[ranman]

I see em on the table's here but curious what they do that other methods can't duplicate. I mean other than just the precision adjustments. They are really bulky, so they must have a special advantage that so far, I haven't seen here in actual usage.

 

[ranman]

Those cabinet ends are beautiful. I still don't see what that fence does.

 

[ranman]

It allows for repeatable, “programmable” type cuts. Having a fence that moves in exacting 1/32 increments allows projects you can’t do with a standard fence that you have to bump to fine tune.

More examples:

Business card holders

Whistles that I made to give to the youngest generation at family reunion in an attempt to drive their parents nuts

A trivet that had I think, 56 fence changes that needed to be repeatable. I know it would be easy to make something like this using cnc, but I dare you to try it on another router table.

The advantages of the Incra fence are for joinery and small craft type projects. If you think a router fence is just useful for edge profiling or routing rabbits, dados and grooves then your right, you can do everything you want using your fence to do, but if you want to open yourself up to entirely new ways to use a router table, then an Incra fence will allow you to do things you never consider possible.

It isn’t just the front-to-back movements that offer 1/32 adjustments. The fence offers 1/32 left-to-right adjustment of stops for precise stopped dados and grooves. The superfence add-on also allows for routing tall items safely and precisely.


In woodworking there is always more then one way to accomplish something.

Certainly is Terry. The left to right adjustment seems especially neat for repeatable movements. Routing is pretty new to me other than splining plank edges for laminate floor repairs and splining a plank edge to add a custom reducer edge. I'm learning.
One of these days I'll take some photos of the router lift I'm still working on. Once done it will need a top and a fence, so I'm keepin' an eye on you guys and your set ups.
I made a quick router table setup to do some solid oak stair treads. Didn't look purdy but it functioned. :laugh2: I used an old Craftsman router and fit an insert into my wooden saw table stand. The fence wasn't made of the right materials and being stored in the carport, it's a bit warped. O well, did what it needed to do .....4 years ago.
Here's how that fence functioned.
I inserted a T-nut under the table on the left side, then made a pivot from a 1/4-20 screw and a piece of brass hobby tubing to make an accurate bushing. Those were JBWelded into the table top for stability. This made the pivot end of the fence have zero movement or "slop". The right side of the fence was movable and I could make temporary marks on the table near the clamp to show how much this end of the arm moved. Once moved to where I wanted it, it was clamped to the edge of the table top. I suppose I could have readjusted that end of the arm as little as the thickness of a recipe card with a temporary stop of sorts.
I may include this sort of 'swing-arm' setup on my new table top but only for special purposes. To avoid warping this time, there's gonna be angle or channel aluminum involved.

 

[ranman]

Thanks Bill. I knew there was something very special about the Incra. My question was asked because when I see something.... I just gots' ta know!
What I am making is portable...... not lightweight and flimsy, but portable, so the Incra won't be something I'll include. It won't get used very often. The lift and router will come out of the table top as a unit. The router table top will rest on top of my fold up tablesaw table. (until I figure out a way to make sturdy portable legs) :laugh2: The router and lift weigh about 20# with the lift being 14# of that. Kind of a beast because it's all metal.

 

[ranman]

I have the Incra LS Positioner 25 with their super system fence. It requires a massively large router table. Truth be told, the only advantage of the LS25 over the LS17 is those rare circumstances where you really need to route a dado another 8 inches further from the end of your board. If I have lots of dados to run I usually use a dado stack on my table saw anyway.

After using the LS Positioner on my router table I decided to go for the same precision on my table saw so I bought one for that, even though my Jet Exacta came with a really nice Bessemer style fence with a second locking knob and micro adjust dial. It’s nice knowing that I can set the fence, make some cuts, change the fence and make more cuts, then change it back knowing the cuts are exactly the same width as the first time. I previously would cut all similar sized parts at the same time knowing that consistency is more important than an exact measurement. Now I don’t have to worry about it, I get consistent results with the right measurement even if I have to go back and cut more piece later. Another advantage of the LS Positioner on a table saw is when cutting really thin pieces, but we aren’t talking table saws here.

There is a third Incra product I really like for precise layouts and that’s the Incra T-rules. Very precise layout lines down to the 64th of an inch or 100th of an inch with the pro T-rules



In woodworking there is always more then one way to accomplish something.

But you can, and especially so when you include the information you just did. :wink: I think most guys hate changing a saw setting, then trying to return to the same setting later. Good info and thanks for being "wordy" like me. >