surfdabbler
28th March 2016, 11:45 PM
Well, after weeks of thinking about it, I've made use of the holiday today and jumped in a built myself a bandsaw rip fence. The bandsaw came without one, and I had some aluminium lengths which have been lying in my shed for years. The time has come to make good use of them...
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The rails are set down from the table, so that the mitre gauge can still slide out the front and back of the table. The fence sits about 1mm above the table, so the fence can slide all the way left off the table and back without hitting the table. The fence is adjustable for the drift of the blade, using the wing nut underneath. The aluminium runners are covered with a bit of clear plastic to slide more smoothly - just some bits of plastic packaging from the bin. You can't really see it in the 3rd photo, but it's there, double sided taped onto the sliding surfaces. Everything is waxed up to slide smoothly. When the fence is released, it can easily be lifted off the table, or even clamped on the other side of the blade. I've never wanted to do this before, but now that I can, you never know...
The hardest part was the clamping system. I tossed around various clamping ideas, but I wasn't satisfied with a simple cam-clamp (although it probably would have been perfectly fine), and my other designs got too complex. The current solution uses the spring from an old spring clamp to make a very simple locking mechanism, and I'm surprised at how strong it is. When locked in, I can pull on the fence, and the whole bandsaw moves without the fence slipping. Due to some pecularity of the geometry, it also holds the back end of the fence down quite tightly. It will be very rare if ever that I will need to clamp the back end.
Anyway, I'm pretty stoked with the result and wanted to share the result and the details. The only negative is that the clamp is pretty hard to squeeze one-handed. Perhaps I could make a cam-lever to activate the spring lever. :)
375523375525375524
The rails are set down from the table, so that the mitre gauge can still slide out the front and back of the table. The fence sits about 1mm above the table, so the fence can slide all the way left off the table and back without hitting the table. The fence is adjustable for the drift of the blade, using the wing nut underneath. The aluminium runners are covered with a bit of clear plastic to slide more smoothly - just some bits of plastic packaging from the bin. You can't really see it in the 3rd photo, but it's there, double sided taped onto the sliding surfaces. Everything is waxed up to slide smoothly. When the fence is released, it can easily be lifted off the table, or even clamped on the other side of the blade. I've never wanted to do this before, but now that I can, you never know...
The hardest part was the clamping system. I tossed around various clamping ideas, but I wasn't satisfied with a simple cam-clamp (although it probably would have been perfectly fine), and my other designs got too complex. The current solution uses the spring from an old spring clamp to make a very simple locking mechanism, and I'm surprised at how strong it is. When locked in, I can pull on the fence, and the whole bandsaw moves without the fence slipping. Due to some pecularity of the geometry, it also holds the back end of the fence down quite tightly. It will be very rare if ever that I will need to clamp the back end.
Anyway, I'm pretty stoked with the result and wanted to share the result and the details. The only negative is that the clamp is pretty hard to squeeze one-handed. Perhaps I could make a cam-lever to activate the spring lever. :)