Anyone lubricate a Incra TS-LS micro adjuster?

[Brian Tymchak]

Howdy. I've had the Incra TS-LS fence on my table saw for about 14 years. Lately, the micro adjuster has gotten difficult to rotate. After 14 years I figure it needs a good clean out and lube job. However, it's not obvious to me how to do that. There is no info about lubricating (or any maintenace) of the fence/positioner in the manual or on Incra's website. I only found one post in another forum that essentially said to dribble a lubricant onto the wheel and work it in. I'm hoping someone here on the Creek has done this and can provide me with some direction on how to go about this.

Thanks!

[Dave Zellers]

Haven't done it but own Incra positioners and miter gauges. My first attempt I think would to try to use past wax before oil given all the sawdust involved. I bought some beeswax pellets and melted some in mineral oil for situations where wax is too thick and oil attracts too much dust. I made a 1-3 wax to oil and a 3-1 wax to oil. I like the 3-1 mix on most things. A Q-tip or toothpick (or both) might be the best applicator in this case.

For the melting- mixing process, I simply placed a can over a 100 watt light bulb. It doesn't take long.

But of course, many would just shoot it up with WD40. :D

[Patty Hann]

Haven't done it but own Incra positioners and miter gauges. My first attempt I think would to try to use past wax before oil given all the sawdust involved. I bought some beeswax pellets and melted some in mineral oil for situations where wax is too thick and oil attracts too much dust. I made a 1-3 wax to oil and a 3-1 wax to oil. I like the 3-1 mix on most things. A Q-tip or toothpick (or both) might be the best applicator in this case.

For the melting- mixing process, I simply placed a can over a 100 watt light bulb. It doesn't take long.

But of course, many would just shoot it up with WD40. :D

Super-dee-duper idea:)... if you can still find a 100W incandescent bulb :D

[Dave Zellers]

Super-dee-duper idea:)... if you can still find a 100W incandescent bulb :D

In the future the kids will ask, "Why doesn't my 100 watt equivalent LED bulb work?"

[jim sauterer]

I had the same problem call infra customer support they will walk you through it they are great to deal with.i don’t remember but it was simple and worked great after.hope this will help.

[Richard Coers]

Isn't there a plastic nut in the micro adjuster? Better be careful with what lubricant you add or it could make that nut brittle or cause it to fall apart.

[Rich Engelhardt]

When in doubt - dry lube usually works.
Don't have any on hand?

Shave a tiny bit off of any lead pencil with a single edge razor blade or sharp utility knife. The "lead" is really just graphite.
Works like gang busters in sticky locks.

[Brian Tymchak]

Thanks all for the tips.


I had the same problem call infra customer support they will walk you through it they are great to deal with.i don’t remember but it was simple and worked great after.hope this will help.

Simple is good. Glad to hear that.


Isn't there a plastic nut in the micro adjuster? Better be careful with what lubricant you add or it could make that nut brittle or cause it to fall apart.

I have no idea what the internals look like. If there is a plastic nut in there, that might be the source of the issue if it cracked or something.

I'll tear into the fence this weekend. I may have to use it more traditionally for a while if I have to order parts. You never really understand how dependent you've become on something until you lose it. It already drives me nuts having to adjust the fence those last few thousands without the micro adjuster.

[Richard Coers]

Here is what the manual says about maintenance;
516981

[Richard Coers]

And this instruction tells you about replacing the threaded segment. https://incra.com/manuals/ThreadedSegmentReplacement_ins.pdf

[Bill Dufour]

Dupont chain saver lube. Wax in a spray can. Goes on wet with solvent that cleans off gunk. Dries to a clear thin wax that does not attract dust.
Bill D

[Brian Tymchak]

Here is what the manual says about maintenance;
516981

Thanks for posting that. That's not in my manual which seemed odd. So, digging thru all my shop tool docs, I found another owners manual (the TS-LS ) in my router table folder, which has the maintenance section. The first manual I was looking at is called the LS Positioner, which deals with installation and usage on a router table. Just flipped thru it to find any mention of maintenance and didn't pick up that it was the router table manual. Somewhere along the line I misfiled things.

Still, though, I would like an exploded view of the micro adjuster to understand how to disassemble that. I'll spend some time on it tomorrow after getting the spring yardwork started.... :(

[Richard Coers]

Thanks for posting that. That's not in my manual which seemed odd. So, digging thru all my shop tool docs, I found another owners manual (the TS-LS ) in my router table folder, which has the maintenance section. The first manual I was looking at is called the LS Positioner, which deals with installation and usage on a router table. Just flipped thru it to find any mention of maintenance and didn't pick up that it was the router table manual. Somewhere along the line I misfiled things.

Still, though, I would like an exploded view of the micro adjuster to understand how to disassemble that. I'll spend some time on it tomorrow after getting the spring yardwork started.... :(
Did you see my second link? It shows the half nut that engages the threaded rod/

[Brian Tymchak]

Did you see my second link? It shows the half nut that engages the threaded rod/

I must be missing something. It looks like that instruction sheet is dealing with the base only. But no worries. The disassembly of the positioner turned out to be simple as Jim said it would be.

[Brian Tymchak]

The disassembly was easy, as Jim said it would be. It looks like the spring behind the steel ball that engages the micro adjuster wheel was too highly tensioned and the steel ball eventually wore the adjuster wheel. Pictures below. I found some aluminum gall in a few of the detents on the wheel and I think that is ultimately what made the movement so difficult. The steel ball is a bit chewed up. I cleaned everything up, cleaned the galling out of the adjuster wheel, reinstalled the ball and spring with appropriate pressure and things work fairly well. The only lubrication is a small bit of grease on 2 steel balls that ride on the ends of the lead screws. I did follow Rich's suggestion and run some graphite into the detents on the wheel. I may eventually replace the ball and adjuster wheel but for now it's working decently. Of course now, having reinstalled the positioner into the base, the fence does not align to the miter slot :(, so I need to go thru the full fence alignment exercise.

To pull the red adjuster wheel off the rod, I had to remove the lead screw. It's held in place with thin hard plastic rods and a nut/allen screw on the opposite end. Just remove that plate to slide the plastic rods out. The lead screw pops right out.

517090


Below is first look under the plate at the micro adjuster end of the positioner. Not as much crud in there as I expected. The allen head retainer screw compressing the spring that holds the steel ball against the adjuster wheel is center top of the picture. If you look closely at the base of that slot, you can see the spring is so compressed that it squished out sideways a bit. Must have been like that from the start. I've never adjusted the screw, which, btw, you can acess without removing the plate. Edit: having reviewed the post after submission, the resolution of the pic is too low to really see the deformed spring.

517087


Below is the adjuster wheel. You can see the wear between the detents caused by the steel ball.

517088


Below is the steel ball that settles in the detents on the adjuster wheel. If you zoom in, you can see the surface is rough due to the wear.

517089

[Jim Reffner]

Your post(s) are really helpful. Thanks!

[Jimmy Harris]

When in doubt - dry lube usually works.
Don't have any on hand?

Shave a tiny bit off of any lead pencil with a single edge razor blade or sharp utility knife. The "lead" is really just graphite.
Works like gang busters in sticky locks.

I wouldn't use normal pencil lead though. A normal pencil, like your typical No. 2 is an HB hardness, which means it's about half clay and half graphite. Graphite is soft, so they mix it with hard clay to stiffen it up. And by grinding up a normal pencil, you're introducing an abrasive with your lubricant. And that might work in the short term, but it'll do more damage in the long run.

Now if you have access to something like a 12B art pencil, then that is going to mostly, if not all, graphite. And that would work as intended. Even an 8B probably wouldn't be too bad, as it too would be mostly graphite. But unless you have artist pencils available to you, I'd stick to the regular graphite lubricant. Or one of the other dry lubricants.

And you can still buy incandescent light bulbs. While the ban went into effect in August of 2023, there are carve outs for certain applications. Like you can still buy photo enlarger incandescent (and halogen) light bulbs. The PH bulbs, like PH140 and PH212, use the old standard light bulb socket, and are pretty much identical to the old light bulbs. They just have special coatings to make sure they put out the right balance of the light spectrum for developing film. Getting the color balance right with LED's or CFL's is pretty much impossible because they're not black body light sources to begin with.

[Rich Engelhardt]

You learn something new every day.
I've always just grabbed a #2 pencil and scraped off some of it when I had a stickey lock.

[Richard Daugird]

They sell repair parts. They may even warrantee it, they warrantied something for my fence which I bought used, great customer service.