Shopsmith Forums

I have a set of these on my router table and they are absolutely great.

https://jessemtoolcompanycanada.myshopi ... cohy9d2rci

JessEm has the table saw product on sale for Fathers Day.

https://jessemtoolcompanycanada.myshopi ... cohy9d2rci

Have any of you adapted them to the SS 520 fence? They will live on my Powermatic 2000 cabinet saw most of the time. I am wondering if the guides them selves are easily adaptable to the 520 fence with the SS T nuts. It looks like they would without the JessEm T track. Just SS T nuts and probably replacement knobs. The only issue would be the hole size in the guide body for the T nuts.

jsburger wrote:I have a set of these on my router table and they are absolutely great.

https://jessemtoolcompanycanada.myshopi ... cohy9d2rci

JessEm has the table saw product on sale for Fathers Day.

https://jessemtoolcompanycanada.myshopi ... cohy9d2rci

Have any of you adapted them to the SS 520 fence? They will live on my Powermatic 2000 cabinet saw most of the time. I am wondering if the guides them selves are easily adaptable to the 520 fence with the SS T nuts. It looks like they would without the JessEm T track. Just SS T nuts and probably replacement knobs. The only issue would be the hole size in the guide body for the T nuts.

John,

If you mean the table saw version, it was discussed already here:

https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/wood ... 22171.html

Also, I think Dennis commented there on mounting the router hold down version on the 520 fence.

RFGuy wrote:

jsburger wrote:I have a set of these on my router table and they are absolutely great.

https://jessemtoolcompanycanada.myshopi ... cohy9d2rci

JessEm has the table saw product on sale for Fathers Day.

https://jessemtoolcompanycanada.myshopi ... cohy9d2rci

Have any of you adapted them to the SS 520 fence? They will live on my Powermatic 2000 cabinet saw most of the time. I am wondering if the guides them selves are easily adaptable to the 520 fence with the SS T nuts. It looks like they would without the JessEm T track. Just SS T nuts and probably replacement knobs. The only issue would be the hole size in the guide body for the T nuts.

John,

If you mean the table saw version, it was discussed already here:

https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/wood ... 22171.html

Thanks for the link. I was wondering if the guides them selves could be mounted to the 520 fence without the JessEm track that will be mounted permanently to my PM2000 table saw fence.

It seems like that is possible based on the response by Mike in this post. #255878 by Mike907 in your quoted thread above.

I guess I could also buy an additional T track from JessEm for the SS.

jsburger wrote:
Thanks for the link. I was wondering if the guides them selves could be mounted to the 520 fence without the JessEm track that will be mounted permanently to my PM2000 table saw fence.

It seems like that is possible based on the response by Mike in this post. #255878 by Mike907 in your quoted thread above.

I guess I could also buy an additional T track from JessEm for the SS.

Yeah, I considered mounting directly to the 520 fence and not using the Jessem T track. In the end though, I wanted it to be centered on the top of the 520 fence so I chose to use the T track with the 520 fence. Mike907 posted pics in that thread showing he mounted it directly without the Jessem T track. Either way should work well. Again this is for the table saw version of the Jessem clear cut guides. I think I have seen somewhere that someone mounted the router guides on the table saw fence as well.

RFGuy wrote:

jsburger wrote:
Thanks for the link. I was wondering if the guides them selves could be mounted to the 520 fence without the JessEm track that will be mounted permanently to my PM2000 table saw fence.

It seems like that is possible based on the response by Mike in this post. #255878 by Mike907 in your quoted thread above.

I guess I could also buy an additional T track from JessEm for the SS.

Yeah, I considered mounting directly to the 520 fence and not using the Jessem T track. In the end though, I wanted it to be centered on the top of the 520 fence so I chose to use the T track with the 520 fence. Mike907 posted pics in that thread showing he mounted it directly without the Jessem T track. Either way should work well. Again this is for the table saw version of the Jessem clear cut guides. I think I have seen somewhere that someone mounted the router guides on the table saw fence as well.

Yes, that is what I wanted to know. The JessEm T track will be permanently mounted on my PM2000 but I can take the guides without the T track and mount them on the SS 520 fence.

John,

I bought the JessEm Clear-Cut TS Stock Guides several years ago and it is no exaggeration to say that they have drastically improved my ability to control and guide stock of all sizes when I am ripping and make using the table saw to rip a joy. You won't need an outfeed table for most boards. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

I use the Jessem track with a couple of Shopsmith sliding t-nuts to top mount on the 520 fence but I believe they could be mount directly on the 520 fence with little difficulty.

John if you are debating whether to pull the trigger on them, my advice is to do it. You're gonna wonder why you didn't do it sooner!

I agree with the others on the utility of the stock guides. They improve accuracy, safety, stock handling, etc. But I am probably a dissenting voice on how easily they mount and dismount. My concern here is the forces involved in a major kickback. The stock guides reduce the likelihood of a kickback, already pretty low on a good table saw, but they do not eliminate it. And they are going to try to manage it, resulting in forces pushing mostly up and twisting clockwise. The system is extremely robust, built like a tank, and I think the adaptation of the system to the Pro Fence needs to reflect that.

As it comes from the factory, the Stock Guide system is designed to mount on two types of fences. Due to the two atypical T-slots, the SS fence is not among those. JessEm offers a couple of mounting kits for fences with two typical T-slots. I advocate modeling a Pro Fence adaptation on those kits.

My comparison - One could easily mount this system on most saws with two sheet metal screws. More than 99.99% of the time it would perform flawlessly, this is more than enough strength for guiding stock under normal conditions. But we're not going to do that, we are going to put in eight sheet metal screws as the instructions say because that is how strong the installation ought to be.

- David

DLB wrote:I agree with the others on the utility of the stock guides. They improve accuracy, safety, stock handling, etc. But I am probably a dissenting voice on how easily they mount and dismount. My concern here is the forces involved in a major kickback. The stock guides reduce the likelihood of a kickback, already pretty low on a good table saw, but they do not eliminate it. And they are going to try to manage it, resulting in forces pushing mostly up and twisting clockwise. The system is extremely robust, built like a tank, and I think the adaptation of the system to the Pro Fence needs to reflect that.

As it comes from the factory, the Stock Guide system is designed to mount on two types of fences. Due to the two atypical T-slots, the SS fence is not among those. JessEm offers a couple of mounting kits for fences with two typical T-slots. I advocate modeling a Pro Fence adaptation on those kits.

My comparison - One could easily mount this system on most saws with two sheet metal screws. More than 99.99% of the time it would perform flawlessly, this is more than enough strength for guiding stock under normal conditions. But we're not going to do that, we are going to put in eight sheet metal screws as the instructions say because that is how strong the installation ought to be.

- David

David,

I agree with you. For mounting the JessEm Clear-Cut TS™ Stock Guides to the Shopsmith 520 fence, I think claimdude has the best implementation so far (https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/view ... em#p255848). Right now I am using Shopsmith T-nuts (3 of them) but they are all on one side of the 520 fence. This gets the JessEm T-track to be almost centered on top of the 520 fence, but it is not symmetrically loaded due to this mount. It works for now, but I wonder if there could be sufficient force to pop the screw heads off especially since it isn't secured on both sides. Long term, I will either mill some aluminum bar stock like claimdude has done, or I might drill and tap new holes in the Shopsmith T-nuts so that I can install 3 of them per side and also so it will center perfectly. Assuming that the Shopsmith T-nuts are made out of steel (is this true?), they would probably be the strongest solution for mounting the Jessem T track to the 520 fence.

Even with a potentially weaker mount to the 520 fence, one thing to keep in mind is a key benefit of these guide is the 5 degree cant on the wheels. This forces the lumber into the 520 fence which makes it much harder to "pinch" the sawblade (think of when a board with some inherent twist that starts to release when you cut into it - causing it to pinch the saw blade on both sides), which further serves to minimize kickback.

I also like claimdude's approach. I wasn't confident that I had the tools/expertise for it, but possibly that's just inexperience. I can rabbet the bar stock, but first getting it to the correct height and width was my concern. And I was not completely confident in the aluminum for threads. But now that I think about it the adaptations that I'm advocating using as models, the JessEm mounting blocks, are also threaded aluminum. One thing to really like about this is total control, you can make the top surface a very close fit to the JessEm rail, where T-Nuts are made to sit a bit lower in the track.

That is what made me uncomfortable with the 3-T-Nut mount. As I posted in that thread, this pulls the left edge of the JessEm rail down slightly into the T-Slot and raises the right edge off the top of the rip fence. The contact area is a line, rather than a plane. Ed Reible offered a simple solution to that with some fender washers to bridge the T-Slot. Replacing those with a bar or plate might be an improvement.

I don't see an advantage to centering the JessEm rail on the fence. I would rather engage two of the three flat surfaces on the fence. (Or all three, if possible, like Ed's version.)

Yes, the SS T-Nuts are steel. Also there is an older(?, or just different) version with one less hole that leaves a lot more room for adding and tapping an offset hole. My testable hypothesis is that these came with some(?) stand alone OARs. The table in/out adjustment is based on T-Slot / T-Nut.

- David

DLB wrote:I also like claimdude's approach. I wasn't confident that I had the tools/expertise for it, but possibly that's just inexperience. I can rabbet the bar stock, but first getting it to the correct height and width was my concern. And I was not completely confident in the aluminum for threads. But now that I think about it the adaptations that I'm advocating using as models, the JessEm mounting blocks, are also threaded aluminum. One thing to really like about this is total control, you can make the top surface a very close fit to the JessEm rail, where T-Nuts are made to sit a bit lower in the track.

That is what made me uncomfortable with the 3-T-Nut mount. As I posted in that thread, this pulls the left edge of the JessEm rail down slightly into the T-Slot and raises the right edge off the top of the rip fence. The contact area is a line, rather than a plane. Ed Reible offered a simple solution to that with some fender washers to bridge the T-Slot. Replacing those with a bar or plate might be an improvement.

I don't see an advantage to centering the JessEm rail on the fence. I would rather engage two of the three flat surfaces on the fence. (Or all three, if possible, like Ed's version.)

Yes, the SS T-Nuts are steel. Also there is an older(?, or just different) version with one less hole that leaves a lot more room for adding and tapping an offset hole. My testable hypothesis is that these came with some(?) stand alone OARs. The table in/out adjustment is based on T-Slot / T-Nut.

- David

David,

I am not sure that I see a benefit to Ed's mounting solution over mine for what we posted on that other Jessem thread. So what I have today is the Jessem T track rests on the center rib of the top of the 520 fence. It touches it all down the length of the fence, but as you point out it doesn't rest flat so less than the full width makes contact. Looking at it from the front end I would guess there is less than a 1 degree tilt to mine (Jessem T track relative to top surface of 520 fence), though my zoomed in image looks severe. This is due to the 3 Shopsmith t-nuts on the left side of the 520 fence connecting to the Jessem T track and no connection on the right. This T track doesn't really sit down in the Shopsmith fence T track. So, I have connection points down the center rib of the 520 fence and at 3 T-nuts. Ed's is using 2 Shopsmith T-nuts and 4 washers. The benefit of this is you get a level Jessem T track sitting on top of the 520 fence. However, now there is no contact between the center rib of the 520 fence and the Jessem T-track. Only contact points between them are the 4 washers, but the two washers on the right side have NO screws connecting the 520 fence to Jessem T track on that side, i.e. they are just spacers with no anchorage. I'd have to add it up, but I suspect there is more contact surface area between the Jessem T-track and the 520 fence with my solution. Ed is using only 2 Shopsmith T-nuts and I am using 3. Assuming the load stress points are going to be those screws that anchor it down, I have at least 50% more capacity. I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet, but I think the best compromise is to put 3 Shopsmith T-nuts (w/new tap holes) on BOTH sides of the 520 fence. Doing so would result in the Jessem T-track sitting level on top of the 520 fence with 6 anchors securing it. An alternative to this approach would be claimdude's solution. Only slight negative that I see to claimdude's solution is tapped threads in aluminum would have greater chance for thread pullout in comparison to the steel Shopsmith T-nuts. Of course if height is no concern, the easiest "fix" is to rip a hardwood spacer to mount the Jessem T-track to and then attach Shopsmith T-nuts on the underside of this for connecting to the 520 fence.

P.S. I mean no dis-respect to Ed or claimdude in critiquing their solutions. We all took slightly different approaches to mounting these Jessem guides. Honestly I think any of the solutions are good enough. This post was just intended to discuss the tradeoffs and what the "best" solution might be to mount it to be as robust as possible.