Question about router table fences

[Louis Brandt]

Hello,

I have a question about router table fences. Do most of you use one piece fences or two piece fences on your router tables? Being somewhat of a router novice, I elected to buy a router table instead of building one, so I bought a Bosch table that has a one piece fence. That is, the outfeed side of the fence cannot be adjusted relative to the infeed side, except to add a shim to it.

My understanding is that whenever you are putting something like a bullnose on a piece of stock, that you need to have to outfeed fence slightly forward of the infeed fence to allow for the fact that you’ve reduced the thickness of the stock along its total height.

My Bosch table has a one piece fence, but I’ve looked at expensive router table fences in Rockler catalogs, and as far as I can tell, most of those also use one piece fences, even the higher priced ones.

So, my question is, what type of fence do most of you use, and can a one piece fence be used (with a shim) to do an effective job when you are doing, say, a bullnose?

Thanks,
Louis

[Tom Esh]

You really don't need a split fence to use a bullnose as you should end up taking zero, or very close to it, off the center of the edge.
I have the Bosch and I've used the spilt feature exactly once - before I got a jointer. It worked fine, but the shims are 1/16", which is way more than I usually need to take off. The best part about the shim style is it's simple to turn it back into a straight fence - which is probably how you'll use it 99% of the time anyway.

[Adan Madrid]

Louis,

I have an expensive Incra 2 piece router fence and the only time I recall adjusting the outfeed and infeed fences was to use my router table as a jointer during a short period of time when I did not have one. You should be able to perform most of your router table work with a single fence. I have also noticed that most of the pros on Fine Woodworking.com do not use the expensive 2 piece fences either. If you are routing a bull nose profile, just make sure the apex of the bull nose does not encroach more than it needs to into board you are routing. The apex should be right at the the boards edge. If you do this, you should not need to offset the fences.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I take the opposite view- the split fence can be used as a jointer- either with a straight cutting bit or to joint and rout the profile simultaneously. I like using a split fence so much that I tapped holes in my router table to receive the mount points for my split shaper fence.

[Wayne Cannon]

Any profile that shapes the full edge, like a bullnose, will remove a bit of material and result in a snipe at the end of the cut if you don't move the outfeed side out to cover the difference, however slight.

Reality, rather than shim out the outfeed fence, I accept the snipe.

All of my fences have used shims, which take long enough to find and insert that realistically I almost always use the fence totally flat.

[Jeff Bratt]

I use the split fence on my router table (http://home.roadrunner.com/%7Ejeffnann/WoodWorking/Shop/Shop.html#Router_Table_) for two purposes. First, when jointing or routing a profile that removes the entire edge of the workpiece. I have shims of different thickness (.062" or 1/16", .024", and .012") that are very easy to slip on and use. Second, to adjust the width of the opening between the faces of the fence to get as close to the size of the router bit as possible. Or to close the gap completely - such as when routing a groove.

I think a split fence system is very nice to have, but it's certainly not a necessity.