Cast Iron bandsaw fence...

[Paul B. Cresti]

Well with my new MM24 I decided to make some fence attachments for it in order to mimick the aluminum fence I had on my Agazzani. While I use to think the aluminum fence was better (being it had a high & low position), I find that I can easily attach faces as needed to this cast iron fence. Every "new face" can be made for a special purpose and new ones can easily be made for special cases. I now currently have a total of (3) faces: regular 6" high for general resawing, a 3/4" high one for ripping, and a 13-1/2" high one for big resawing.

In the first two pictures you will see the regular 6" high fence (made of two layers of 3/4" MDF finished w/ paste wax). It is bolted to the OEM cast iron fence. This is the normal use fence that will allow me to attach all others to it.

The third picture shows the 3/4" high rip fence on. Note that with this fence I can get the guides down real low to the table, thus allowing max guide support while providing max protection from thr blade. I do a lot of rough ripping on the bandsaw and will rip profiles off of larger pieces of stock as I run them through my shaper.

The fourth & fifth pictures are the big resaw fence for resawing support up to 13-1/2". The saw can cut up to 24" but that will be a special case as most of my resawing for bookmatching is in the 8-12" range anyway.

continued in next post.....

[Paul B. Cresti]

In the last picture you will see the main regular fence and the two extra faces I made. Note that they slip over the the regular fence's upper portion that extends above the cast iron OEM fence. Each new face is made up of three parts. The back piece which hooks behind the regular fence, the spacer piece that is the same thickness as the regular fence and the face piece that does whatever in needs to. The fit is very snug and does not really need and bolting so one could easily slip faces on and off but I always err on the side of safety so I did drill through all layers to allow bolting all the way through the faces and regular fence.

I hope this helps some of you guys with cast iron fences and provides you with some ideas to expand upon.

[Jim Dailey]

Paul,

Thank You for sharing the pictures of the aux. fences. Great ideas. Congrad's on your new saw!!! It IS A MONSTER!!!!

jim

[Mike Cutler]

Having the weight of a cast iron fence must be nice. Something nice and heavy to attach things too.
Nice pictures Paul. I like the multiple fence options that you have set up for yourself.

[Joe Mioux]

Paul,
Can you elaborate on the benefit of a cast iron fence over the extruded al fence on your previous saw.

Did you like that tilt up feature on the al fence?

Thanks Joe

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Aluminum has two values to the manufacturer and the owner. It's cheaper to produce and it's lighter to handle.

After that it is all down sides.
It bends easily, dents easily, is weaker, has virtually no hysterisis recovery, suffers stress failure, scratches easily, experiences more wear, and has a dramatic thermal dynamic characteristic.

I have always thought very well of the old powermatic fence mounted on a tube. It was heavy cast accurate and when you wanted it out of the way you just flipped it out of the way.

Here's a question:
If a product like the old Powermatic cast iron fence were reintroduced with some durable precision improvements would you be inclined to take that more seriously than a Bies?

[Dick Latshaw]

Thanks for the fence ideas, Paul. I'm adding them to the "to do" list for my MM16. Just need a few more of those "round tuit's".:)

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Paul, great pics, even better ideas!

My cast iron fence on Big blue only goes to the back of the blade, I think this is because the saw is a resaw bandsaw, and the theory is to let any wood stresses go where they want, right or left, so the wood does not push itself away from the fence.

http://www.ablett.jp/workshop/images/bandsaw/blue_open1.jpg

You can see the half fence here.

That being said, the ideas and the configurations you have put up are great, I'm going to see if I can't do something similar.

Great post!

Cheers!

[Paul B. Cresti]

Paul,
Can you elaborate on the benefit of a cast iron fence over the extruded al fence on your previous saw.

Did you like that tilt up feature on the al fence?

Thanks Joe

Joe,
With the Aluminum fence on the Agazzani the fence could be placed in the high and low position by removing it, flipping it and then rettaching it. For resawing it was never really tall enough but it worked ok. I never considered adding faces to it because, as Cliff said, aluminum is soft and in this fence's case it was not very thick at all. The aluminum slider and fence I have on my EFSTS is very thick. The only method of attaching anything to the that aluminum fence was the bolt thru method as the aluminum is not thick enough for tapping

The cast iron fence is very heavy and solid. One could even drill and tap faces onto it if one was so inclined. I opted for the drill thru/bolt method because I do not have a tap set. The OEM fence itself works well enough. I think the cast iron fences simply give you more options in creating you own special fences depending on your needs.

[Jim Becker]

That's a very nice setup, Paul. Great idea to make the additional fences "additive" to the initial auxiliary fence, too!

[Paul B. Cresti]

Stu,
With that saw and its 2-1/2" blade, coupled with a low fence to eliminate blade exposure, it would be a ripping beast! You could easily make up faces similiar to what I did. I extended faces so that the fence extends the full depth of the table, as my OEM fence also did not go edge to edge. What I find is that rough ripping on the bandsaw is much safer than on a CS (if that is what you have) and then final dimensioning through the planer make for very consistent, quick and safe results.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Paul

I've added fences for tall resawing, but they have been the "board laying around pressed into service" type, not the "System" you have shown, I'm thinking I'll be building a system for the next time I do any serious resawing.

Cheers!