Help Deciding on Sliding Table Saw

[Josh Baldwin]

Josh Baldwin - okay, I just got off the phone with my buddy. He has a Minimax combo machine and also uses the Incra Positioner as a parallel fence:
Attachment 509146

He has been extremely happy with this solution over time. He did say that knowing what he knows now, he would still choose this Incra Positioner as a parallel fence solution if he had to do it over again. The Incra Positioner and the Minimax support table are very stable and accurate for repeat measurements. This is an incredibly accurate parallel fence solution and it's cheaper at only about $300 or so. The Felder/Lamb parallel fence solutions are over twice as expensive.

However, there will be a variance on how straight the slider table edge is. In reality, there is no sliding table saw that has a 100% perfectly straight edge on the slider. I did a quick measurement on my K700S slider here. The dial indicator is placed exactly at the blade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OddK3RtMyw

The video shows that the slider variance is 0.010" over the first 4-1/2 feet of travel, then it quickly drops down to 0.020" on the last bit of the table. That is 1/100" variance on the first four feet which is still extremely good in my opinion. You can only do so much when manufacturing an extruded aluminum piece that is 8 to 10 feet long. This is not the same as a cast iron surface that has been machine milled to .001" tolerances.

The same issue with variance would happen whether you used the Incra Positioner or the Lamb Toolworks DRO parallel fence. If you're picky, you will need to re-zero the fence whenever you move it back and forth. Otherwise, you can figure out the point on the table where the variance is in the middle and align it there. Then you would not really be off more than 1/100" at any position. Make sense?


Chris Parks - There are many ways to accomplish the same thing with these tools, which you have introduced discussion on. However, this thread is really not about that. The OP wants help in making a decision between two or more sliding table saws and my efforts here have been to try to describe the differences and option. For example, even though Josh has said that he will never really use the rip fence, I bet that he may find good use of it anyways. If you had a 40" board and needed a 5" piece cut, the best way is to adjust the rip fence to 5" and pull the aluminum fence back before the blade to use the rip fence as a stopper. Also, until he has made some accurate Fritz-n-Franz jigs, he will likely use traditional ripping anyways for rips less than 4-7" because of the minimum cut size of the crosscut fence flip-stop.

Everyone works differently. I do hear your experience from commercial work and many commercial shop workers will throw on sheets and run them through the slider without any clamping. If you or Josh feel comfortable doing that, then great. I, personally, have been very paranoid and careful over the years when working with this machinery. If you are not using a clamp and your hands are on the material, then your hands could very well be close to the blade. They could even be behind the blade which means instant injury when you run the piece through. This can happen to any experienced mature wood worker. Review this video as reference for an real example on how fast an injury could happen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Z1Q3cf5iw

When I'm using the slider, I want to have the material clamped down so that my hands are not on the material or anywhere near the blade. I'll then use the outrigger table or side-handle on the slider to push the material through. When I build a Fritz-n-Franz jig, I will definitely have a handle on it. If my hand it on the "handle", then it's definitely not going to be behind the blade.

Thanks again for all the help with this. I think the incra option seems like the way to go. So you basically just have to buy the support table for the saw and then mount it to the support table? What size would you recommend? It looks like they have this one that's a table saw fence https://www.incrementaltools.com/INC..._p/ls32-ts.htm and then they have this one which is similar https://www.grizzly.com/products/inc...xoC_2UQAvD_BwE. Just trying to figure out exactly which setup to buy. Thanks

[Aaron Inami]

Hi Josh,

You don't need a full blown Incra fence system. I would just get the 25" Positioner:
https://www.incrementaltools.com/INC...NLY_p/ls25.htm

You could cut your own piece of wood block (like a 2" x 2" wood that is something like 5-10" long) and screw that to the end of the Positioner. Or mould your own bumper shape.

The Position mounting includes standard 1/4-20 t-slot bolts:
Positioner_fence_mount.JPG


You could buy the Incra right-angle fixture and pull off that tall fence to use (if you wanted a really tall fence):
https://www.incrementaltools.com/Pro...tCode=RAFJUMBO

You could buy this Veritas T-Slot track and chop it to the length you prefer:
https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop...k?item=13K1002

Alternatively, you could choose your own fence using 80/20 t-slot extrusions:
https://8020.net/framing-options/t-s...-profiles.html

The 80/20 extrusions are priced per millimeter, so you could buy whatever length you want. The pricing for a 8" long piece can range from $15 to $30 (really cheap). Plus, you can get end-caps to make the fence look really clean:
https://8020.net/finishingyourframe/coverscaps.html

[Jim Becker]

Why do you need clamps on a slider when your hands are nowhere near the blade? I must admit I have never understood the need and having sometimes worked in a commercial shop neither did they see a use for clamps. Admittedly the F&F jig is a clamp but nowhere like those offered by Mac.

"Need" is relative...I do straight line ripping with my slider and by using the clamps, I insure a pristine, straight edge that's perfectly perpendicular to the face (material is flattened and thicknessed first) which means no need to go back to the jointer for the edges. Sometimes it's for safety when making an angled cut where there is no fence support. Etc. There's no need to use the clamps all the time, but they add to the options for putting material on the wagon and staying even further away from the blade or insuring a very clean and precise cut edge.

[Josh Baldwin]

Hi Josh,

You don't need a full blown Incra fence system. I would just get the 25" Positioner:
https://www.incrementaltools.com/INC...NLY_p/ls25.htm

You could cut your own piece of wood block (like a 2" x 2" wood that is something like 5-10" long) and screw that to the end of the Positioner. Or mould your own bumper shape.

The Position mounting includes standard 1/4-20 t-slot bolts:
Positioner_fence_mount.JPG


You could buy the Incra right-angle fixture and pull off that tall fence to use (if you wanted a really tall fence):
https://www.incrementaltools.com/Pro...tCode=RAFJUMBO

You could buy this Veritas T-Slot track and chop it to the length you prefer:
https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop...k?item=13K1002

Alternatively, you could choose your own fence using 80/20 t-slot extrusions:
https://8020.net/framing-options/t-s...-profiles.html

The 80/20 extrusions are priced per millimeter, so you could buy whatever length you want. The pricing for a 8" long piece can range from $15 to $30 (really cheap). Plus, you can get end-caps to make the fence look really clean:
https://8020.net/finishingyourframe/coverscaps.html

Awesome, yea I think if I can make it work I'd like to keep the gold theme going with that. What do you think about this instead of the right angle fixture? I just worry cuz that's only 10" long, which I guess should be more than enough for a reference, but for some reason it just doesn't feel like it, ha.

https://www.incrementaltools.com/INC...p/jfence28.htm

[Aaron Inami]

You can attach that big long Pro-II joinery fence if you really want, but in my opinion, you really don't need a huge fence like this.

The idea of a parallel fence is to work in conjunction with the crosscut flip-stop. If you set the crosscut flip-stop at 10", it is very hard to setup the wood so that you are making a square cut. That is when you move/align the parallel fence at the rear of the piece and also set it to 10". Because you have to points of reference (crosscut flip-stop and parallel fence stop), you don't need a really long contact point.

The Lamb parallel fence uses a rounded stopper to allow for tapered cuts. For this scenario, a long fence on the parallel device won't work:
angled_parallel_fence copy.jpg

The only real reason to have a long fence is if that "long fence" is the only reference point you have on a machine. Two examples are the table saw rip fence and a router table fence.


The 80/20 website does have black t-slot extrusions that would match the Gold Incra better.


Oh, one more thing. If you use a really long fence here, you better make darn sure the fence is mounted perfectly square to the blade. If it's not perfectly square, the front point of the fence could be a significant amount of distance different from the rear point of the fence. Ultimately, it's best to have as small of a contact point as possible.

[Brian W Evans]

Josh,

I have had an SC4E for about 7 years and am very happy with it.

I use the scoring blade pretty regularly, so don't overlook that as a feature you might want.

Something to watch out for is that my SC4E does NOT have a standard 3/4" slot in the sliding table. It's probably metric but it's darn close to 5/8". This isn't a big deal because the slider slides, obviously, so you don't want to be pushing things along - just lock them down to the sliding table and move the table. A piece of maple milled to the right size and attached to your jig squares things up and makes cuts repeatable. If a 3/4" slot is important to you, make sure you ask before you order.

The other thing is to make sure you look at all of the dimensions - slider extended all the way to the rear, all the way to the front, outrigger table attached, etc. - because sliders take up a huge amount of room. I'm lucky to have a whole garage bay for mine, but not much else happens there except maybe if I have the outrigger off.

Lastly, I can't remember the last time I cut a full sheet of something on the slider. I have done it, but I almost always use a track saw to cut close to final dimensions before moving to the slider to finish up. If you are not doing production work, I believe this is a better option.

[Jim Becker]

Brian, the slot in the wagon is most definitely metric, but it's easy to make fixtures that use it. I machined some material from scrap oak years ago to fit in there so I can fasten down custom fixtures when necessary. A simple captive nut with an appropriate sized fastener from above through the fixture works well. There's no '3/4" standard' on machines like this...

[Aaron Inami]

Brian, the slot in the wagon is most definitely metric, but it's easy to make fixtures that use it. I machined some material from scrap oak years ago to fit in there so I can fasten down custom fixtures when necessary. A simple captive nut with an appropriate sized fastener from above through the fixture works well. There's no '3/4" standard' on machines like this...

That's good to know. I stand corrected from my previous statements.

[johnny means]

Why do you need clamps on a slider when your hands are nowhere near the blade? I must admit I have never understood the need and having sometimes worked in a commercial shop neither did they see a use for clamps. Admittedly the F&F jig is a clamp but nowhere like those offered by Mac.

Straight lining rough lumber, cutting tapers, really thick material, holding jigs in place. I use clamps on the slider almost daily.

[Derek Cohen]

Coming in late ..

I like the Incra for a parallel guide. Mike Kreinhop did this (see my link below). I found the cost more than I could justify at the time, and so built a similar contraption. It works perfectly well, but the Incra would be better. What is important is the ability to move the parallel guide along the slider , as needed. Here is my version on a 1250mm Hammer K3 ...





Link to my website: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Powered...3HammerK3.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Aaron Inami]

Josh - if you want to keep the gold Incra finish, I found that you can buy just the 18" fence part:

https://www.incrementaltools.com/Inc.../flipfnc18.htm

This will connect right up to the Incra Positioner.

[Josh Baldwin]

Josh - if you want to keep the gold Incra finish, I found that you can buy just the 18" fence part:

https://www.incrementaltools.com/Inc.../flipfnc18.htm

This will connect right up to the Incra Positioner.

Ok cool. So if I understood your last post smaller would be better for this position right? All along I thought we were talking about using the Incra Fence as a parallel reference to the blade, but I totally get what you're saying now by just using the incra as a 2nd point of reference parallel to the normal fence flip stop. This makes me wonder why we would need 2 parallel guides from Lamb or other companies. Is it really that much better than just using the crosscut or outrigger fence for 1 of the parallel guides?

[Josh Baldwin]

Coming in late ..

I like the Incra for a parallel guide. Mike Kreinhop did this (see my link below). I found the cost more than I could justify at the time, and so built a similar contraption. It works perfectly well, but the Incra would be better. What is important is the ability to move the parallel guide along the slider , as needed. Here is my version on a 1250mm Hammer K3 ...





Link to my website: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Powered...3HammerK3.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for the info Derek. This looks great. Yea, I think maybe the Incra LS Positioner with a short fence and stop might be ideal.

[Aaron Inami]

Ok cool. So if I understood your last post smaller would be better for this position right? All along I thought we were talking about using the Incra Fence as a parallel reference to the blade, but I totally get what you're saying now by just using the incra as a 2nd point of reference parallel to the normal fence flip stop. This makes me wonder why we would need 2 parallel guides from Lamb or other companies. Is it really that much better than just using the crosscut or outrigger fence for 1 of the parallel guides?

If you are just cutting square pieces or rectangle pieces, then you don't need two parallel fences. You only need the crosscut flip-stop and one parallel fence.

The only reason why you would want two parallel fences is if you need to get angle cuts along the long edge of a board. Example is below where you are setting up two Lamb parallel fences at different positions. Each fence is set to a different distance from the blade. The board in yellow outline will be clamped down at an angle. The red line shows the cut line:
two_parallel_fence_angle_cut.jpg


This text is copied directly from the Lamb manual on their website as an example of how to do the above cut. This kind of thing requires a round stopper on the end of the parallel fence. You could not do this with the Incra positioner unless you built out an extended rounded stopper.

"For cutting specific angles a little math is involved. Again, set the Parallel Fences a
specific distance apart that will work on your material, lets say 20” in this example. We
want to cut a 5º angle, we use a calculator and find the tangent of the angle we want to
cut, 5º, the tangent is .0874886 and times that by the distance between the end stops,
which is 20”, so the value is 1.7497”, weʼll round to 1.75”. So one stop will get set 1.75”
closer/further than the other and you will get a cut at exactly 5º. The calculation is as
follows: tan A x B = C, where A is your angle, B is the center to center distance, and C
will be the difference the stops need to be set from each other."

[Aaron Inami]

Another scenario where you would need two parallel fences is if you work with rounded or uneven lumber (such as live edge wood pieces). The end of the material may not be square enough to use the crosscut flip-stop. Below is an example of a weirdly shaped piece of wood. It really depends on what kind of projects you expect to be working on.

two_parallel_fence_rounded.JPG