VerySuperCoolTools - Reviews or Thoughts

[Lisa Starr]

I'd like to upgrade the fence system on my table saw. It is an older Grizzly 1023 cabinet saw with the free "upgrade" of the ShopFox fence. Though the fence is easy to adjust and stays parallel to the blade, I strongly dislike the delta shaped end pieces.
After a fair amount of research, I'm interested in making a custom length Biesemeyer style rail for the saw. Since I work in a machine shop, the fab of it appears to be very straight forward. I'd then purchase the "T" head and rail extrusion from VSCTools.
Does anyone have any experience with this process? Is it likely to produce a quality system? How about VSCTools, has anyone purchased from them? Thanks in advance.

[johnny means]

Working in a machine shop, you should be able to fab up an excellent Biessy clone from scratch. I built one that I feel was superior to a Biesemeyer with a lot less metal working capabilities. The only tricky part was figuring out the cam lock which was simply a slice of round bar stock.

[Randy Heinemann]

If It will work on your saw I would buy the Incra LS fence system. I assume it would work on your saw but don’t know that for sure so that would need to be verified. Nothing beats the Incra system as far as I’m concerned.

[Mike Kees]

I think that you are on the right track. I have looked at that fence system and think it would work great. If you work in a machine shop go for it.

[Mark Carlson]

I got the fence when it 1st came out 4 or 5 years ago. It's been great. Rock solid and easy to adjust. The aluminum extrusion fence is very versatile because of the slots. The site has videos on how to adjust, and how to fabricate your own rail. Worth checking out.

[Dan Jansen]

I built 52” rails based on the VSCT design for a DURO table saw. The plans are great, easy to follow and the steel he recommends is better than the real Bessy set up on my Powermatic 66.

To save a few nickels on the DURO project , I purchased the Grizzly Bessy clone for the fence. It was the cheapest way I could make it work although it took a little fussing since the Grizzly clone has 1/8” plastic runners. If I had to do it over again, I’d look for a used Bessy fence. Well, that’s not true, if I had to do it over again, I’d skip that project and just buy the PM 66 first.

[Lisa Starr]

Thank you for your thoughts. Right now I'm in the middle of building 2 large projects for Christmas gifts for our adult children. Once I've got those buttoned up, I think I'm going to pull the trigger and order the materials to build the Beisemeyer style rails per the VSCT website instructions. Meanwhile, I'll try to decide what to do about the actual fence.

[Tom M King]

I used the Powermatic fence with round rails for decades before I went to a Biesmeyer fence system. The one thing I miss from the PM is the fine adjuster. I still find myself reaching for it sometimes, but it's not there. If there was a replacement fence for the Bies rail with a fine adjuster, I'd probably buy it.

[phil harold]

if you love the aluminum extrusion go here
https://8020.net/catalog/category/vi...d/837/?cat=379
or on ebay too
you should be able to easily build one yourself

[Derek Arita]

My $.02...I bought the VSCT fence a few years ago and ended up returning it. What I found is that the excursion I got, was not as straight and flat as my Beis. I also found that the channels that run the length of the fence are recessed to compensate for screw compression. Because of that, some workpieces may ride in those recessed channels and make the fence scales inaccurate. For those reasons, I found the Beis to be better. That said, if you have a specific purpose for using those channels and provided you get a truly straight and flat fence, then you'll get the most from that type of fence.

[Patrick Kane]

Lisa,

I bought the fence back in 2015, I think. It is the forest green variety, and I think he paints them black now. First, the fence is much better than the biesemeyer fences I’ve used. Really quick and easy to attach different faces and jigs. My extrusion was dead flat, and is the main reason I bought the fence. Bies fence faces are garbage, atleast the 3-4 I’ve measured. I have two more in my garage I could measure and be disappointed with. I like how the VSCT fence can be position fore and aft as well.

Ok, those are the good points about the fence. The shortcomings, it was $275-299 years ago for the whole thing. Now I see it’s like $400+ out the door. Yikes. After that, there’s just no real thought in the piece. It’s an exact copy of the biesemeyer tsquare head with an aluminum fence face. There is no real improvement over the biesemeyer design. Tom brings up microsdjust that would be a great design improvement. Being able to adjust the position of the fence in a quick and toolless action would be an improvement. Unifence and euro fences do this effortless. With VSCT fence you need to take it off the rail, flip it, loosen the t nuts, reposition, tighten the nuts, and reinstall. I don’t want to sound like I’m beating on the design and product, but it feels like a product made by a dude in his garage. It lacks the sophistication and development that you would expect from a $400+ product. I wouldn’t go back to a bies head, but I would swap out for my Felder fence if it was a reasonable retrofit.

[Tom M King]

The old Powermatic round railed fence system had no slop where the head slides on the front rail. You could slide it close to where you wanted it, and push the spring loaded knob in to fine tune it to the perfect position. Once you had it where you wanted it, the front head is locked in place, with no movement, and then the back rail.

The only problem is with the locking mechanism on the back rail, there is no way to have an outfeed table without a gap for the back rail, and locking mechanism. If you let the front rail get dirty, it didn't work very easily, but that was quickly remedied by compressed air. Silicone spray kept it sliding easily.

I still use it on my PM saw, but put a Bies on the Unisaw. I don't have any complaints with my Biesmeyer fence, but it would be awfully nice to have no slop on the head when sliding it, and a fine adjuster.

Some combination of the two would be a great advance.

[Walter Plummer]

I was looking into building the rails but the cost was too high. Almost $200.00 by the time taxes are added. Around here the larger metal places are just interested in selling 20' lengths if they will sell retail at all. Metal supermarket will sell to length but you are paying convenience store pricing. I don't know where you live so maybe you can get a better price.

[David Zaret]

the fence that came with my General 650 was horrible, so i ended up replacing it years ago with a VSCT. i think it's a nice fence, great design and execution. making the front bies box rail was trivial with some inexpensive angle iron from the local metal yard, and the fence has been rock solid from day one. i think it's worth the money.

[David Ragan]

I have the VSCT fence-the T square and extruded fence.

My SS cab saw fence had gaps b/t it and the wood while ripping....disconcerting. Some experimentation confirmed bad fence.

SS sent me another melamine (?) fence.....it was not straight either.

The implication was that I tweak the straightness (concavities) of the fence by putting shims b/t the fence face and the rigid portion of the T square.

Right.

(The way that particular system works is that the fence face is bolted to the rigid part of the T square, which spans the table.......when the T square has small waves in it-those are translated to the fence face-resulting in non-straightness.)

So, I ordered VSCT system, and it has worked great; no more gaps in my ripping.

For service, Alan has been great.

The link above (8020 site) for the aluminum extrusion shows a 48" @ about $60......so about $170 or so for the T square from VSCT-I'm completely happy w it.....and every time I push a board past a completely 100% straight fence, I smile.

FWIW....later, I got the Jessem TS guides, and Life is Good.