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My table saw fence drifted 1/8 inch mid-cut on a $900 oak order in Denver
Was ripping 40 board feet of white oak for a client's dining table last Tuesday in my Denver shop, and about halfway through the cut I felt the stock bind up and kick back a little. Checked the fence and it had drifted almost 1/8 inch from where I locked it down, which ruined two of my rails and put me two days behind. I ended up taking the whole fence assembly apart, cleaning out years of sawdust packed in the locking mechanism, and resetting it with a machinist square. Has anyone else had a fence creep on them like that, or am I just overdue for a real upgrade?
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kaiharris5d ago
That dust packed in the lock is the real killer here. I bet what happened is the cam or the lock screw wasn't biting all the way because the crud was acting like a cushion, so you torqued it down and it felt tight, but under the vibration of a long rip it just walked. Denver's dry air doesn't help either, that white oak is probably moving as you cut, which adds side pressure the fence was never really fighting before. Taking it apart and cleaning it was the right call, but now you know that's a yearly job on that saw, not a one time fix. If you keep the same fence, hit the lock mechanism with dry lube instead of oil so dust doesn't cake back in.
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