Anyone ever use a unifence on a bandsaw ?

[Mike Kees]

I have several old parts and pieces of delta unifences and was thinking it could make an excellent bandsaw fence, anyone ever done this ?

[David Kumm]

I've done it with a Biesemeyer. Unifence would work if the saw is big enough.348323 Dave

[Tom Trees]

I don't know what parts you have of unifences ,but if your starting from scratch have a look at this video for fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bUoHHdLex0

Good luck
Tom

[Mike Kees]

That video is amazing wish I understood German ! My saw is not as big as yours Dave,it is an 18 Steel city. Think I will ponder this for a day or so and build one from scratch.

[Mike Cutler]

Mike
I don't know why it wouldn't work. I have an old Jet Xacta Fence that I've put on my 18" Rikon once, or twice. It definitely works better than the OEM fence.
Most OEM Bandsaw fences are pretty useless. They're a "fence" by definition, but........ Kinda like the OEM blade guards on table saws. ;)

Tom
That's a really cool video. I watched 3 or 4 more from them. Don't understand what they're saying, but you really don't need too. They have some nice jigs.

[Jim Becker]

It would certainly work. Your challenge will be how to adjust for blade drift.

[lowell holmes]

I have the Kreg fence on my 14" Jet band saw. I highly recommend it.
You can correct for drift. It is safe. It is a quality product.

I would rather cut wood than build saw parts. :)

[Mike Kees]

Jim the reason I first considered the unifence idea is the adjustability of it. This whole blade "drift" thing has made me sit and ponder.. I have arrived at a theory. My thinking is if a saw is correctly adjusted to begin with (wheels coplanar, guidepost straight in both planes to the blade,and table square to the blade in 2 planes. And last but probaly the most important (I think) the miter slot is parallel to the blade . Then set fence to miter slot and "drift" should be nonexistent. This is as of now not yet proven. I need to figure out the fence portion and test. I think that it is so hard to get the miter slot adjusted bang on to the blade that manufacturers have come up with solutions to adjust the fence to the blade. I simply want to try to use the miter slot as my reference just like I do on my tablesaws. Lowell,I kinda enjoy the challenge of making my own stuff from steel and welding just as much as woodworking,you are right I probaiy should just buy the kreg.

[lee cox]

If you buy the Kreg and the fence is too short you can buy a 2 foot and 4 foot version of the fence from Kreg. This is what I did as my table on my Minimax S45 is big for the 18 inch fence which comes in the kit. I bought a 2 foot replacement fence from Kreg to replace the 18 inch version.

[Bradley Gray]

"drift" should be nonexistent. This is as of now not yet proven.

I think it depends on the blade. I have a dedicated resaw with a 1 1/2" blade - no drift.

My 32" Crescent always runs a 3/8" blade. I have to adjust the fence for drift whenever I put the fence on.

[Dave Cav]

I have several old parts and pieces of delta unifences and was thinking it could make an excellent bandsaw fence, anyone ever done this ?


Yes, I have done it. When I put a Biesmeyer fence on the Unisaw at school I put the Unifence on the 20" Delta bandsaw. It works great.

[Jim Becker]

Bandsaws are an interesting animal...as the blade goes through it's life, there is often a tendency for "straight" to change to a different direction relative to the table/miter slot. I'll speculate that's in some part due to the effects of blade tension with only one size of the blade contacting the wheels. That's why it's typical for "good" bandsaw fence systems to be adjustable in that respect as well as for folks to use "point" systems for manually guiding the workpiece along the cut line.

[Rod Sheridan]

It would certainly work. Your challenge will be how to adjust for blade drift.

Jim, that's what the blade tracking knob is for :D

regards, Rod.