Has anyone used Carter Guides?

tgiro · Post by **tgiro** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:27 pm

Has anyone used Carter Guides on a SS bandsaw? Any opinions?

Thanks.

Tony

reible · Post by **reible** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:40 pm

Here is an earlier posting. If you to see more use the "search" function (located in the top red horizontal bar).

http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showthr ... ter+guides

ed

tgiro · Post by **tgiro** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:50 pm

I did get some. I was attending a Wood Magazine show and saw them for $69. They are installed and working, but it will be a bit of testing before I pass final judgment.

I did get another Carter gadget, called a "Mag Fence". It is a magnetic fence for band saws. If you have the newer aluminum bandsaw table, this won't work for you, because it is held in place by six large rare earth magnets.

I tried it, resawing some pieces of 4/4 cherry. It cut true & clean without any burn marks. I've never resawn cherry, before, without some burn marks.

BTW: don't bother with their DVD about aligning bandsaws. It doesn't address shopsmith at all -- and is 95% advertisement for Carter products. The other 5% is in every owners manual for every bandsaw ever written.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:14 pm

I see you have performed a dust collection modification on your band saw. How does that work?

markap · Post by **markap** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:35 am

I've had them on mine for the last 2 yrs or so. I like them. Very good directional support for straight cuts and with the circle cutter attachments. I own but have not yet used the stabilizer which allows very small radius cuts. Will use the next time I make bandsaw boxes.

The bearings are very easily adjusted to proper distance (they should occasionally spin during cutting but not when blade is "free running" without load.

markap · Post by **markap** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:36 am

dusty wrote:I see you have performed a dust collection modification on your band saw. How does that work?

I made the mod to my older bandsaw and the one on the 520 came with it alread incorporated. I'd say it collects 70 - 80% of the sawdust vs no system.

tgiro · Post by **tgiro** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:47 am

dusty wrote:I see you have performed a dust collection modification on your band saw. How does that work?

I'd guess it collects about 90%, but that may be due to my poor shop vac (about 12 yrs old). I still get stuff, carried around by the blade, dumped on the piece while cutting.

I'm upgrading my dust collection to a medium sized dust collector that will pull about 1250 cfm through four inch duct. It that doesn't help, I might "upgrade" the connection to a 4-inch port.