straight rip fences

[Jeff Bartley]

Good morning! I made the mistake of checking the straightness of the ripfence on my TS....not at all straight. Saw is a Jet, fence is the Jet with the micro adjust and the UHMW sides. I love the fence and wish I'd never checked it: now I want to fix it....but is that really necessary? I wonder how other fences measure up with regard to straightness?

[scott spencer]

It's not all that unusual to find a fence that's not perfectly straight. Depending on how bad it is and where it's off, you can shim the faces a bit, flatten the faces on a jointer and/or planer (you need a flat reference face for the planer to work), or you can replace the faces. Before you do anything, check that the steel tube itself is straight.

[Matt Kestenbaum]

I am not sure I understand your use of the word straight...are you saying that it is not flat (you can slide feeler gauges between the face a straight edge)? Or, that is it not perfectly parallel to the miter slot/blade? Most fences are easily made parallel to the slot, and the blade to the slot. The T-fence (bies style) on my Sawstop has faces made of plastic laminate covered plywood and there is a area on the left face (primarily used face) that is a .006" cupped and the right face seemed to sit a few thousandths out of plumb to the table. But, I'm not at all sure I could successfully shim-out the spots to dead flat. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd make it worse before I'd make it better. The spec on most cast iron tables is .002", so I live with the .004"

[glenn bradley]

I'm pretty sure he is talking about flat. UHMW deforms under pressure and some shims and an adjustment of torque will probably solve your issues. Even my factory Beis HPL faces have a deviation spot of about .003" out in the middle somewhere. Replacing the faces is on my list but, as the deviation does not affect the cut quality, it is pretty low on the list. If you are not noticing ill effects, I would hold off on yours as well. Just my .02.

[Jeff Bartley]

Yes, flat, as in you can slip a feeler gauge between the fence and a straight edge. And it is pretty low on my list of things to address; heck, I've been working this long with it like this....
The only ill-effective I've realized is that in the past when I've set a freshly jointed edge against the fence I've taken boards back to the jointer for another pass....not even realizing it was the fence.
Thanks for the input guys!

[Jamie Buxton]

I have that fence. Mine, too, was not straight. As far as I could tell, the bulk of the issue was that the UHMW deformed under the pressure of the mounting clips. There was also a teensy bend in the steel. I fixed it by replacing the plastic with wood. Wood is stiffer, and I can plane it flat too. (Small rant... Why in the world would a company selling to woodworkers use plastic for the fence faces? Wood is less expensive, is not as floppy, and woodworkers like the stuff.) When I installed the new faces on the fence, I also added a few thin shims to fix the bend in the steel.

I mounted the wood by drilling holes through the steel. Socket-head allen screws go through the faces and the steel, with a nut on the other side of the fence. The wood is counterbored, of course, so the heads and the nuts don't get in the way.