Bow Products Xtender Fence

[Tom Trees]

I've yet to see one which was as nice as I'd like, as pretty much everything, be it from existing machinery,
or indeed more on topic, what could be used for such from other sources, all seem a wee bit thin to me...
that is, if one intends to bolt a lip of some sort very snuggly, or cut away some of the structural profile instead.

Not holding my breath for something a lil nicer to come along, so I suppose I will probably try some 80x20 and see how that goes first,
Edit: (muck about with things for a bit, and see if I can do without needing more profiles)


Tom

[al ladd]

Much of its value is its ability to use BOW featherboards etc. By the time you're done you can spend nearly $300 for a full system. If you have more money than time, go for it.

You can buy a nice extrusion that allows clamping to top and face in 46 inch length for 30-50$. Look at T-nutz.com or Misumi. 2060 (20mm x 60mm) or even 2040 if short is OK or 2080 if you want tall,-- works well, metric based lighter than 80/20 inch based system. Need to work harder to get hardware that fits it though.

[Tom Trees]

Of all of the stuff I've seen, nothing has a low enough profile for sheet goods or thin stock,
like what you see in Roy's video.
Screenshot-2024-3-9 Safe Wood Machining by Roy Sutton.jpg
Why that company wouldn't be selling something what would comply with the rules for all circumstances, is beyond me?

Edit: on second thoughts...call me sceptical, but I'd not be surprised if it were some clever company out there,
who've decided to take a hit in producing such a brand/fence...
in order for fish like myself to bite, and explain the safe way to do things, i.e state the rules as per the UK HSE,
and as such said company makes another sale, once the prospective buyer figures out how much safer things can be made.

Tom

[les winter]

Woodhaven sells a nice straight one. They even measured the flatness for me before shipping.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Aside. There are many sources for extruded aluminum. I happened to be on the Magswitch website and saw theirs. Posting in case it’s helpful to someone. LINK

Yep - take your design and volume projections to any of the large number of starcruiser-class alum extrusion operations.

The circle diameter to press that shape isn't any great shakes, but the hollows do add a little bit of complexity, but are very common. There's nothing about that shape that seems much different than the many hundreds of shapes designed annually for architctural aluminum windows - curtain-wall systems, high-rent condo operating windows and doors, other purposes. Each new building design seems to require several new serious extrusions for connection to the structure.

You would contract for the extrusions with the people who have a factory of presses lined up, and the billet supply and reheat furnace to service them. Often anodizing tanks are part of the same operation.

$50k seems very high, but I've been out of it for a while so anything's possible. Its common to have a die amortization schedule of so-many-cents-per-pound. Low-volume usage would require some up-front $$. High-volume usage would not - the die[s] are fully amortized in the product price. Keep in mind that dies wear, and have to be replaced - as the buyer of the extruions, you don't want the dies to wear very much, because as it opens up, the extrusion walls get thicker, more metal is being pushed, and you are paying by the pound.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Twenty plus years ago,at Woodworking Hhow, Jim Heavy showed building a fence extension from 3/4" MDF. Two layers, separated by a spacers to make it exactly 2" thick. Clamped to existing fence, and just add 2" to measurements.