Minimax Bandsaw fence question

[Joshua Bass]

I have a new Minimax MM16 and after setting everything up I notice the cast iron fence does not have any pads or sliders where it meets the cast iron table. This means you have cast iron scraping against more cast iron causing a slight gouging action. Is this normal? I know this is an industrial grade machine and everything seems like it is built like a tank, but this seems like a missed detail that could have been simply fixed by the designers.

Does this bother anyone else? Has anyone come up with a fix? I am thinking about adding some thin plastic pads to mine.

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[Darcy Warner]

Spray adhesive a piece of graphite paper there.

[Nick Decker]

Or maybe a piece of slick tape (UHMW)?

[Joshua Bass]

2nd question. The fence is about 1/2 degree out alignment from the blade. Is this "good enough" for bandsaws ? Seems too much when doing a veneer cuts or something tall.

[Mike King]

depends on what you mean by wrt the blade. The table should be square to the vertical plane of the blade. The fence should be square to the mitre slot. The face of the fence should be square to the table.

Mike

[James Biddle]

I used the slippery tape from Lee Valley http://www.leevalley.com/us/Wood/page.aspx?p=32182&cat=1,110,43466&ap=1

[Mike Cutler]

2nd question. The fence is about 1/2 degree out alignment from the blade. Is this "good enough" for bandsaws ? Seems too much when doing a veneer cuts or something tall.

Depending on the work you do, it might not be acceptable. Short stuff that goes to the sander, you could get away with it, but long resaws, no.

My saw is setup like Mike King recommended in his post, but I made sure the fence was parallel to blade. My saw is setup only for resaw though, so I don't even care about the miter slot.

I would definitely put something between that fence and table. That can't be right in my opinion.

[Jim Becker]

Are there not tracking adjustment screws in the mount for the fence that slides on the rail?

[Chris Parks]

If a fence is parallel with the blade the saw will not have any drift so the parallelism of the saw fence and the blade depends on the position of the blade tracking.