Shaper Fence

[laylandd]

I have a New Mark VII and want to do Zero clearance shaping. I know there is a shaper fence, I can purchase, but was wondering if anyone has made a shaper fence using the main Saw fence for shaping and routing. Being a miser, I don't want to spend $160 bucks for a shaper fence if I don't need to. Thanks.

[damagi]

You certainly can, just depends on what functionality you want. Certainly you can mount a few sacrificial chunks of wood (mdf or whatever) with some sliding T-nuts and put somethign together. The main thing you lose there is the easy independent adjustment of infeed/outfeed. Perhaps that would be solved by inserting paper or other shims.

I could also envision something similar to how the wobble dadoes or the incra setup works, where you have two matching wedges that you slide to change the protrusion. once you have it where you want you tighten the screws

[STB]

I am a lifelong woodworking hobbyist and over the years I have accumulated a lot of woodworking tools & toys but have had my ShopSmith (SS) for about 6 Months. In that time I have Shop built several jigs and woodworking aids.
To answer your question. Based on my experience I would buy a manufactured jig based on need and safety. I would make a shop built jig on ability to safely make a jig that would preform the intended function.
I am attaching a picture of a shop built molding head jig and a completed function of the jig. The third picture is of various shop built jigs from the past 6 mounts.

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I know this may not be the definitive answer you were looking for but this should give you some incite on making your decision.