Random Stuff About DRO's, sliders, Parallel Guides etc

[Chris Parks]

I have owned my K3 for about 10 years and for most of that time I have wanted to put a DRO on each fence and as I had a Wixey it went onto the rip fence copied from an idea I first saw here at SMC. It worked OK but in the end it is very limited mostly caused by the calibration system which I found a bit hit and miss. There were other DRO's out there but they all had to be imported to Oz and the price was totally off the planet so I parked the idea until about 12 months ago when I saw this video and how cheap DRO's had become.



I had known of this video showing fitting as DRO to a fine adjustment rip fence for the K3 for some years but no way was the cost of the DRO was not a starter and the Wixey soldiered on until I bought one of the Chinese DRO's for under a $100 and then the Wixey got the flick quick smart.

[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4BU1pLqTmU&list=PLEb0Ut6A7deb0kZz_SKU mml6 zmL9-7roS&index=23&ab_channel=NobleArtisanWoodw orks[/VID

DRO on my saw

K3 DRO 1.jpg

[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4BU1pLqTmU&list=PLEb0Ut6A7deb0kZz_SKU mml6 zmL9-7roS&index=23&ab_channel=NobleArtisanWoodw orks[/VID

The next issue was fitting a DRO to the crosscut fence on the outrigger and anyone who has given it some thought soon found the biggest issue was the Kipp levers that clamp the fence and it had baffled me for some time before I came up with this answer. The magnetic read tape is under the original measuring tape for those wondering how it works.

20231007_221158.jpg20231007_221351.jpg

As I explained in the other thread asking about sliders I came up with a parallel fence system that is not hugely expensive like the options currently available from other sources and with two DRO's does the same job. This photo is for illustrative purposes only but show the concept well enough. If you have a CC fence on the outrigger buying a fence to fit on the other end of the table is not a huge expense and two of the Chinese DRO's will give equal results to systems costing a lot more. Again this was borne out of the over the top cost of importing a system to Oz which in the end did nothing more. Derek Cohen also made a parallel fence system and it may be seen on his website. If you have not got an outrigger it is possible to fit a second fence to the front of the table which I did when I first began to use the F&F jig.

Parallel guide using two cross cut fences and 20 series extrusion.jpg

[Dan Friedrichs]

This is fantastic, Chris. I've been noodling on how to DRO'ize my slider for quite awhile, and you've given some great inspiration, here!

That black MDF the guy in the first video uses looks incredible - I had assumed it was plastic, at first.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Thanks for sharing Chris. Do you have any more details or photos of the rip fence DRO install? I’d love to do that on my slider rip fence. I take my crosscut fence and auxiliary sliding table support on an off quite a bit (for space reasons) and not sure a DRO would be practical on the crosscut side, but my rip fence is always on and that would be beneficial.

[Chris Parks]

Phillip, these DRO's take about one minute to calibrate if it has to be removed from the machine so I have no hesitation doing it. Calibration is done by cutting a sample to any dimension you can measure with a vernier, measure the cut piece and entering the dimension into the DRO. The rip fence fitting is best seen in this video which I could not post because there seems to be a limit on how many videos can be included in a single post.




The only shortcoming I can find with these DRO's is they do not appear to have a choice of absolute and incremental settings but for me that is not an issue as I have never used it in all the years I owned the Wixey. The Wixey was a game changer when it first appeared but things have moved on in twenty years.

If I have misunderstood your question let me know.

[Mike Wilkins]

Check out a YouTube video by Ramon Valdez Furniture. He installed a motorized rip fence on his Hammer slider (I believe it is a Tiger Stop). He is getting accurate repeatable results.
Don't know the specifics of this system, but it looks pricey.

[Chris Parks]

Check out a YouTube video by Ramon Valdez Furniture. He installed a motorized rip fence on his Hammer slider (I believe it is a Tiger Stop). He is getting accurate repeatable results.
Don't know the specifics of this system, but it looks pricey.

Mike, it can be done cheaper at least for me, to import anything into Oz costs at least double the price in the US. I have the software to do it which we wrote ourselves but I don't find the need already having the DRO and the fine adjuster. I used to use two flip stops on the outrigger CC fence but having a DRO on it now I think I will go back to just the one. The fence can be motorised very easily using a stepper motor and lead screw and two buttons would move it back and forth but having thought about I decided while it would be nice I don't need it.