Unifence and wixey digital fence?

[keith micinski]

I got the newer style Unifence today for 20 bucks and I like it better then the old style fence because it has a fatter handle and the pads that it slides on and control the squareness are much bigger and slide better. One issue I see is mounting the steel piece for the magnet to stick to for my Wixey. On the older style it's square and had room to tap two screws into to hold it on. The newer style is rounded and doesn't leave a lot of options for mounting the steel piece. What are you guys doing with the newer style Unifence and mounting that piece?

[Bill Space]

Hi,

I can not help with your question but could you tell me how to get a new style unifence for twenty bucks?
For that price I would buy two!

I am guessing you found it used somewhere. Lucky you!

Bill

[keith micinski]

Ya I got it off if craigslist I was pretty happy to see it for that myself.

[Alan Schaffter]

Keith- I originally mounted the supplied "target" bracket to holes I drilled and tapped in wide areas of the bottom of the casting. The original bracket was ok, except it was a little too short to reach the best screw locations on the casting. Also, when I used the holes in the supplied bracket, the bracket would rub against the Unifence rail. I had to drill new, offset holes in it.

Instead, I made a new, longer bracket from some flat steel. It extends farther under the casting so I can mount it to holes drilled and tapped in the two widest "web intersections" on the bottom of the casting.

Original "target" bracket supplied by Wixey:

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/medium/PB270056.JPG

I punched, drilled, and tapped holes in wide areas, but there really wasn't enough material around the hole on the right:

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/medium/PB270059.JPG

Original bracket mounted to bottom of fence casting:

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/medium/PB270063.JPG

New bracket:

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/medium/P10100892.JPG

Bottom of the Unifence casting showing new hole location at the wide "web intersections".

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/medium/P10100881.JPG

New bracket screwed in place:

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/medium/P10100914.JPG

P.S. I have two castings so I'm not forced to remove the knobs to switch the bracket and face to the other side when I want to use the fence on the opposite side of the blade. I still must move the fence face because I only have one- I never got a Uni-T fence and missed out on getting another OEM one. I am still casually looking. Instead of having two complete castings and fence assemblies, I'm going to mount two faces to one casting! It is not a new idea, Delta patented a design in 1998 (https://www.google.com/patents/US6360642?pg=PA1&dq=delta+unifence+patent&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mUMCU5j6EOjhyQGCo4BQ&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAw) that uses a lever and turnbuckles inside the casting to tighten both fences. They evidently never put it into production- I think their design has issues which is probably why. I intend to correct them in my version.

[keith micinski]

This is exactly what I thought I was going to do and now seeing yours I am sure it is. Thank you. I am thinking about keeping the old style casting and using the factory face with it for left side operations and using the newer casting with my uni-t fence. You should pony up and get one. They are well worth it. It's really easy to mount jigs feather boards or board buddies to. I like it so much I actually looked at getting one for the new casting last night so I could have two but decided that would be ridiculous since the OEM face that this casting came with appears to be in really good shape.

[Mike Heidrick]

That looks great Alan. Great job.