Another Dead Horse Beating re: Driftmaster

[Brian Harvick]

I have been lurking several years, but recently joined. I have every reason to believe that this topic has been covered completely if I was mentally able to knit all the conversations together. But then I have already forgotten what I had for lunch yesterday.

I have the MiniMax 16. Spectacular saw if one masters a few workarounds. However the fence is a Mickey Mouse afterthought. (Sorry Mickey !) I use that saw for dimension (re-sawing) or grain alignment. That is its sole function. Recently I have become disgusted with fence adjustment for every single cut I make. That coincides with my new directions in woodworking that puts a new premium on more accurate resawing. I am too old to continue to correct lousy cuts. To further complicate matters, the height of my cuts has started to soar to 12". That Laguna 8" fence is looking very good to my old eyes. Accordingly I am on the hunt for a precision fence. Incra has not tackled the task, and the only reasonable alternative I can find is Laguna's Driftmaster. I guess I have to accept the online propaganda (video etc.) that drift, alignment, and blade advance is a simple operation. Do you believe their videos are reasonably close to the truth?

I truly refuse to invite an explosive Laguna bashing session (though I did buy a MM even though I wanted the Laguna. Quality & CS issues scared me off them). Nevertheless, I would like to hear from Driftmaster owners. I understand the installation annoyance but am confident I can handle that. I also understand I will have to replace a few plastic parts with metal substitutes. The questions are this: From actual owner/users of the Driftmaster, are you happy you made the purchase? Would you do it again? Would you recommend it to your dog if he was a human woodworker? And yes, I would buy it from Rockler rather from Laguna directly. Rockler has always been very responsive to me if I need assistance.

I now return you to regularly scheduled programming.

[John Lanciani]

I have a Driftmaster on my MM20 and I'm satisfied with it. It is expensive for what it is (and when I bought mine it was much less expensive than today) but its really the only game in town. As much as I wanted the taller fence extrusion I just couldn't stomach the price so I built my own height attachment.

[Joshua Bass]

As much praise as the Driftmaster fence seems to get, I've ready plenty of complaints on it's quality. I too just purchased a MiniMax 16 and love the saw. The fence is super heavy duty (cast iron), but lacks finesse. Sam Blasco said on a video he drilled holes to mount a taller fence to his MM fence. That seems easy enough, but you still have the fine adjustment to deal with.

[Erik Loza]

I've never personally used one but did have a number of customers who retrofitted them to their MM's and spoke postively about them. That being said, I never had a problem with the OEM cast iron fence, either. True, it's not a refined piece of metalwork but it's sturdy and I never really had problems using it for veneers and so on. Like anything, no OEM fence is going to be able to do it all out of the box. There's going to be jigs, modifications, etc that each of us will need to make. Just my 2-cents, which might be worth half that.

Erik

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, bandsaw "drift" is corrected by adjusting blade tracking, not playing with the fence.

Could you imagine recalibrating a band saw mill every time you changed blades?

Adjusting the fence is not the correct method of correcting drift, although it seems to sell a lot of fences..........rod.

[Brian Harvick]

I am at a loss as to how to adjust the blade tracking on a flat tire. Crowned? Yes, I understand. Please explain your method of adjusting your blade tracking on a flat tire surface.

[Kelby Van Patten]

I have a Driftmaster fence on my 18" Laguna bandsaw. I've had it quite a few years. Installing the fence was a pain, and the instructions were not great. Hopefully they've improved the instructions since then. It took me the better part of a day to figure it out.

Once I had it set up, though, the fence performs exactly as advertised. Very convenient to correct for drift.

As for the "correct" method for correcting drift, I'll say what generally gets said around here about the correct way to do anything: The correct way is whatever way works for you. The Driftmaster method works for me.

[Mike Heidrick]

Here are the instructions I made.

http://myplace.frontier.com/~unix888/lagunadriftmasterfenceinstallonminimaxmm20bandsawr eplacingtheoriginalfence/

If it gets removed, google Laguna driftmaster fence install on a minimax mm20.

[Chris Parks]

I am at a loss as to how to adjust the blade tracking on a flat tire. Crowned? Yes, I understand. Please explain your method of adjusting your blade tracking on a flat tire surface.

Tracking on a flat wheel WILL change the angle the blade presents to the fence on my Minimax BS, been there and done that so to speak. The only issue might be very small blades, the guides on mine are useless for those.

[Chris Hachet]

I have thought about this for a band saw with virtually no drift, my Powermatic 87. It just seems like a nice fence, if a bit spendy.

[Brian Harvick]

Chris, I don't know if I have been tickled more by your post or Erik's. :>) I don't know exactly why I am more comfortable cutting off the outside of the blade than against the fence, but there it is. There is no tool I love as much as either one of my band saws, but the MM16 is so sweet it just annoys me to have to make adjustments to it. I know a machinist. Perhaps I simply need to torment him into making me a precision fine adjustment mechanism. I truly don't want to change my machine and would not even consider it without guidance from Mike's instructions. He is the one I am throwing under the bus on this business. His instructions are so CLEAR. Makes me think even I can do it. :>)

[Chris Hachet]

Chris, I don't know if I have been tickled more by your post or Erik's. :>) I don't know exactly why I am more comfortable cutting off the outside of the blade than against the fence, but there it is. There is no tool I love as much as either one of my band saws, but the MM16 is so sweet it just annoys me to have to make adjustments to it. I know a machinist. Perhaps I simply need to torment him into making me a precision fine adjustment mechanism. I truly don't want to change my machine and would not even consider it without guidance from Mike's instructions. He is the one I am throwing under the bus on this business. His instructions are so CLEAR. Makes me think even I can do it. :>)

Band saws are the crack cocaine of the woodworking world...I would own 20 if I could. There is a 42 inch Fay and Egan for sale locally that dates to maybe 1900...when it comes to band saws, I am like a sensitive teenage girl working at an animal shelter. I would bring them all home and show all of them lots of love given a chance.

[Chris Hachet]

I know a machinist.

The previous owner of my 1941 Walker turner 14 inch was a machinist...everything is balanced and adjusted perfectly...I doubt the space shuttle ever ran as well as my bandsaw.