good experience with wixey installation

[Andy Pratt]

Today I installed a wixey thickness gauge on both my ridgid lunchbox planer and my performax 16-32 drum sander. I had some worries going into it but the whole setup was extremely easy and intuitive. I think it only took an hour to get both setups running perfectly. Definitely a well made product, I would recommend it to anyone who is on the fence and worried about installation. I can't imagine not being able to make this thing work with any random machine you wanted to. There are spare fittings and it's really a pretty simple mechanism to cob onto if needed.

This was the newer version with the tilted display, I haven't used the older one. If anything significant happens during it's use over the next weeks I'll post, otherwise I'm sold on wixey.

[Jay Jolliffe]

I put one on my Jet 16" planer a few weeks ago. Had to make a bracket. Then I had to drill & tap two holes into the base of the planer. Works great.

[Mike Goetzke]

Andy - please post pics of the 16-32 application.

Thanks,

Mike

[Dave Hale]

Andy - please post pics of the 16-32 application.

Thanks,

Mike


Yes, please. :D

[Terry Dean]

I installed one on my Ridgid planer and so far I am not as well pleased with it as I am the other Wixey digital gizmos - the angle guage is great and was free with the purchase of the planer guage - my drill press table sometimes doesn't lock down too well and if I forget and lean on it too much it will move. The angle guage makes resetting to square a breeze. Same thing for blade tilt on my saw. The heighth setup guage is great for router bit and table saw blade setups.

But back to the planer guage --- I very carefully followed the mounting instructions, but still had to go to local Lowes and buy some special allen socket head screws to replace the phillips head adjustment/alignment screws - in spite of this and being very careful to make sure I had it square and tracking correctly, occasionally the readout wants to bind on the bar and drag it with it when I raise the planer up. The clearance between the readout and the bar is very tiny and with the foam mounting tape for attachment, I guess binding is to be expected. Also as for accuracy it really kinda stinks - I can zero it with a freshly planed board and then check it with my digital caliper and they agree for a few passes thru the planer, but then the Wixey starts to wander off. I know my caliper is correct - I check it with a reference and to prove the Wixey is wandering off, I just do a re-zero and then it agrees with the caliper. I think I may have a bad one and I expect Wixey will make good and replace mine, I just haven't taken the time to contact them yet.

I also have the Wixey table saw fence guage that I haven't had the time to install yet - but I have heard some comments from some of the guys at the local Woodcraft store that put one on their saw and they gave it some high fives. One guy said he could depend on it to make tight box joints accurately on his saw without having to use his homeade jig.

[Gary Muto]

The table saw fence gauge has changed the way I work. It makes every set up just about a 2 step operation. Set fence, test cut, perform cut. The intermediate adjustment has been eliminated. It's really great when I have to make a tenon or a groove after a set-up change since I can get right back to the initial setting...assuming I wrote it down on my test piece and can still find it.

I was skeptical of the planer gauge due to vibration, so I really appreciate the reviews.

[Steve Sawyer]

It's really great when I have to make a tenon or a groove after a set-up change since I can get right back to the initial setting

Having a digital readout on a planer and my TS fence, I think this is the major benefit - repeatability. These things are accurate beyond what is appropriate for woodworking; the wood will move with variations in temp and humidity far more than the kind of accuracy you can get with these digital doodads. However, the fact that you can cut or plane two pieces of stock weeks or months apart, and know that your machine setup is identical gives you a great deal of confidence.

I recently needed to cut a 3/4" dado without benefit of a dado set (don't have a dado insert for the new saw yet). I cut a 3/8" deep slot with a thin-kerf blade 1 1/2" from the edge of the board. Shifted the fence by .650" which allowed for the .100" kerf of the saw blade, cut a second parallel slot, then removed the waste in between the two. The 3/4" board slid perfectly into the dado.

[Andy Pratt]

I'll try to take some pics and post them within a few days, if I forget just PM me and I'll send them. I won't claim my installation is flawless but it seems to give me the basic function and was lightning fast and easy. Hopefully that doesn't mean that I did something wrong.