Need Help with my fence

Chesterton · Post by **Chesterton** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:39 pm

Bought a used 510 and am having a blast. Tried to rip some thicker boards by making two passes and ended up with some funny looking mill marks. Looks like my fence is leaning toward my saw blade. With my square against the fence, I'm showing almost a 1mm gap at the bottom. It's pretty consistent front to back no matter where I position the fence on the table. When I put the square against the right side of the fence the error is the opposite (which seemed logical) but not as severe (which confused me).

I've been through the manual but it doesn't address vertical alignment of the fence . I'd appreciate some advice. I promised Mom a fancy new cutting board for Mother's Day.

iclark · Post by **iclark** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:32 am

I would expect someone better than me to give you some advice on the alignment.

on the lean not being as much on one side as the other, you might want to double check that the fence is the same thickness across the bottom and the top in the longitudinal middle of the fence. it is unlikely but possible that the fence got crushed a little bit. hopefully, you can just rule this out and not worry about it again.

Ivan

billmayo · Post by **billmayo** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:06 am

Chesterton wrote: I've been through the manual but it doesn't address vertical alignment of the fence . I'd appreciate some advice. I promised Mom a fancy new cutting board for Mother's Day.

I realigned the front table tube to where the fence was 90 degrees to the table by making the table bolt holes a little bigger for attaching the front rail. I drilled the larger table holes if the table holes were threaded and used longer screws and lock nuts to hold the rails. I did not find any Shopsmith instructions either and doubt if Shopsmith would approve this method but it worked for me.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:21 am

Chesterton wrote:Bought a used 510 and am having a blast. Tried to rip some thicker boards by making two passes and ended up with some funny looking mill marks. Looks like my fence is leaning toward my saw blade. With my square against the fence, I'm showing almost a 1mm gap at the bottom. It's pretty consistent front to back no matter where I position the fence on the table. When I put the square against the right side of the fence the error is the opposite (which seemed logical) but not as severe (which confused me).

I've been through the manual but it doesn't address vertical alignment of the fence . I'd appreciate some advice. I promised Mom a fancy new cutting board for Mother's Day.

Are you saying that the vertical face of the fence is NOT SQUARE to the table top?

If yes, is the top surface of the front rail in a plane that is parallel to the plane of the table top? Bill Mayo's fix, if I understand it correctly, was designed to compensate for this non-parallel condition by "tilting" the front rail as required.

All of this would be done only after ascertaining that the fence it self was not the prinary contributor to the problem condition!

I think my fix would have been to add a face plate to the face of the fence (both sides) and make it adjustable for vertical squareness.

All of this only after verifying that the fence itself was not the primary contributor to the problem condition.

Chesterton · Post by **Chesterton** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 1:16 pm

I'll do what I can to troubleshoot the cause and try the faceplate for a temp fix. Hope it doesn't come to drilling. I'd hate to end up ruining all the precision that they built into this machine.

Chesterton · Post by **Chesterton** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:36 pm

As far as I can tell with my cheesy plastic calipers the area outlined in red below has worn faster than the other side (.5mm as far as I can tell):
http://home.earthlink.net/~153maps/

Ordered Part# 514254 " Fence Base" but it might be a while. Can I shim it with metal tape?

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:06 pm

Chesterton wrote:As far as I can tell with my cheesy plastic calipers the area outlined in red below has worn faster than the other side (.5mm as far as I can tell):
http://home.earthlink.net/~153maps/

Ordered Part# 514254 " Fence Base" but it might be a while. Can I shim it with metal tape?

MAYBE for little while. Better than nothing! It WOULD tend to square the face.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:22 pm

Chesterton wrote:As far as I can tell with my cheesy plastic calipers the area outlined in red below has worn faster than the other side (.5mm as far as I can tell):
http://home.earthlink.net/~153maps/

Ordered Part# 514254 " Fence Base" but it might be a while. Can I shim it with metal tape?

I took a couple pictures to help us talk about this problem. Do these shots reinforce your theory or not.

The part that I believe you have declared to worn do not even contact the rail. What am I missing?

[ATTACH]3580[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]3581[/ATTACH]

I understand that you have ordered 514254 Fence Base. If you are in a trick, while waiting for this part to arrive, I have one that I am willing to send you. It is the Base only and contains none of the attaching hardware or adjustment knobs. If it would help, let me know by PM where I should send it.

Chesterton · Post by **Chesterton** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:38 pm

Dusty: The wear occurs behind the tube in your top photo.

Anyway I'm all set. Having a replacement on order bolstered my nerve.
I just started removing material from the other side until they matched up.
I tried the same thing on the other end but with little result. Now I'm perfectly square on the "operator" end of the fence. The far end still shows daylight but I can't get a piece of paper in there.

I'm going to cancel my order..... I need that money for drill bits!
Somebody please direct me to a page that explains how to insert images.
I though I could upload an image directly from my computer but it looks like it has to exist somewhere on the net.

Thanks for all the quick replies.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:48 pm

Chesterton wrote:Dusty: The wear occurs behind the tube in your top photo.

Anyway I'm all set. Having a replacement on order bolstered my nerve.
I just started removing material from the other side until they matched up.
I tried the same thing on the other end but with little result. Now I'm perfectly square on the "operator" end of the fence. The far end still shows daylight but I can't get a piece of paper in there.

I'm going to cancel my order..... I need that money for drill bits!
Somebody please direct me to a page that explains how to insert images.
I though I could upload an image directly from my computer but it looks like it has to exist somewhere on the net.

Thanks for all the quick replies.

The instructions are in Shopsmith Forums/Community under sticky #2

https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=114

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