dead-on parallel as well because if it's toed at all, the fence distances will vary according to where end of the fence is set relative to the blade.

[Walter Plummer]

I don't know about the newer Altendorf sliders but the tune up manual for the old ones has five steps to setting one up. The sub rollers under the carriage need to be adjusted to take the weight of the sliding table in the correct order. Then what they call "free cut left" is adjusted so the slid travels just slightly away from the blade. Then "free cut right" where the rip fence is toed away from the blade. Then you do the 5 cut square up, and finally you set the scoring blade . I will try to find my copy of the manual and post some scans.

[Chris Parks]

I always thought setting a toe-out was unique to US cabinet saws because many did not have riving knives and fences continued past the back of the blade. Shouldn't a slider's wagon and sled be set dead-on parallel? We also keep the fence dead-on parallel as well because if it's toed at all, the fence distances will vary according to where end of the fence is set relative to the blade.

That is a good point James. My CC fence and rip fence are set dead square to one another and I don't seem to have problems for the few times I use the rip fence for its intended purpose. Yesterday I used the point stop I made and posted above for the first time and it is a winner as far as I am concerned. Using it on a full length fence would negate having a short one as I have done. The single reason for me using the short fence in the first place was if the rip fence is pulled back it has a huge overhang that has to be walked around and my saw has a round bar that the rip fence rides on and even if the rip fence is clamped to the bar very hard it can still fall backward due the the large overhang. The rip fence IMO is way too long as supplied by Felder and I think is a sop to the users converting from cabinet saws in the US and other markets where they are used heavily.

[John Sincerbeaux]

In 40 years of owning and operating tablesaws, I have always had my fence(s) set perfectly parallel to the blade. After reading this thread, I checked my new Martin T60C.... its dead on parallel.