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offset router table fence

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12K views 18 replies 11 participants last post by  john880  
#1 ·
G'day ladies and gents,
I was watching a video on You Tube last night and this guy was Ripping a piece of wood on his Festool router table and the split fence had an incremental offset.
I was just wondered with all the Genius's on this forum{ meant in a nice way}
has anyone been able to make his own type of offset fence:sad:help:
 
#2 ·
Ripping wood on the router table, I would like to see that..

Can you post a link to the video, Pete.

As I see it, any split fence can be made incremental.
 
#5 ·
This is Gregory Paolini from Fine Woodworking using a Festool router and table. The table has an offset feature on the infeed side so it's just like a jointer in principle. As he says in the video like a jointer on it's side. I have done this with a shop made fence with mixed results. I actually find a jig for the table saw that holds the board in place while you rip a straight side works better.
Gregory neglects to mention it is really important to keep pressure on the outfeed side to avoid snipe as the board clears the bit. Again just like with a jointer.
 
#6 ·
G'day Dennis, yeah my Table saw is crap at the moment in the lookout for a much better one ., the old one scares the bejesus out of me . I'm in the process of building my router table { slowly } and was looking into what best fence to have
I quite like Steve Ramsey's style on youtube . then saw Gregory's and thought of incorperating the offset into it
I've got a pretty good idea how to , just want to ask the experts on the forum for any ideas
 
#7 ·
I can't speak to the accuracy of using the router table as a planer, but I plan to give it a shot as I'm building my table. I also looked at Steve's fence, and I'm planning on building something somewhat like that. Take a look at the Kreg router table. They have shims that you insert behind the left fence, which brings out the left face enough to plane. It's not as fancy as the Festool table above, but if you're building one, would be a lot easier to recreate.

I'm planning to build one a lot like Steve's, but tweak it a little bit to make it easier to shim like the Kreg table. This way, I could plane wood just like in the video above, or as the Kreg video demonstrates. Steve's fence face has three pieces, a long top piece with a t-track, and two bottom shorter pieces that slide left and right. I'm going to have only two pieces, like Steve's bottom two, but taller. then those two will be able to be shimmed like the Kreg table. I was planning on cutting down some flexible plastic cutting boards to use as the shims. Just an idea at this point, I have no idea how well it will work yet.
 
#19 ·
One think to point out ,,,if you are debating an a router table fence, is to look over several and gathering all of the information that suites you. Odd thing about fences and others similar items pertain to woodworking, is that there are several approaches to do the same thing, and although all might work just fine, personalities get involved, and what one long time friend says that is absolutely the greatest, his Buddie next to him gets this bewildered look on his face and says how can you not see that plain z is so much much better. So what one may say that's the one it will not apply to everybody.


On most factory fences metal or of a different kind of material, there is a almost always a T track installed. Enabling you, or,,, as a mater of fact they invite you to build an extended wood fence to attache to theirs. Most will be made with some kind of slick surface material. I built mine 20 years ago out of two 3/4' thick Baltic Birch plywood glued side to side, for that type of materials long reputation of being reliability to staying straight and to maintain the groves and the recessed bolt holes. Then covered the surface with some Formica that I had left over from a project. It/they have served me well all of this time later.


Now with these owner making these extended fences you have all kinds of options for their uses. One is to use playing cards place between the shop made out feed extended fence and the factory one to add a reliably measured shim, for what you are anticipating to do. One of the other is to include a zero clearance backing for your bits. This works similarly to the advantages of a zero clearance to your table saw. In the copy I am including he demonstrates how much of a benefit it is. If a person would take the time to include it into the design that they chose when starting out. There are more ways to make this insert rather than making several fences to do so as he did, but mainly look at the reasons of why to include this idea into what ever design fit your personality, and other ideas to look for. I have found the inserts served me WELL and worth my time using a slightly different approach, but still a zero clearance backing.




Wood Tips: Router - Zero Clearance Router Table Fence - YouTube