Shopsmith Forums

SDSSmith wrote:Looks good, Fred!

Ditto!!!!!;)

Is there a particular extrusion pattern available? I'm interested in this mod, but have no idea where to get the extrusion to mount to the table. I'm also still unsure of how exactly it mounts to the table.

terrydowning wrote:Is there a particular extrusion pattern available? I'm interested in this mod, but have no idea where to get the extrusion to mount to the table. I'm also still unsure of how exactly it mounts to the table.

The aluminum extrusion used for the newer Model 500 main table fence rail, bandsaw table extension and the aluminum bandsaw table fence rail are the same (except for the notch milled in the bandsaw rail). It is this extrusion that I have used in the past for this mod. It is listed as item 501378 for the 500. It is listed item 501378 for the table extension. Lastly it is item 516687 for the aluminum bandsaw fence bar. The last item is more expensive most likely because of the aforementioned notch. The first two are currently around $12.50 while the last one is around $17.

I removed the rail off of my '83 500 main table which I no longer need because I'm using it for my OPR on my shorty. The holes I used on the bottom of the bandsaw table are about 1 inch apart and hold a removable bandsaw blade guard at the front of the table slot. I drilled two new holes to allow for the rail to extend out an additional 1/8 " so it would clear the bottom lip of the table. I did not have to make any modification for the miter slot. I'm thinking about drilling and tapping new holes into the two table ribs to give support farther out on the rail ends as the current mounting point is dead center.

To avoid the need to remove the rail for a blade change you could mount the shorten the rail and mount it only to the left of the table slit. For rip operations the fence is usually mounted to left of the blade.

hb2 wrote:To avoid the need to remove the rail for a blade change you could mount the shorten the rail and mount it only to the left of the table slit. For rip operations the fence is usually mounted to left of the blade.

However the rip fence front casting extends to the right(and left) of the fence so it would be unsupported for narrow settings.