fence parallelism...how parallel do you want it?

[Don Morris]

Now that I have my new 1023 together, I put my newly acquired TS aligner Jr. on the miter track to the blade and sure enough it was just enough off that I needed to loosen the table top and tweek it. Then I went to the fence and looked at it. It was considerably off. In reading the Shop Fox instructions they recommend 1/64" lead adjustment. With the TS aligner Jr. for the first time I have the capability to adjust it to almost dead on parallel if I wanted it that way. I've seen the recommendation "thickness of a dollar bill" to "exactly parallel". What's the consensus here?

[Brian Hale]

I get mine as close to perfect as i can, perhaps just a hair wider on the outfeed end. It really isn't That critical.

Is the surface of your fence perfectly flat?

I also suggest you make sure the fence is perpendicular to the saw top before you adjust the parallelism.

Brian

[tod evans]

don, i toe mine out the thickness of the first business card out of my wallet...02 tod

[Steve Clardy]

I too toe mine out.

[Gary Keedwell]

I try to get my fence as parallel as possible. I have a .005 bow in my Beis. fence. It starts on beginning of fence on zero, bows out to .005 in the middle and ends in the same zero at the far end. Haven't had any problems.

Gary K.

[Rick Schubert]

I shoot for parallel, but toe it out .001 just to make sure it isn't toeing in. Does that make sense?

Rick

[Barry O'Mahony]

A dead-parallel as possible, as long as you're sure it is not toed-in. If you deliberately toe it out, the outfall section of the pice being cut ends up being pushed into the rear part of the blade, and against the splitter. Maybe bad things don't happen if the amount of toe-in is small, but it makes it harder to feed the piece.

If you are worried about a pice getting pinched between blade and fence on a particular cut, install a partial auxiliary fence, one that doesn't extend to the rear area of the blade..

[Robert E Lee]

If you are ever to use the fence on the outher side of the blade, you want the fence as parallel as you can get it.
Bob

[Hoa Dinh]

When I bought my Jesada CGP2000 a while back, the instructions said the fence should be parallel to the blade. I have been keeping my saws and fences that way ever since.

Note that "toe-in" on one side of the fence means "toe-out" on the other side.

[Bruce Page]

I toe mine out about 1/64".

[Mark Singer]

I adjust the fence wider at the back of the blade...about a scosh or 2

[scott spencer]

Most blade manufacturers suggest a slight toe out. Because it's darn near impossible for us to know if the fence is exactly straight and that our settings are exactly parallel, it's better to error on the side of caution with a minute toe out...about a business card thickness.

[lou sansone]

I toe my out the thickness of a 1000 dollar bill

lou

[Don Morris]

Lou,

I don't have a $1000.00 handy, would you send me yours so I can align my fence? Thanks!

Guess I'll shoot for about as parallel as possible...or just .001" out. That's just a "tweek" on the Allen Wrench.

Don M

[Bill Lewis]

Ok, completely off topic, but (a very long time ago) I used to know a guy who carried around two $1000 bills and a $500 bill in his wallet. I thought he was crazy for doing so.