Pwk5017 Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 I did quite a few searches on here and google in general, and it turns out my issue isn't as common as I thought it would be. I recently purchased a 3 phase unisaw and spent the last 3 weeks taking it apart and refurbishing it. It now has new everything and runs like a champ, but my fence seems a little wonky. I have the blade locked in to .001"-.002" which is good enough for me. Unfortunately, the fence is nowhere near that close. I start my align-it in the slot at 0, and by the time I hit where the fence is near the blade, my dial indicator jumps to .010-.015". This doesn't seem to be a case of the fence being out of parallel, but the fence face just being defective. This sucks, because the former is able to be adjusted, while the latter cannot. Always using a unifence, I was looking forward to going to the bies, because it seems like everyone has one and loves it to death. Now that I have one, I want my aluminum back!!! I cant take the face off the fence, so it seems like my only option is to layer tape to blend the surface close to true, or possibly apply another face to the fence. Ultimately, I see myself buying a very cool tool's fence for my rails, but that is a bit pricey at $300, so that is a few months away. Currently, my saw cuts like crap with burning, and a 1/16-1/8" bow over a 48" rip. It is depressing when your saw "upgrade" sucks compared to your old rig. The unisaw cuts beautifully with my jessem sliding table, so I know this is a fence/ripping issue. Brand new full kerf WWII as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Cancelleri Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Sounds to me like it's a high spot. Is the fence face UHMW plastic? I don't know if Beisemeyer did this or not, but the Jet and Powermatic fence faces can be tapped and pulled off the fence. When I restored and cleaned up the Jet cabinet saw I bought I actually ran my fence face through my drum sander and did a very very light pass to flatten the little high spot on my fence. If it's UHMW plastic, I'd suggest turning the fence so that the face is facing upwards and then checking for high spots with a trusted straight edge. From there, I would lightly do some spot sanding of high spots. Perhaps joint a piece of wood to use as a sanding bock so you have a good reference surface. That is what my approach would be. If the fence is that gray laminated stuff I'm not sure if sanding that would be a good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted July 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Hey Tom, I wish the fence were removable like the newer Powermatic fence faces are. It isn't that plastic material either, its some sort of plastic-y laminate veneer applied to plywood. My best bet for the short term might be to joint a piece of maple and double-side tape it to the fence to make do for a few months until I buy the very super cool tool fence assembly. I think the bies seems great for how rock solid it is(the unifence would deflect a bit under mild force), but their choice of face material just plain sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Cancelleri Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Rather than double stick tape, you might want to get a couple of these. They are great for making auxiliary fences. Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 I don't think it's uncommon...UHMW bolted to tube steel is hardly ever gonna be dead flat. I think most people just never notice or don't care. The Biese clone that came with my Grizzly was a steaming pile of you-know-what, so after years of pulling my hair out, I finally got the VSCT fence. It's awesome. Arrow straight. Biese fences are way overrated in my opinion. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted July 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 I don't think it's uncommon...UHMW bolted to tube steel is hardly ever gonna be dead flat. I think most people just never notice or don't care. The Biese clone that came with my Grizzly was a steaming pile of you-know-what, so after years of pulling my hair out, I finally got the VSCT fence. It's awesome. Arrow straight. Biese fences are way overrated in my opinion. I miss my unifence like you wouldn't believe. I let the masses subconsciously talk me into the biese!! I typically don't worry about being "dead on" with any machine calibration. I know my infeed table on my jointer dips .004-.005 on the corner farthest from the fence. The other corner is near enough perfect and I don't think it makes much difference in my milled lumber. My jointer technique probably has more affect on my end product than that corner of the infeed table. Unfortunately, the warped fence is giving me some heartburn with rips. Thanks for the advice on the clamps. Perhaps a dumb question, but is there any reason why I couldn't just buy the 80/20 extrusion from my local distributor and clamp it to the delta biese fence? I know it would result in the ugliest looking fence, but I don't particularly care about looks. I do want the ability to slide the fence in and out like the unifence. I use my jessem mast r slide a lot, so positioning the fence to be like a short euro was helpful at times. I also like the long runway before the blade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteJr Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Rather than double stick tape, you might want to get a couple of these. They are great for making auxiliary fences. Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk I have 8 of these holding an auxiliary fence on my Unisaw. Then using a 38" Veritas straight edge I tighten the clamps until the auxiliary fence was aligned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 You can peel that laminate off with Laquer thinner and a thin putty knife. Do it outside w gloves. I squirt the thinner w a new glue bottle, but don't store the thinner in there or it melts the bottle. The plywood was screwed to the metal then laminated over. So peel, flatten the wood and re laminate . Most cabinet shops will give you laminate scraps free but the colors may be whatever they happen to have. Use Solvent based contact cement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knotscott Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 I used both knotscott's idea and the clamp idea on my last fence and both worked well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick A McQuay Posted July 8, 2015 Report Share Posted July 8, 2015 Back when I bought my saw, I chose the Unifence over the Bies and never regretted it. Tolerance on the Bies was 1/16 over it's length but that was impressive back then. Your Unifence shouldn't have been flexing under anything short of a serious push or whack. I remember FW testing them with a swinging sledge hammer and measuring the deflection. -- Rick M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted July 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Ahem, I have a confession to make, and probably an apology to Mr. Biesemeyer. Turns out my biesemeyer/delta uniguard splitter wasn't aligned properly. When I bought the saw, it had the bracket in place, but was missing the actual splitter. I purchased one from sharkguard to fit the bracket, but never checked the alignment for some reason(silly me). I thought the whole point of that splitter mechanism was it is quick release and doesn't lose its alignment through attaching and detaching the splitter. Apparently not. Furthermore, I had to do some metal work on the bracket to allow me to slide it over enough to properly line up with the blade. I don't know if anyone has aligned one of these bracket before, but what a PITA. You need the blade off to reach the hex bolts on the bracket, but obviously need the blade to properly align the blade. I ended up taping the 2' starrett to the table before taking the blade off, then using that to line up the bracket. The struggle is real. Well, the biesemeyer face is still not flat by 10-15 thousandths, but the saw cuts like a dream now! 3hp is a nice upgrade, but I see why guys go with 5hp. It went through 8/4 hard maple without a problem, but I wouldn't mind cutting thick lumber with zero effort on the saw. Still want the unifence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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