SawStop Fence Question

[Clay Fails]

I wonder if anyone else with a Sawstop table saw has seen this issue. I have the 3HP Industrial Cabinet Saw. Beautiful machine. Recently I purchased an Infinity Super General Thin Kerf blade. Ran a couple test cuts using the rip fence......very bad burning. Checked a few other blades, including a couple thin kerfs, no burning at all. Checked the fence alignment. Very curious result: The middle and top of the fence were almost dead parallel to the miter slot. However, the lower half of the fence was toed out a few thou from front to back. So the fence face is either not "flat" in the vertical plane, or is not perpendicular to the table.

My conclusion is that the plastic coating on the fence face is not in a single plane, but somehow warped. The Infinity blade is fine for crosscut work, and there is no runout on the blade. folks tell me that their blade design is very sensitive to fence alignment, and a little off will cause the burning i'm experiencing. Odd thing is i don't see this with any of my other blades.

Anyone else have this experience with their Sawstop, or any other TS for that matter?

thanks,

[Mike Heidrick]

No issues on my ICS from 2006. I don't use thin kerf blades either. All my blades are Forrest so I have not tried the blade you are using. Ill look closer at the fence.

[mreza Salav]

I have the same saw (ICS 3-HP). The fence itself (iron tube) is dead straight or at least to 0.001" as I checked. The face of it (which is plywood with laminated plastic on both sides) is not consistent. I played with shimming it at different locations but couldn't get it as good as I want. Eventually ran it through my drum sander (with the wite-side down). Much better now.
I have read a few other people had this issue of the face of the fence not being very flat; I think main problem is using plywood for that.

[John Coloccia]

The fence on mine is a nightmare. I spent hours shimming it to get it right, and it's still not right. It's on my list of things to do to replace it with something flat. The vertical alignment is adjustable, though, so if the only problem is really that it's not perpendicular, just adjust it. That wouldn't give you burning, though. You would just ride the bottom of the fence straight. The critical alignment is parallel to the blade, and in this respect mine varies about .010", believe it or not. Really poor. It's much better after selectively shimming up, but it's not perfect. You need to be looking at the alignment with the blade and start by making sure the miter slot is aligned to the blade since the slot is what all of the measurements index from.

[Clay Fails]

Thanks for the quick replies guys....it's reassuring to know it's not just my fence with this issue. I will take a closer look at replacing the faceplate with something flatter.

[Shawn Pixley]

Maybe I got lucky. My fence is straight, flat and true.

[John Coloccia]

The problem on mine seems to be either the plastic or the plywood delaminating or bubbling up. Mine WAS pin straight when I got it, and the fence itself is straight. Makes me wonder if they had a bad batch at one point out there. I bought mine around 2009, or so.

[jim gossage]

My fence face also is not flat, though i have not checked the flatness of the fence yet. The fence face is definitely not at par with the quality of the rest of the machine

[Mike Leung]

I have the same issues regarding my fence faces on my ICS. I shimmed it but it still is dipping in certain spots. I am sourcing some phenolic to replace these this week. I also added a wheel to the back of my fence to avoid the contact pad scratching my table top further. I had the same problem on my unisaw with beismeyer before.

[mreza Salav]

I have the same issues regarding my fence faces on my ICS. I shimmed it but it still is dipping in certain spots. I am sourcing some phenolic to replace these this week. I also added a wheel to the back of my fence to avoid the contact pad scratching my table top further. I had the same problem on my unisaw with beismeyer before.

Do you have a photo of the wheel on the fence? TIA

[Jim Barrett]

Have a General T fence on my General 350 cabinet saw...the face on the fence was wavy and there is no way to shim it unless you pull it apart...in fact that is the only way to remove the face...you have to peel back the laminate to access the screws! Bad design! I ended up using a piece of 3/4" baltic birch plywood and shimmed where necessary. It is much better now with about 0.002 difference over 28".

[Peter Aeschliman]

Ditto for me on my sawstop PCS. The fence face has some dips in it. I've been meaning to replace it with some quartersawn hardwood. I did this with some cherry on my router table and it has stayed perfectly flat, straight, and square to the table for years since.

[Mike Leung]

Do you have a photo of the wheel on the fence? TIA

I used a 2" wheel and had to file the holes on the bracket to lower the overall height to keep the original height the same. I rides on the rear rail and the fence slides back and forth really smoothly now. I removed the plastic slide and gladly tossed it in the trash. Good riddance. I should have done this as soon as I received my saw.

[mreza Salav]

That's interesting Mike, thanks for posting. I too have noticed that plastic slide has left a mark across the table from moving the fence back and forth.

[Craig Shilling]

I have a PCS that I bought about 2 years ago and the fence and rail are still in the factory wrappings stowed away in a closet. When I got the saw home, I took the Incra LS Positioner off the Delta Contractor saw that I have used for the past 15 years and bolted it to the new saw SS. Works great, have never had a problem. I didn't know the factory SS fence was made of wood and laminate untill I read this thread, I'm 70 and still learn something new every day.

[Kevin Womer]

I have a PCS and used to own a Steel City TS. I liked the phenolic sides of the SC instead of the ply based sides of Sawstop's (they never warped and were very smooth/flat). The SC also had a threaded glide with a plastic tip on the bottom that would ride the back fence support. A very smooth gliding fence but SC needed something like this as the tables were not nearly as flat as my Sawstop's. I attached a pic similar to the glide.