Shopsmith Forums

I have a shopsmith bandsaw with cast iron top and an older other bandsaw also with cast iron top. I've been looking at getting a fence for them and made my decision to go with the Carter Mag Fence II. (Once I get some time with it I will review it here.)

It is about 3" tall so depending on what you are cutting that is plenty high or not high enough. So while this has been a slow process I did acquire the fence for a decent price and did a preliminary checking out of how it it works. I'm impressed enough to go to the phase of making some fence extensions. Carter does sell them but I figured I'd make my own since it seems like a pretty simple thing to do.

I buy these cutting boards at Sam's Club for less then $10 and I have purchased a few of them and used them for any number of different things. I normally have at least one spare one laying around for a quick thing to grab and use. In this case it seems like a pretty good way to go. First is the size, the width of the fence and the width of the cutting board are a match.
From that I trimmed off the rounded edge and then cut a fence 3" tall, 4" tall, 5" tall and a 6" tall one.
I then drill them so I could mount them using a 1/4"-20 nut in the t-track. There is another post about the drilling but you can make something like this and do how you see fit to mount things.

I was going along pretty quickly but needed some fasteners which turned up only 3 of the screws I wanted, I had planned on have a set of 3 for each of the extensions but for now that is not happening. When I got home and went to put the screws in a second surprise showed up. The heads were slightly larger then the sample I had used to do the countersinking........ yea that can happen. So I had to do a quick touch up on all the holes so the heads were below the surface. Ah the plans that go bye bye in the blink of an eye.
Anyway they are all done and ready for testing when I get to that point.
Shown is the 4" tall version, or was it the 5" version, I forget, anyway it is what it is.

Ed

Hi Ed,
two things
First, you might want to consider a small chamfer along the bottom edge since the bottom looks flush to the table. That saw dust build up along the bottom can be just enough to piss a guy off when he least expects it. . Now I design my rub fences to set a couple playing cards thickness above any table surface.
Second thing has nothing to do with this, but your post on drilling (and actually has NOTHING to do with the dual (or dueling ) drill chucks) yes, nested parenthesis. I see in the background the same white siphon hose as Dennis found for the router. Does the smooth end fit well enough into the other blue hose to keep from falling out or did you have to fasten it some way? Curious minds want to know!

Be well,
Ben

There is slop in the track to screw fit so if I need some extra space on the bottom I believe I can get it by changing how it is mounted. If not I can fine tune it later, the plastic is easy to work with and a hand plane could be used to make adjustments or a chamfer. I used nominal dimensions as a starting point.

For resawing in general on the band saw the major part of the dust is taken with the blade down into the saw, so I wasn't treating it as a concern, I guess time will tell how true that is.

I've been using a single point fence for resawing and while I have played a little bit with the miter fence as way of doing this I wanted to play with this sort of fence for a while now. The single point fence pretty much is eye balling the cut as you go which has always worked but it seems you miss out on all the fun of trying to get a fence aligned to the blade that way.

The hose I was able to get was the 1-1/8 one and it is inserted into the blue hose by a couple of inches and it is very snug, no need for any clamping or other forms of gripping. I have yet to test it in actual use so the main concern at this point is how well the extraction works out of the router. If I'm happy with it then fine other wise I need to locate the larger hose to the router. The blue hose is too stiff to work in my limited space so it has to be the more flexible tube.

Ed

benush26 wrote:Hi Ed,
two things
First, you might want to consider a small chamfer along the bottom edge since the bottom looks flush to the table. That saw dust build up along the bottom can be just enough to piss a guy off when he least expects it. . Now I design my rub fences to set a couple playing cards thickness above any table surface.
Second thing has nothing to do with this, but your post on drilling (and actually has NOTHING to do with the dual (or dueling ) drill chucks) yes, nested parenthesis. I see in the background the same white siphon hose as Dennis found for the router. Does the smooth end fit well enough into the other blue hose to keep from falling out or did you have to fasten it some way? Curious minds want to know!

Be well,
Ben

I had not considered this as a material before.

A definite eye opener for me and I love the association of repurposing a cutting board for actually cutting boards.

There is something profound there when you think about it.

Everett

Great idea. Do you ever find the material too slick?

moggymatt wrote:Great idea. Do you ever find the material too slick?

Not so far. But then I like "slick" things.

Ed

Great idea but my intended use is for 510/520 table inserts and I can't find any cutting boards that are long enough.

dusty wrote:Great idea but my intended use is for 510/520 table inserts and I can't find any cutting boards that are long enough.

Or 'thin' enough?

dusty wrote:Great idea but my intended use is for 510/520 table inserts and I can't find any cutting boards that are long enough.

Dusty, to find larger cutting boards try at a restaurant supply store, there seem to be several in the Tucson area.
The first one I checked online had this. 12 inch x 18 inch White Cutting Board

Thank you. That would make three with a 15" long strip left over.

I cut the table inserts to be 3 1/32" wide. Then there would be the lose of two many three saw kerfs. That would work.