Board Buddy,, Buddy Board

[dougj1715]

A friend of mine has a set of board buddys or buddy boards. (A roller mechanism that attatches to your fence to keep boards down on table and against the fence). I know that Grizzly carries them for around $32. Does anyone know where else to get a set of these. Does anyone understand my description. TIA, Doug

[Keith Outten]

Doug,

I've seen the board buddies in several woodworking catalogs for years and looked at them hundreds of times. The design idea seems very solid to me, if they work well they would speed up production nicely. I guess I never bought them because I never knew anyone who had used them or could reccommend the board buddies.

The truth is I'm not big on gadgets for table saws, very few that I have tried in 25 years have been worth the trouble. The only table saw attachment I have ever reccommended is the Excalibur sliding table, for me there is no woodworking without one. The Excalibur will improve the safety of a table saw ten fold, production goes through the roof on multiples and most saw jigs can be thrown away. The best money I ever spent on any tool.

[Bill Esposito]

Amazon.com has them for $29

[Jim Young]

I bought some a few months back at one of the woodworking shows. They work just as advertised. The only issue I have with them is that if you set one up before the front of the blade it becomes difficult to push small stock past it. For large (wide) stock there is no issue.

[Ian MacDonald]

I have a set of Board Buddies.

They work great when cutting sheet goods since they keep the stock tight up against the fence. This is especially helpful when you're standing 6-8 feet back at the other end of the stock. They are also handy when dadoing panels since you can't use a splitter.

For controlling narrow stock, I usually just end up using feather boards due to the obstruction problem Jim Young mentioned previously.

To make installing/removing and adjusting them easier, I also purchased a 24" long t-slot aluminum extrusion (also made by the Board Buddy people). With this extrusion permanently attached to the top of my fence, installing or removing the Board Buddies takes about 30 seconds.

Regards,

-- Ian

[Ken Wright]

if its not a lot of trouble or an imposition .... could you post a pic of your Board Buddy set-up??

I'd be most appreciative!

[Ed Falis]

Ken,

I think they show a couple of setups here (http://www.woodstockinternational.com/board_buddies.cfm) with the optional track on top of a fence.

- Ed

[Jim Becker]

Originally posted by Ian MacDonald
IThey work great when cutting sheet goods since they keep the stock tight up against the fence. This is especially helpful when you're standing 6-8 feet back at the other end of the stock. They are also handy when dadoing panels since you can't use a splitter.


I'm with Ian on this one...I use a similar product (Lechtung) to help keep sheet goods against the fence and occasionally for ripping long stock. I use Jim Tolpin's mounting method to attach this and other fixtures to my fence. (from Table Saw Magic

[Jim Young]

Here is an end view. This one has been installed on an extruded fence replacement, like Ian mentioned. You can see how easy it is to remove when you don't need it.

Haven't posted too many pics, we'll see if it works.

[Jim Young]

Here is the top view.

You can see what I mean by short pieces not working too good with board buddies.

[Jim Young]

Last one. Slightly fuzzy side view. You can see the slots on the fence make it easy to adjust your buddies.

Hope these help.

[Tom Gattiker]

You need to keep the back of your fence from raising up off the table or they will not prevent kickback, so bies or jet xacta fence will require some modification. Also they get in the way of a basket style blade cover when doing farily narrow rips. For these reasons, I have never installed the set I bought. THinking of selling but also thinking of using on a router table (anybody try this). I dont think there is any perfect hold down/hold-in system and this one is no exception.

[Jim Becker]

Originally posted by Tom Gattiker
You need to keep the back of your fence from raising up off the table or they will not prevent kickback, so bies or jet xacta fence will require some modification.

Tom, I've never had a problem with the back of my Xacta fence lifting when using my "wheels". If the fence is adjusted to properly lock down, you'd need more force than the springs on the wheels can exert to flex the steel fence tube. But I've see several fences on friends machines that locked "sloppy" and those can definitely lift...mine was originally like that "out of the box", but is quite solid in use after correct setup. Setting the wheels for too much downward pressure and also exacerbate any problem in this respect.

[Tom Gattiker]

Jim
Seems like if a kickback gets started, there is going to be enough force to lift the fence up, even if there is not enough in normal operation. You acutally use the BB's so I will defer to you, but it seems to me that any fence mounted system needs to have the back of the fence attached to the table or a rear rail to arrest kickback. Otherwise, the second the fence lifts off table, the workpiece is not captured between the hold down (board buddy, featherboard, whatever) and the saw's table. I remember seeing plans for fence mounted featherboards in one of the mags, and there was an accompanying exhortation to secure the back of the fence to the table. If I am missing something, please let me know. As I mentioned, I have never installed mine so I might well be missing something here.
Tom

[Jim Becker]

Tom, just to be sure I wasn't speaking out of turn, I walked out to the shop between phone calls. With my fence locked down tightly, if I lift at the very end of the fence I can raise it up about 1/4" total at the back of the saw table. (due to the long moment of the fence, itself, I have a lot of leverage to work with) If I try and lift near the center of the fence, I can barely budge it with two hands doing the lifting. That's the area where the wheels will be...just on either side of the blade. In many cases, any kickback tendency will happen near the beginning of the cut as the blade tries to flip the material up with the motion of the blade, so the moment of force will be near the center of the fence, rather than at the outboard end that hangs off the table more than 8".

I've been using my Lechtung wheels for almost three years now and feel quite comfortable with them on my Xacta fence. I also use my snap-in splitter to further guard from pinching-inspired kickback. That being said, you should NEVER do anything or use anything that you are not comfortable with, including hold-down wheels on a tee-square type fence!

[Ken Wright]

for the link and the pics.