Thread: unhappy with my incra ts ls 32" fence

Originally Posted by section1

...but getting this fence dead on accurately square is frustrating and can take several hours out of your day. It's a stupid system of placing shims after making such a high quality fence system why didn't they just adopt the same method of adjusting it verticaly as you would with all the other fences. ...

section1,

Mate, take the time to set it up as accurately as you can. take a whole weekend if you need to. This is the philosophy I have adopted from the start and as a result I can walk up to any of my machines and know that it will perform as I want it to. When i got my triton wc2000 I spent a whole weekend setting it up but I have gotten great results from it for nearly eight years.

Whenever I purchase a new piece of equipment I know that i will have to take some time out to shim it up or whatever it takes to make it perform as well as I can set it up. I use that time with the knowledge that once it is set up it will serve me well for the foreseeable future, barring accidents


Doug

Great advice mate and will take it

I must have been lucky. I assembled my whole TS/LS system and got it dead square in about 6 hours, taking my time following the instructions.

You can make a microjig splitter I suppose, but they are $15 and come with a jig to position it off the saw blade so it's spot on. Also they are a suttle thing offering 4 different clearance options.

I have one new in the packet I will sell when I get round to it, because I bought the full stainless version with thick and thin splitters and the pull out travelling wedges. Dearer but I mostly can't use guards and normal splitters, this thing solves a lot of problems.

I don't understand about the 1/8th ripping fixture ? You can make those cuts easy as with an incra. you can rip off 1 thou veneers with an incra if your timber will hang together at that thinness

The reason the instructions to square the fence are in the positioner manual is that the wonder fence can be bought as a standalone unit for use without the positioner. In this case setup depends on the table your fixing it to.

Once you've done some work with the incra you'll understand why we think they are so good. It can even make a woodworker out of an idiot like me.

It's not luck mate it was a good day everything fell into place for ya. It took me also 6 hours but I had to come back to it the next day and the day after that. I just couldn't figure out how to make it 90 deg. The other issue I had with it was making a dead accurate cut and with that I mean I measure 4" and it cut 4 1/16. I did follow the manual to the letter. Anyway what wanted to achieve was like in their ad when they put their dial caliper on the timber and it measured 4"spot on. So I mucked about with it and mucked about and I got it spot on but the next day it went out wack and I couldn't figure out why. So I played with it again did my work and again the same thing. Everyday I've had to adjust it, maybe I'm accidentally pulling the metal ruler but it's on magnets so it can't be that.

Another strange thing happened I took a measurement from the tip of the tooth on the blade the one that registers closest to the fence it reads 4" but when I make the cut it's not. When I push the fence so it kisses the teeth of the blade the 0 mark isn't on 0 so I go backwards and forwards trying to set it right. I spend more time mucking about in setup than doing some actual woodworking.

What am I doing wrong.

I just checked it again and I realize now what's going on, following the manual in this case isn't viable. Ive been kissing the blade with the fence and setting it on zero and that's the culprit the zero mark as I kiss the blade I maybe moving it ever so slightly thus not giving me an accurate measure. So I got the trusty old dial calipers out and measured 3" from the blade to the fence and now it's spot on but the zero mark against the blade isn't I measured 4" and 8" and their all spot on and I used the caliper, tape measure and ruler and both the tape and ruler are luftkin so they will register the same.

Returning back to the fence not being 90 deg. I just realized by moving the fence along the table to different positions I'm getting different readings, so this mean the table ain't perfectly flat so there's no way I will ever get an accurate reading. Mind you this table is just a month old. Now I either get an engineer to make me a table with wings as one complete unit or I learn to live with it.

I don't know, I'd have to have a look. I have been remarkably lucky. I bought the old TTD table saw for $750, taiwanese 12". I never fitted the stock router and rip fences nor used the cheapie miter thing. I just got the LSTS and fitted it right up and bolted my triton TRA into the extension wing. I went over it with verniers and test pieces. The slots were dead on to the blade, the table was flat (being qld it's now rusty), the wings were flat and I aligned them perfectly. It all just went together. I shimmed the fence to get it vertical and fiddled the positioner to make sure it was parrallel to the saw blade (router doesn't matter). It just works and it's got to about 5 thou in every direction. It's as accurate and square as a decent milling machine.

So I dunno sorry. Mine just works.

But regarding incras generally if you expect to do the stuff they claim everything has to be flat square and rigid. The system is only as good as the weakest link and the incra is only a positioner and fence. Rubbish router or saw spindle, lousy blade or bit, wobbly table, any of that and your toast.

Anyway hope you get it sorted.

Prior to me owning a table saw I used to do everything by hand and when I first started using hand tools it was hard in the beginning but practice taught me. So the same thing will be with this. It's all new to me, machinery is new to me and it sure beats cutting by hand. I'm very fussy when it comes to accuracy and Im spot on when it comes to hand tools but machinery is a whole new ball game so it'll be only a matter of time before I start to really get a grasp on properly setting my machines up.

Here is a quick update and a lesson to be learned. Initially I blames the fence and then the tables and sure they were out but I bought from carba tec a line deluxe jig, tool whatever you want to call it and it works great. I aligned the saw, the fence brilliantly but it still cut 1mm out. Why I thought how could this be then it dawned on me, check your incra v120 miter gauge an lo and behold that was out, so I adjusted that and now it cuts so accurately that you can't even see a smidgen of light coming through.

Before the ends were out and I reference the sides by the ends and naturally if that isn't square you won't get it square, so check everything don't assume just because they say this is accurate it will be but this is a one time setup though.