General Canada 350 help!

[Scott Driemel]

Hello all. Been wanting to upgrade my old Busy Bee "Rexcut" 3hp cabinet saw for some time now. Don't have the dough for a newer saw with the nice new riving knives but found a nice old General 350 that I figured I could spend some dough on safety accessories and at least make it safer or me more concious at least like adding an excalibur guard or a shark, GRRippers, etc. That all said, the saw I found's fence is kaput. The rails look okay but the fence mech is shot. Question is, what is compatible with the General's and what would be recommended? Unfortunately it's too late in the day to call General to inquire and I might have to pull the trigger on this saw asap. Any ideas about a fence for this old girl would be appreciated. Thx as always. PS the saw must be 15 years old.

[Mark Carlson]

I think you should be able to put any of the major fences on that saw, vega, beisemeyer, incra, etc.

~mark

[Darnell Hagen]

Newer Generals use a Bies, unless it's completely thrashed it should be repairable.

Older Generals use a Jetlock style. They work, but I prefer the bies style.

Are the rails tubes or a rectangular beam/ angle iron?

[Scot Ferraro]

And you can add the retrofit riving knife to the older style saws -- I did this on mine and it works great.

Scot

[Scott Driemel]

Had to get out of Dodge and managed to get a nice edge sander so I was away until just now.
Hey Darnell, the saw has the rectangular rails. More like big white angle iron ones as they aren't actually tubular. I might be able to get by with just buying a fence but which would fit? Guess I'll have to phone General in the am and see what they say.
Thx Scot, as far as the riving knife, I was under the impression that to retrofit the old general's with the new style "raising with the blade" riving knife a huge amount of work, (trunions etc) had to be all changed and was in the neighbourhood of $800 +. Which riving knife are you referring too? I'd jump at a chance to retrofit the saw if it wasn't so darn cost prohibitive!

[Darnell Hagen]

That's a Bies, how is is kaput? They're pretty simple, you should be able to fix it unless it's all bent up.

Nice score.

[Scot Ferraro]

The retrofit was easy to do -- there are some beefy parts that you replace and you do need to remove the top and realign everything, but it is straightforward and they provide a step-by-step DVD to walk you through the process. I recall it was around $400 or so US$...costly, yes, but well worth it to me with the added safety and convenience.

Scot

[Scott Driemel]

Hmmm, $400 . Ouch but it does make a big diff. This saw is maybe 15 years old. The fence is all shot, sides are all chewed up from the blade etc. The rails (white angle iron) look sound. My understanding is that General fences are similar too but are not Biesemeyer's. At least not back then. I found a brand new on a crate 3hp Unisaw, that is now 5 years old with a 52" Biesemeyer fence. I think he'll accept $1000 US. So I think I'll just let the General be and go for the new (old style) Unisaw. Not my first pick but Uni's have always been a solid saw too.

[Darnell Hagen]

They call it a T-Square:

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s168/DarnellHagen/SCAN0001-1.jpg

but it says Bies right on it:

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s168/DarnellHagen/0203001354.jpg

Refacing the fence is easy (http://thewayiwood.blogspot.com/2010/02/fresh-faced-fence.html).

I don't know all the paticulars, but I'd choose a General over a Unisaw any day of the week.

[Dave Cav]

I would take a 15 year old Canadian General over a 5 year old Unisaw any day of the week. The General is probably one of the most stout 10" cabinet saws there is. If all that is wrong with the fences is the faces being chewed up, no big deal; they are disposable anyway. Use about anything to reface them; hardwood, MDF, baltic birch, you name it. About anything except particle board or CDX plywood. As another poster pointed out, it IS a Bies. You should be able to fix anything wrong with it with parts from your scrap box.

There's nothing wrong with a Unisaw, even a new one. (I have a restored '46). The General is just better is all.

[scott spencer]

If the stock rails are the 2"x3" steel from the GI Biese clone, then any of the full size fence tubes should fit. Beisemeyer Commercial, Jet Exacta II, PM Accufence, HTC, Shop Fox Classic, Steel City Deluxe, etc. Find a deal...

[Scott Driemel]

Thx for the pic Darnell. Yup, that's the fence. It was all chewed up on the saw side and had been replaced with an equally chewed up piece of plywood. That is good to know and I'l save your pic to a file. I did buy the Unisaw. Out of Seattle. About 10 years old and never been used. Never even taken out of the box! But now the General deal may be still alive. Was wondering of the practicallity of running the General back to back and using the two saws.
I'm surprised at the positive comments about the General over the Unisaw. I had thought each were equal. Now I'm a little concerned that I should have thrown a fistfull more cash at the General owner. I'm supposed to hear on Tues night if I get it or not.
Thx for the info & the pics. Whew that General fence did look ratty though.. scared me right away from it.

[Dave Cav]

But now the General deal may be still alive. Was wondering of the practicallity of running the General back to back and using the two saws.


Excellent setup; shim them so the heights are even and one becomes the outfeed table for the other; saves a lot of space. Use one for ripping and the other for crosscuts/dado work.

[Scott Driemel]

First of thx for the info from you General & Biesemeyer people. I'd be dead in the water if not for your advice on how to repair this saw!
Well, my bride asked yesterday, "ahem, didn't you just buy a Unisaw four days ago and what's that now on the trailer!". Well I was able to do a pretty decent deal on the General after all so I bought it. Yup, impulse purchase, but after reading even more here on the Creek it seems General Canada is pretty respected so I made the plunge.
It has the 74" rails, angle iron at back & square at front. The problem (one of them) is that the fence won't tighten up when I rotate the cam lock lever and the 42"fence can still slide. I'm not sure (never had a good fence before like this) what to do?
Do people just replace the cam lever? (it has a little stud that appears to be what actually pushes the fence against the square rail) or do people shim it out someway? I tried to contact Biesemeyer to see if their fence is indeed the same as the general T-Square (as a reply chap had said) and have had a dickens of a time trying to get through. The Biesemeyer site re-directs you to the delta/dewalt/portercable etc site and it is a nightmare to work through. Even the "contact us" bounced back a illogical response when I tried to submit.
How does a person "tighten up" the fence to the rail? Any suggestions? I see the odd 42" Biesemeyer fence alone (no rails) on sale sometimes for about $200 with shipping but if it isn't broke I'd sure like to fix it instead of eating the $200. I'm now worried that the fence doesn't "tighten" because the front rail square tubing might be bent? (Although it seems fine and Man! is that a chunk of steel!) The fence sides certainly do have to be replaced. Does anyone know what the white slippery material is that the fence is made of? Looks like the same stuff the outfeed and side extension tables are made from. Obviously not melamine, is it just abourite?, laminate of some sort? This is my first "good" saw and I'd sure like to get it back to it's original splendor and operability. I'm not all that "handy" with refurbishing, (I probably didn't have to say that did I.. must be pretty apparent!) According to the s/n General says it's post 1989. s always, I'm appreciative to all those who take the time to try to help. I apologize for the "simple" Q's but as a novice, I'm pretty stumped.

[Jeff Hallam]

I would contact General for a manual for your saw if it didn't come with one. Find the exploded parts diagram and make sure you have all of the pieces that make the cam work. Or you can post some pictures on here so that we can compare since many of us have a Bies style fence.

Sounds to me like you bought two solid saws. Good finds.

[scott spencer]

Scott my understanding is that General actually manufactured the Biesemeyer fence for Biesemeyer at some point. When Biesemeyer tookover the manufacturing of their fence, General had the capacity and supposedly the negotiated the right to manufacture the fence for their own saws without the Biese name. This could be pure "internet fact", so take it for what it's worth.

AFAIK, the faces are a plastic laminate over plywood.

[Scot Ferraro]

I think that Scott Spencer is correct with General and Biesemeyer. The General T-Fence is the same thing, but with General's branding. I would do as others have said and contact General directly. They should be able to help you out with parts and information on how to adjust the fence. On my fence there are two tabs (one left and one right) of the cam lever and these are fitted with allen screws. This is how you adjust the tightness of the fence to the bar as well as adjust it for parallelism to the blade -- turn one screw in and it pushes the fence in or out so that you can align it parallel to the blade. The parts should be easy to find if you need replacements and these fence systems are pretty easy to work on for adjustments, etc... Congrats on the new saw.

Scot

[Scott Driemel]

Ahh, well the mystery deepens, but gets clearer. I just took my brand new Biesemeyer fence (F42) out of the Unisaw package. Hauled it outside to my trailer where the General is still sitting and threw it up beside it. Yup. IDENTICLE! Wow, was that a surprise! I found my Unisaw fence (a Biesemeyer as well) instruction sheet and it mentioned a way to adjust (with some allen screws) the fence if it wasn't snugging up to the square channel (which it wasn't on the General) I looked for the screws on the General fence and yup, exact same place, same size and with a twist of an allen key, the fence now fits snug!
So the mystery is over. General & Biesemeyer are indeed the exact same fence!
So now to replace the cursor, and the sides of the fence. Someone mentioned a General brand retrofit riving knife for about $400 for these older saws?? Hey how does one get the old metal tape off the Square channel? It looks stuck on pretty hard!