Would you buy 'long rails' for your fence system again?

[Josh Reet]

Those of you who have 'long rail' fence systems for your saw, would you buy them again? Or was it one of those things that sounded like a good idea at the time but really never gets used and just takes up space?

[Cary Falk]

In a heartbeat. It also makes a good staging area.

[Tony Bilello]

I wouldnt consider anything else but long rails. Mine are 50 inches and wish they were longer.

[Heather Thompson]

I have a Powermatic 66 with an Incra TSIII fence system and opted for the 92" rails, bought a 1" thick slab of phenolic and cut it into two pieces(24x30 and 44x30). The phenolic is used as the left and right wings, adding in the width of the cast iron top I have a total of 79 1/2", as Cary stated it makes for a great staging area. I also use the top of my saw as an assembly table, lay a piece of hardboard on the top to protect from glue and finish, works great for me. My husband kids me that I can not leave the shop door open for fear that the air force will confuse the saw as the top of an aircraft carrier.

Heather

[Darrell Bade]

I would not consider anything shorter than 52" unless I just did not have the room. My old tablesaw had 72" rails and my new saw has 52" and I have already missed the longer rails a time or two.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I wouldnt consider anything else but long rails. Mine are 50 inches and wish they were longer.

Ditto. Mine are the longest that the workshop will allow (52"), and still give me room to walk around both ends of the saw. If the shop was bigger, my rails would be longer.

[Jerome Hanby]

I've got the same Incra system, just not installed yet. This past weekend, I had a situation where the back I was cutting for a cabinet was just a couple of inches too wide to cut on my saw. I thought seriously about stopping everything and mounting the fence and rails right then, it's not the first time I've banged into that limitation. Then I thought about telling my wife that I didn't get her cabinet finished because I spent 14 hours fiddling with the saw and reconsidered ;).


I have a Powermatic 66 with an Incra TSIII fence system and opted for the 92" rails, bought a 1" thick slab of phenolic and cut it into two pieces(24x30 and 44x30). The phenolic is used as the left and right wings, adding in the width of the cast iron top I have a total of 79 1/2", as Cary stated it makes for a great staging area. I also use the top of my saw as an assembly table, lay a piece of hardboard on the top to protect from glue and finish, works great for me. My husband kids me that I can not leave the shop door open for fear that the air force will confuse the saw as the top of an aircraft carrier.

Heather

[Mark Ashmeade]

Then I thought about telling my wife that I didn't get her cabinet finished because I spent 14 hours fiddling with the saw and reconsidered ;).

There speaks the voice of wisdom!

[Sean Hughto]

I think it really depends upon your work. If you use a lot of sheet goods, no doubt the longer rails are very useful. If, however, you are only cutting boards and furniture sized glued up panels, short rails are more than adequate. Even when you need to cut sheet, you can relatively easily cut it up into manageable pieces with a circular or jig saw and then use the TS to cut those rough sized pieces to final.

[Mike Heidrick]

I have several ways to accurately break down sheet goods now. I might go with smaller rails. I would consider it at least. I would also consider a high quality accurate panel saw.

[John Harden]

I moved from a PM-66 with 50" rails to a Euro Slider with 9 foot wagon and opted for the shortest fence rails they offer, 33". Just don't need very much room to the right of the blade any longer.

For a contractors/cabinet saw, I'd recommned longer rails if you have the room.

Regards,

John

[Paul Johnstone]

Those of you who have 'long rail' fence systems for your saw, would you buy them again? Or was it one of those things that sounded like a good idea at the time but really never gets used and just takes up space?

I have 52" rails.. I do a lot of plywood, so I have used the full length many times. The only reason to buy smaller is if you don't have enough space for 52". Well worth it, IMO.

[scott vroom]

I purchased the Grizzly 0690 with 30" rails. I've been building cabinets and have found the shorter rails more than adequate (I've been breaking down big sheets with a circular saw, no issues doing this). I have a very small shop but if I move to a larger place I would probably go with the longer rails....it can't hurt and I guess there will be times when longer rails would be handy. Most likely, when I get a bigger shop I'll purchase a European style slider and either sell the Griz or keep it for dedicated Dado work.

[Josh Reet]

When you guys list the rail length, are you listing the actual length or the rip capacity?

FWIW, I'm looking at the Shopfox "classic" or possibly aluma-classic with either the long or standard rails. Though given most responses, it seems like longer rails are the way to go if you have the room. though I have to admit, I tend to break things down with a circular saw from full sheet size before I do anything else with them.

[John Gornall]

Long rails are fine if you have shop space. But I've seen so many guys insisiting on keeping the long rails when they just don't have enough room in their shop. Right now I'm in a one garage shop until my new house is finished. I cut my rails to a 36" rip capacity and made this shop much more functional. I don't miss the 52" capacity as there are simple work arounds. I probably won't go back to long rails when I move into my new shop next year.

[Brian Kincaid]

Long rails are fine if you have shop space. But I've seen so many guys insisiting on keeping the long rails when they just don't have enough room in their shop. Right now I'm in a one garage shop until my new house is finished. I cut my rails to a 36" rip capacity and made this shop much more functional. I don't miss the 52" capacity as there are simple work arounds. I probably won't go back to long rails when I move into my new shop next year.

A 36" capacity would have covered 99% of my work when I still had a table saw.

I only had a 31" capacity however (Lowes Bies with standard install). Believe it or not the extra 5" would have saved me some major frustration.

If I was in the market I would get something 36-38", but probably would not need or want any more than that.

-Brian

[Tom Veatch]

Those of you who have 'long rail' fence systems for your saw, would you buy them again? ...

Absolutely!

I have 52" rails on my cabinet saw and have never regretted it. My advice (free, and worth every penny you paid for it) to anyone is get the longest rails that are available and you can fit into the available area.

If nothing else, they provide a little more horizontal surface to hold the clutter... er, uh. to stage work.:D

[Sean Nagle]

I've had a Unisaw with the 52" Unifence in my small shop for fifteen years. Recently I rearranged everything to make better use of shop space. In doing so, I've gone with 36" rip capacity. During the time I had the extra rip capacity, I found that the outside 12" to 16" of the table board would always collect stuff since it was an infrequently-used, horizontal surface :o

I will miss being able to crosscut long boards to the right of the blade, but then the conventional cabinet saw was never really the best crosscutting solution... maybe I should consider buying a radial arm saw ;)

[Cary Falk]

[QUOTE=Josh Reet;1261755]When you guys list the rail length, are you listing the actual length or the rip capacity?

QUOTE]
A 7' rail(actual length of the rail and refered to as long) will give you 52" rip capicity to the right of the blade and approximate 12" to the left.

[Mark Grotenhuis]

I have downsized to a 36" rail because cutting 52" of sheet goods is just a pain. I'd much rather use my festool track saw and slice the sheet goods down to a more workable size before going to the table saw. I work by myself a lot so muscling a full 4X8 sheet through the table saw myself is neither easy or safe. Plus setting roller stands for the in-feed and out-feed just takes too long.

I dont use the table saw for assembly or anything else. Its only for cutting. But I can understand wanting 52" rails if you do use it for assembly. I think I'd cry if I accidentally got glue on my cast iron or wrecked the extension table somehow. I purposely built a stand alone assembly table right next to my table saw to reduce the temptation of using it for things other than cutting.

[Josh Reet]

A 7' rail(actual length of the rail and refered to as long) will give you 52" rip capicity to the right of the blade and approximate 12" to the left.

Yeah, that's what I read on the Grizzly pages for those rails. I'm just a bit confused since people are throwing around both length and capacity numbers.

[Jeff Monson]

I would base my decision for the most part on room and space available.
I have a narrow shop and tried to keep the 52" rails on my pm2000, it was a major bottleneck in my shop so I cut them down to 36", I have never needed the longer rails to date, but, it my shop were 3 feet wider I would have left them alone.

[Ray Newman]

My Unisaw has the 52" Unifence & luckily I have enough room that I can easily move around the saw and rails. My jointer is close by the saw, so as I join boards, I can stack them on the between the rails extension table if needed.

At times, the extension table also serves as an extra assembly area.

It all depends upon how much room you have in your shop and what type of work you do or plan to do.

[Larry Frank]

I also downsized my table saw to the short cut length. I did it for two reasons. One was my shop was on the small size. The other was that it is tough at my age to handle the big sheets of ply and not very safe. I also broke down and bought the Festool tracksaw and am so happy with it and use it to cut large sheet. I have never gotten such clean cuts on oak ply as with it. I used to think that price was too much but have certainly changed my mind.

[Jim Kountz]

I cant imagine having a table saw without the long rails. Just seems useless to me after having them for so long.

[Joe Mioux]

My original saw was a GI contractor saw, I deliberated about long rails. I bought them.

When I upgraded to a Saw Stop, there was no deliberation, I bought them again.

As others have said, I like the extra table for misc chores such as glue ups and assembly.

joe

[Mark Elmer]

Hi all,

Yep! Put me in the "I like long rails" column.

[Bruce Page]

In reality, I don't use the 50" capacity of my Biesemeyer that often.
I still wouldn't want to be without it.

[Sean Nagle]

Hi all,

Yep! Put me in the "I like long rails" column.

It isn't a matter of not liking long rails. I love long rails. Given a choice of precious shop space or long rails, I choose the shop space. If I had the extra space, I'd go for the biggest they make :D

[Greg Portland]

I would definitely NOT go with the large rails unless I had a huge shop (or a good sliding table). For me, I've preferred breaking down large panels with a circular saw & guide and then using the table saw for ripping and smaller cross cuts (chop saw for large cross cuts).

I have a worktable for work (not my TS) but find that a long outfeed table is -definitely- worthwhile. Everything is on wheels if I need to move it out of the way for additional space. The outfeed table is the same height as my TS & worktable so all 3 can be pushed together for a huge worktable (if required).

[Al Willits]

Shop size of course would be a given, no room, no long rails, but in cases where there is room, I'd opt for the longer rails.

I have the Delta Hybrid and when I bought it, I got the shorter rails, I seem to come up just a few inches short enough times that I wish I'd bought the 52" version now.

What I did was to move the rails as far to the right as I could, that gave me about another foot, then I added to the table, that has worked out well enough that getting the 52"? rails is now on the back burner.

It means I can't run the fence on the left side of the blade, but that hasn't been a problem.

Al

[Larry Rasmussen]

I bought a smaller Festool circular saw and extra rails a few yrs ago when using jobsite saw. I've been using some kind of dedicated saw and guide system for 20 yrs or so for when my hobby/remodeling level work called for sheet goods. That plus a narrow shop area mean I don't mind using a table saw with rails long enough for a 30" cut. I'd rather build downstream with a dedicated luxurious outfeed table than go wide. It's more whatever you are set up for and used to than an absolute list of advantages and disadvantages as this thread has demonstrated. Hey at age 59 that freakin MDF is heavy.

Regards
Larry R,
Seattle

[John Thompson]

I cut my 52" down to 42" to open a traffic area between that end of the table and a cyclone. I do solid wood carcasses and use maybe 3 sheets a year for drawer bottoms.. chest backs.. etc. Simple enough to break them down to working size with a circular. I have several size assembly tables so the extra on the TS is not a factor.

With that said I would have the longest I could have that would not interfere with traffic.. space for the once every blue moon I need more than the modified 42" I currently use. But being in the shop daily I would rather work around shorter rails than being boxed in or having to detour to another part of the shop. Just my personal priorities and others will vary due to circumstances as only "you" can answer what is best for "you"!

[Rick Moyer]

There is a lot of talk about cutting down large sheets with a circular saw instead of the table saw. While this has it's merits, it has always made one heck of a mess in my shop, throwing large amounts of dust everywhere! Of course there are methods to alleviate that, but I decided I would get longer rails and cut sheets with the table saw.

[ian maybury]

Much like John H on the previous page i'm also fitting an Incra TS LS fence to a Hammer K3 panel saw with an 8ft X 8ft sliding table and cross cut fence/support frame set up. I'm new to sliding tables, so i've been buried in this issue for the last week too.

This means as far as i can see that it's possible to rip and crosscut an 8 X 4 in almost any orientation off the sliding table.

I was still planning to maintain 52 inch capacity on the rip side using a DIY table, as i was bothered i might run into some combination of blade angle and/or a stopped cut and/or a part that can only be laid down flat on one side due to having someething already built on to the other.

Trouble is my shop is just too small to do this, the real estate taken up by the saw would have been just too much to properly fit in my shaper and planer thicknesser.

I'm at this stage resigned to reducing my rip capacity to around 26 in, and am trying to figure out if having come that far if i can't reduce it even further.

Hammer offer the option of an 800mm (31 1/2 in) or 400mm (16 in) rip capacity - i'm trying to figure out what significance these numbers may have, or if they are not just arbitrary.

Do any of you guys have any suggestions as to what this sort of reduction might be giving away in this sort of situation? What sort of cuts might cause problems? I have a radial arm saw, but am hoping to dispose of it and do without a chop saw bench - again for space reasons.

ian

[glenn bradley]

I'm kind of in step with John. I had 30" which was frequently too short. I expanded to 40" by shifting the Bies tube and now rarely need more. It will depend what you do. Again, like John (sorry John :rolleyes:) I use very little sheet goods so it is no big deal for me to break a sheet down with a circular saw and finish up on the table. All that being said, I would have the longest I could fit without cramping myself out of some better use of the space. If I used a lot of plywood, long rails would be critical.

[Josh Reet]

The biggest issue with plywood for me is that, like others have mentioned, running a full sheet of 3/4 through is a little sketchy by myself. I can do it safely enough with board buddies and whatnot, I just prefer to make at least the rough cuts with a circular saw.

[Callan Campbell]

I bought a smaller Festool circular saw and extra rails a few yrs ago when using jobsite saw. I've been using some kind of dedicated saw and guide system for 20 yrs or so for when my hobby/remodeling level work called for sheet goods. That plus a narrow shop area mean I don't mind using a table saw with rails long enough for a 30" cut. I'd rather build downstream with a dedicated luxurious outfeed table than go wide. It's more whatever you are set up for and used to than an absolute list of advantages and disadvantages as this thread has demonstrated. Hey at age 59 that freakin MDF is heavy.

Regards
Larry R,
Seattle

I hear you, I gave up using MDF for that reason and the dust. Too much fine dust even with a decent dust collector and small micron bags.I have a self-enforced ban on MDF in my shop, I use Baltic Birch instead.
As for the rail length, I used a cheap Sears TB for 15 years, lamenting on the lack of really any rails to speak of.Built long cabinets and somehow muddled through it all with the often mentioned circular saw panel sizing method.
Then, in 2005 I bought a Unisaw with 52" rails and relocated things to accomodate it. Now I find the last 20 inches of the table to the right of the blade is cluttered all the time but the rails and table are there if I need them. It's just that my floor gets cluttered from all the stuff I just moved off the saw to make room....:rolleyes:

[Rich Aldrich]

I didnt buy the long rails with the saw, they were an add on later. I really like them and would buy them with the saw next time.