Shopsmith Forums

I upgraded my old Shopsmith model 500 5 or 6 years ago and promptly dropped interest in my woodworking hobby. I have recently retired and have gotten back into woodworking, but I find that my new (to me) pro-fence and upper and lower saw guard are causing me problems that I don’t remember having with the old model. My latest difficulty has come as I have been fitting a drawer front (as well as back and sides) into an opening in a coffee table that I am building. My measurements were a little off and I found I had to shave an additional quarter inch of the top of the front piece to have it fit into the opening nicely. I am ripping the board (which is pine, ¾ inch thick) to make it ¼ inch less wide, but when I do so I find the board strikes the upper saw guard’s anti-kickback fingers or the riving knife; there seems to be too little room to fit the upper saw guard in place and still have the rip fence set just 1/8 inch from the nearest side of the saw blade. Is there any way of dealing with this besides removing the upper saw guard entirely (and being very, very, very careful of an un-guarded blade)?

For some tasks that upper saw guard either must be removed or the cut made a different way. To trim only a 1/4" off of the drawer front, I would not hesitate to remove the upper saw guard. Just keep track of where your fingers are.

Are you doing this with an assembled drawer or are you working with just the drawer front? Your answer doesn't change my response but with an assembled drawer you must be more careful. The drawer will be more difficult to control and you could easily ruin an otherwise easy cut.

Do you have a table mounted router? If so, I would recommend a couple passes across the router table rather than the table saw.

When I run into that, I do indeed remove the upper saw guard.

But I think you could also make a low-profile fence extension, perhaps 1/2" high, that fits underneath the saw guard. If you make it L-shaped, it would attach nicely to the T-slot on the side of your Pro fence. You might have to notch it out to clear the kickback pawl.

Lots of operations require some fence attachments to make life easier. I'm not totally sure I understand how you are attempting to make the cut but since the "L" idea was mentioned I thought I would show you a picture of what one looks like, this one is for my 500 machines. I also have one for my 520 machines, basically just longer/taller. PTWFE has the plans if you have a copy of that.
Ed

dmori wrote: . . . there seems to be too little room to fit the upper saw guard in place and still have the rip fence set just 1/8 inch from the nearest side of the saw blade. . . .

Is there some reason you are referencing(to the fence) the cut to the cutoff(top of front) rather than the bottom side of the front(to the fence) and cutting it to height?

Ripping a 1/8" edge against the fence is not a safe endeavor(nor one likely to be completely successful).

I would be inclined to cut a 1/8" strip on the bandsaw, but I do not know whether you have one.

JPG wrote:

dmori wrote: . . . there seems to be too little room to fit the upper saw guard in place and still have the rip fence set just 1/8 inch from the nearest side of the saw blade. . . .

Is there some reason you are referencing(to the fence) the cut to the cutoff(top of front) rather than the bottom side of the front(to the fence) and cutting it to height?

Ripping a 1/8" edge against the fence is not a safe endeavor(nor one likely to be completely successful).

I would be inclined to cut a 1/8" strip on the bandsaw, but I do not know whether you have one.

Good point, if I understand you correctly. Why position the skinny waste cutoff between the fence and the blade, instead of placing the workpiece against the fence so that the skinny cutoff is outboard of the blade?

Now I'm trying to remember what I was doing when I had the fence too close to the blade to use the upper guard. It must have been when I was slicing off some runners for a crosscut sled, and I didn't want to readjust the fence position for each runner. I had already planed the stock thickness to match the miter-slot width.

BuckeyeDennis wrote:

JPG wrote:

dmori wrote: . . . there seems to be too little room to fit the upper saw guard in place and still have the rip fence set just 1/8 inch from the nearest side of the saw blade. . . .

Is there some reason you are referencing(to the fence) the cut to the cutoff(top of front) rather than the bottom side of the front(to the fence) and cutting it to height?

Ripping a 1/8" edge against the fence is not a safe endeavor(nor one likely to be completely successful).

I would be inclined to cut a 1/8" strip on the bandsaw, but I do not know whether you have one.

Good point, if I understand you correctly. Why position the skinny waste cutoff between the fence and the blade, instead of placing the workpiece against the fence so that the skinny cutoff is outboard of the blade?

Now I'm trying to remember what I was doing when I had the fence too close to the blade to use the upper guard. It must have been when I was slicing off some runners for a crosscut sled, and I didn't want to readjust the fence position for each runner. I had already planed the stock thickness to match the miter-slot width.

You got it!

I haven't had experience with fitting drawers, and was not quite picturing the proccess.

Then, this morning, Matthias Wandel posted this video, that includes that operation (starts around 6:20) and all became clear.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3qwMCdyU1Y[/youtube]

Thank you all for your comments; they have been very helpful and I am quite pleased with this "tool" of the forum. I was talking with my brother-in-law this weekend in his shop and he used his table saw to show me the technique of keeping the skinny part away from the rip fence, just as several of you told me. Thanks again, and I hope to keep this body of mine unbruised and in one piece with such good advice.

rpd wrote:
Then, this morning, Matthias Wandel posted this video, that includes that operation (starts around 6:20) and all became clear.

I'm still not clear on why he didn't set up the saw so that the drawer was between the rip fence and the blade with the waste on the outboard side (his left) of the blade.