Anyone using Lamb Tools Parallel fences on an SCM/Minimax or Felder? [Archive]

derek labian

11-04-2021, 9:05 PM

Hi Derek,

I'm about to have experience with an SC4E and the Lamb Tooworks parallel fence, but it won't be for another couple of months. My equipment should arrive in mid-December, and then need to get an electrician on site for plugs/whips.

Ned

Exciting Ned, and congratulations. Please do post updates of your delivery, install, and eventual experiences with the Lamb Fence. Thanks!

Pat Rice

11-04-2021, 9:18 PM

I have purchased the digital version and truly like it.
467555

David Buchhauser

11-05-2021, 2:40 AM

I have no experience with them, but have seen positive comments. They are somewhat a specialty item with a price attached, but look to be really, really well made. I believe Brian has been a member here, but I didn't check for sure.

Brian is in Phoenix, just up the road from me. He is a SMC member.
David

https://sawmillcreek.org/member.php?159008-Brian-Lamb

467576
(https://sawmillcreek.org/member.php?159008-Brian-Lamb)

Mike King

11-05-2021, 9:11 AM

I have used the analogue version on my Felder CF741 for years. I believe they are almost an essential element of gear for a slider. I use them for almost all ripping I do on the slider. They are extremely well made. You won’t be disappointed.

derek labian

11-05-2021, 9:30 AM

Brian is in Phoenix, just up the road from me. He is a SMC member.
David

https://sawmillcreek.org/member.php?159008-Brian-Lamb

467576
(https://sawmillcreek.org/member.php?159008-Brian-Lamb)

Brian Lamb? Any relation to the tool I wonder?

derek labian

11-05-2021, 9:31 AM

I have purchased the digital version and truly like it.
467555

Nice setup. I see your using one with your DRO fence. I was wondering about that. So one is enough I take it? Nice setup btw!

Jim Becker

11-05-2021, 9:32 AM

Brian Lamb? Any relation to the tool I wonder?
I also mentioned this earlier in the thread...Brian is the manufacturer.

Erik Loza

11-05-2021, 9:58 AM

A couple of my local customers have them. Really nice, better quality than OEM if I may say so:

Erik

467583

Ed Fang

11-05-2021, 10:19 AM

i have the same question - do you just use the one, since I usually see them in pairs. . .

Erik Loza

11-05-2021, 10:23 AM

i have the same question - do you just use the one, since I usually see them in pairs. . .

Only one, with an OEM support table underneath. Both Felder (Hammer) and SCM offer their respective versions of this support table. The other reference edge would be your OEM crosscut fence. If you didn't have an OEM crosscut fence, then I guess you might need a second parallel fence.

Erik

Pat Rice

11-05-2021, 10:41 AM

Ed Fang

11-05-2021, 10:43 AM

Only one, with an OEM support table underneath. Both Felder (Hammer) and SCM offer their respective versions of this support table. The other reference edge would be your OEM crosscut fence. If you didn't have an OEM crosscut fence, then I guess you might need a second parallel fence.

Erik

I see. The picture shows the second reference as the x-cut fence with the flipstop and offset piece that I'm sure is referenced against the ruler. I guess some math must be done, but I also see the DRO on the x-cut fence which probably can handle the offset. I have the hammer - and I dont think the Felder DRO is compatible with it. So having a DRO on the lamb parallel fence wouldnt work as effectively if you also didnt have a DRO in the 2nd parallel leg. All sorts of complexities involved lol.

Pat Rice

11-05-2021, 10:50 AM

Ed, the math is simple, the spacer block is 300mm, so if my desired width is 50mm, I set my crosscut stop at 350mm and parallel guide at 50mm. Whether using ruler or DRO that is easy, it has to be for me :) BTW, I absolutely love having all digital readouts on my slider, definitely not an inexpensive option but at this stage of life I think this is my final saw and I wanted no regrets.

Erik Loza

11-05-2021, 10:51 AM

...I have the hammer - and I dont think the Felder DRO is compatible with it...

I don't have any photos of it but you could get the steel side table for your Hammer (E-shop) and mount a Jointech Clincher-type fence that. That's the old-school way.

Erik

derek labian

11-07-2021, 1:00 PM

I also mentioned this earlier in the thread...Brian is the manufacturer.

Maybe I missed something, but I never saw you mention he was the manufacturer.

I believe Brian has been a member here, but I didn't check for sure.

derek labian

11-07-2021, 1:03 PM

Yes Derek, I am only using one parallel guide with my DRO stop on the crosscut fence. It works great for me, I have a 300mm spacer block that I am using with the stop for closer cuts. Here are a couple more photos
467588467589

Thanks Pat.

I'm curious, why are people so hot and heavy on the pneumatic clamps? Seems like a small thing to use the standard clamps that come with most sliders. Do you really just save considerable time or is there another benefit?

mark mcfarlane

11-07-2021, 3:32 PM

Thanks Pat.

I'm curious, why are people so hot and heavy on the pneumatic clamps? Seems like a small thing to use the standard clamps that come with most sliders. Do you really just save considerable time or is there another benefit?

I wish I had a pneumatic clamp every time I cut a full sheet of plywood. I always think of them while I make the trip around the sliding table and plywood sheet to get close enough to the leading clamp to engage it.

mark mcfarlane

11-07-2021, 3:47 PM

FWIW, the trailing piece of a Fritz and Franz jig can work similar to the parallel clamps. I don't remember if it is Fritz or Franz piece that sits on the trailing edge of the cut.

Downsides to F/F compared to the parallel guides:

As the jig gets wider you have stability issues with the jig itself, the trailing piece will want to tip out of the slot.
You also loose some 'length of cut' with a Fritz/Franz setup since the wood support goes all the way to the blade. However, the rear piece holds the wood in place negating the need for the clamp you would need using the parallel fence apparatus.

I occasionally wish I had a wider or slightly longer (up to 8') cut available with my Fritz/Franz setup.

Building a new F/F jig is on my list of shop projects.

Pat Rice

11-07-2021, 4:28 PM

Mac’s Airtight clamps put a smile on my face every time I use them. I started out with one Felder manual clamp. It was hard to adjust and as already mentioned when cutting large pieces of plywood to walk back and forth to release it was a pain. I also tried using Kreg clamps which worked but again releasing them meant more trips back and forth. After buying my K500 I choked at the cost of the Airtight Clamps but everyone raved about them and after several months I took the plunge. It is the best accessory I have purchased for my slider.

Jim Becker

11-07-2021, 5:26 PM

Maybe I missed something, but I never saw you mention he was the manufacturer.

Ah, you're correct...I didn't tie the name to the company via his last name in the original post. Brain fart. My sincere apologies.

Chris Parks

11-07-2021, 7:27 PM

and I dont think the Felder DRO is compatible with it. So having a DRO on the lamb parallel fence wouldnt work as effectively if you also didnt have a DRO in the 2nd parallel leg. All sorts of complexities involved lol.

I have worked out how to get a DRO onto the K3 Hammer outrigger CC fence and just need to do it. I have also worked out how to make and attach the rear parallel guide to my K3 as well using a DRO.

derek labian

11-08-2021, 7:13 PM

I wonder if you can do most of what you would get with a Fritz/Franz with this parallel fence and a clamp?

Jim Becker

11-08-2021, 7:15 PM

I wonder if you can do most of what you would get with a Fritz/Franz with this parallel fence and a clamp?

I have been using the F&F for parallel ripping. I think that if I were doing it a lot more, a "true parallel guide" setup might be more efficient. There's zero harm in you trying that first and you'll want/need a Fritz and Franz fixture anyway.

derek labian

11-08-2021, 7:39 PM

There's zero harm in you trying that first and you'll want/need a Fritz and Franz fixture anyway.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the feedback.

I tried to find a manufacturer for a nice aluminum F&F with stops, fence, and measurements but I couldn't find a production manufacturer; they seem to be wood and not that great. I considered making my own out of plate aluminum with extruded fence etc. The parallel guide with DRO seems like a good alternative I can just buy.

Sooo...

I've seen some users do tapers with F&F too but it seems like this would also be easier with a parallel guide also. Is there something the F&F does "better", INHO, than a parallel guide would do?

Jim Becker

11-08-2021, 7:43 PM

Chris Parks

11-08-2021, 7:51 PM

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the feedback.

I tried to find a manufacturer for a nice aluminum F&F with stops, fence, and measurements but I couldn't find a production manufacturer; they seem to be wood and not that great. I considered making my own out of plate aluminum with extruded fence etc. The parallel guide with DRO seems like a good alternative I can just buy.

Sooo...

I've seen some users do tapers with F&F too but it seems like this would also be easier with a parallel guide also. Is there something the F&F does "better", INHO, than a parallel guide would do?
Work out what works for you, personally I can see no reason to use clamps on a slider and never have over the eight years I have owned mine. I rip everything on the sliding table using the F&F jig which I consider a sacrificial tool requiring very little effort to replace when the zero cut gets eroded away by the blade.

Kevin Jenness

11-08-2021, 10:40 PM

Is there something the F&F does "better", INHO, than a parallel guide would do?

Fritz and Franz are quick to drop in and out of the table and mine have flipstops so I can straightline a piece with the stops out of the way and dimension it with stops down, compared to parallel fences that typically are less handy to set up and must be retracted or removed for an initial cut. I don't see an advantage for either one for taper cuts unless the parts are quite wide.

I have two screw clamps. The front one usually stays in place, the back one is used mainly for narrow cuts on the carriage. I can use a stick to tighten the forward one if necessary. The clamps are mainly used for material that needs to be held down to the scorer, especially for crosscutting. Air clamps would be nice but at the price I seem to have other priorities.

mark mcfarlane

11-09-2021, 8:07 AM

Fritz and Franz are quick to drop in and out of the table and mine have flipstops so I can straightline a piece with the stops out of the way and dimension it with stops down, compared to parallel fences that typically are less handy to set up and must be retracted or removed for an initial cut. ....

Kevin, which flipstop are you using? Is it sturdy enough for this application? Flipstops would be handy on Fritz and Franz, I'm frequently taking mine off just to do a first straight line rip.

I guess this shows another advantage of Fritz and Franz: since both leading and trailing jigs go all the way to the blade it is very easy to quickly set up a straight line rip on new lumber, you know exactly where the blade is going to enter and exit the board being cut.

The other advantage I mentioned earlier, compared to Lamb's parallel guide, is you don't need to clamp the board being cut. Friction on the sandpaper on Fritz and Frans faces holds the board through the cut.

Lamb's parallel guide doesn't require any space at the end of the cut, so you can make a longer cut with it.

mark mcfarlane

11-09-2021, 8:19 AM

I made my F&F out of scrap BB plywood, some aluminum tee track, some surplus threaded knobs and a pair of stick on tapes with dual markings (metric and Imperial) Oh, and a little sick on sandpaper on the faces. The stops were scraps of cherry. Make a basic setup, use it for awhile and then decide what the "ultimate" would be "for you".

Derek, as Jim said, these are pretty easy to make, a couple hours at most.

I layered and glued up two slightly oversized pieces of baltic birch, Square up the block on your slider. Now add the runner that goes into the sliding table slot such that when you lay the BB block onto the slider and move through the blade you are going to trim off a little bit - your cut reference.

Go ahead and run the one block through the blade to create this 'cut reference face'.

Next flip the BB block upside down so the runner is above the board and the 'cut reference face' is against the crosscut fence. Cut the block into two pieces, perpendicular to the 'slot runner'. You might want the rear block a little bigger to hold a handle. This is the only 'calibration' cut you need to be fussy about, cutting perpendicular to the runner, and even if you are off a little it won't matter.

Route grooves for T-Track and you are good to go. I added sticky tape rulers to the T-Tracks on both blocks on my first jig but when I build my next set I'm just using one ruler. You can measure one side and then push Fritz and Frans together to manually set the second stop block by feel. Using one ruler and 'feeling' the offsets between stops is more accurate for my 65 year old eyes.

Jim Becker

11-09-2021, 8:54 AM

My version 2.0 of the F&F will be fancier when I get a shop building up and have a slider again. But yea...really easy to make so they fit the operator's needs!

Erik Loza

11-09-2021, 9:36 AM

...The clamps are mainly used for material that needs to be held down to the scorer...

UNLESS we're also talking about combined saw/shaper (which I believe the OP is getting), where the clamp would be important for endgrain or slotting work on the shaper, too.

Getting back to the eccentric vs. pneumatic-thing, the deal with OEM eccentric clamps is that they have a pronounced "sweet range" where the pressure is just right and that takes some getting used-to. I think Sam even suggests a little patch of shoe leather between the manual clamp and the workpiece, to take up the slop (see attached pic). Of course, every time you put a different thickness workpiece on the slider, you have to adjust the height of the clamp and find the sweet spot all over again.

One additional quirk on some Italian machines is that the plastic mount bushing of the post on the eccentric clamp indexes into a T-slot in the extrusion of the crosscut fence. This means that as you throw the lever to secure the workpiece, that bushing can actually lift/twist the crosscut fence extrusion away from the sliding table due to the amount of leverage those things are capable of generating. Felders use a different mounting system for the clamp post, so don't create this issue. With pneumatic clamps, the pressure curve is 100% linear, so none of that happens.

Erik

derek labian

11-09-2021, 9:59 AM

Thanks for the feedback. I can see there are advantages to both. When I purchase two tools with similar purposes, one often gets neglected to obsolescence. They seem to serve basic similar purposes and I'd be interested to know if the SMC'ers with the parallel fence also use an F&F and which they prefer.

Erik, thanks for the exposition on the OEM clamps, it makes a lot of sense regarding problems you can encounter. I hadn't really read anything (good or bad) about them before. I am going to order the pneumatic clamps.

Erik Loza

11-09-2021, 10:20 AM

Derek, I'm sure you will be very pleased with Mac's clamps. On your machines, I would suggest ordering a bunch of Aigner mounting rails and a few extension tables from either Martin or Simantech. This will involve drilling on your part but you will really want them. I would also order a Euro-style jointer guard from Parts Pronto. Everyone loathes the orange pork chop. If you want a power feeder, I would suggest one of the Comatic DC units. Also, you need to buy at least one thing from me (:D), so I would get a FAT300 table. Pat Rice and others will tell you useful these are.

Erik

mark mcfarlane

11-09-2021, 10:20 AM

...

One additional quirk on some Italian machines is that the plastic mount bushing of the post on the eccentric clamp indexes into a T-slot in the extrusion of the crosscut fence. This means that as you throw the lever to secure the workpiece, that bushing can actually lift/twist the crosscut fence extrusion away from the sliding table due to the amount of leverage those things are capable of generating. ...

Erik

Which machine is that Erik?

On my 2017ish Minimax CU300 the eccentric clamps go into the aluminum slider. I don't see any way they could even attach to the crosscut fence given the huge T-Slot plates on the clamps. You picture also appears to show the eccentric clamps fixed to the slider, not the fence.

derek labian

11-09-2021, 10:58 AM

On your machines, I would suggest ordering a bunch of Aigner mounting rails and a few extension tables from either Martin or Simantech.

Check. On Backorder.

I would also order a Euro-style jointer guard from Parts Pronto. Everyone loathes the orange pork chop.

Safer too. I really liked the folding guard on the AD941.

If you want a power feeder, I would suggest one of the Comatic DC units.

Check. I have a DC70 sitting in boxes with the smart stand.

Also, you need to buy at least one thing from me (), so I would get a FAT300 table.

Hah. Looks pretty cool. I wonder if anyone is storing it vertically? I'll have to see how much space I have once I finish re-organizing. Maybe one of those RL dust collectors though. :)

Derek

Erik Loza

11-09-2021, 11:05 AM

Which machine is that Erik?

On my 2017ish Minimax CU300 the eccentric clamps go into the aluminum slider. I don't see any way they could even attach to the crosscut fence given the huge T-Slot plates on the clamps. You picture also appears to show the eccentric clamps fixed to the slider, not the fence.

Mark, that's a CU410E, probably circa 2004. If you look at the clamp in the foreground, you can see the "shoulder" on the black plastic bushing where the post meets the sliding table. There's a corresponding T-slot or possibly just channel on the rear face of the crosscut fence extrusion that the shoulder references into. Not visible in the photo. I guess the idea is that is somewhat indexes the clamp to the fence but if you "over-throw" the clamp on the workpiece, that clamp will actually lift the crosscut off the sliding table. Perhaps I'm not explaining it well but once you see it, it's obvious. Also, maybe only on Elite machines? Possibly not Smarts/Classics? I don't recall.

Erik

Erik Loza

11-09-2021, 11:12 AM

...Safer too. I really liked the folding guard on the AD941.

What I might do is purchase (1) mounting arm and (2) bridge guards. Take one bridge guard, cut in half. Since most of us only face-joint full-width boards every so often, just keep the shorty one mounted to the machine. That way, you have a full-sized one as needed but aren't bumping into the full-width one during everyday use.

Hah. Looks pretty cool. I wonder if anyone is storing it vertically? I'll have to see how much space I have once I finish re-organizing. Maybe one of those RL dust collectors though. :)

Don't believe I've seen one stored vertically yet but that would not be at all difficult to build a rack for. Make (or buy) a grid top if you use Festool MFT gear. RL's are pretty nice. Definitely the quietest out there. If space is limited, I would also look at one of those Harvey units.

Erik

Jim Becker

11-09-2021, 11:22 AM

Eric, I found (and used) the post for the eccentric clamp to keep the end of the miter bar on the blade side from lifting when supporting something longer and heavier. That black composite "thick washer" you mention did indeed engage with a horizontal slot on the backside of the miter bar fence (and the outrigger fence) for that purpose. I actually thought that was a clever way to stabilize things without having to fasten the miter bar down to the wagon from above.

Kevin Jenness

11-09-2021, 5:03 PM

Kevin, which flipstop are you using? Is it sturdy enough for this application?

Here's what I use- pretty simple to make. The clamp uses a Jorgenson press screw.

467862467863

mark mcfarlane

11-09-2021, 5:40 PM

Here's what I use- pretty simple to make. The clamp uses a Jorgenson press screw.

467862467863

Awesome homemade flipstops, thanks Kevin for sharing.

Chris Parks

11-09-2021, 5:56 PM

I made two F&F jigs and one has short Incra fences and stops on it and it has never been used. The other has no measuring built in but I made the ends replaceable because using different blades changes the zero point. Years ago I installed a very short fence on the rip fence head, it is only 300mm long and it gets used as a measured bump stop and I don't have to continually walk around a long fence hanging off the back of the saw. I do very little ripping using the long rip fence but it is only 30 seconds to install if it is needed. I also added a DRO to the rip fence and using the F&F jig with that measuring system makes me smile every time.

derek labian

11-11-2021, 10:27 AM

Just curious, I've seen these mentioned a few times over the years, but little is ever said about them.

https://lambtoolworks.com/parallel-fences

Trying to boil this down, the parallel fence is more accurate than using the OEM fence (and the ability to do tapers). Thats my conclusion at least.