For what it is worth, with an Incra fence, you are provided with 5 slots for tape rules, they provide you with 4, and the option to buy a 5th. You can set one for each of your blades, and a couple for the popular dado widths, like the actual width of 3/4 ply, or 3/4" itself. If you need to cut dados outside of those widths, you can nip a board sample, get out your dial caliper, and measure the distance, then adjust your calculations with a calculater, and cut once again, accurate to within 1/1000th.
Remember when you lock in the Incra it falls within one of those teeth, which is why it gets crazy accurate cuts with no effort. Once you dial in the teeth, you get that kind of accuracy no matter where you are on the tape. I wouldn't even think about making the kind of calculations that I mentioned above, if I didn't have a perfect reference when you lock it into those teeth to start with.
I must admit the hairline on the Beis, and Accu clone does a pretty amazing job of getting it close, before you deal with the tail wagging out on the end, plus any slight bow in the middle. ( Forgive me for getting critical, I know we are talking 64ths here) If you stand directly over the hair line, close one eye, and line up the hairline until both sides of the one below hide behind the one on the top, you can get some crazy accuracy. With the Incra, just get it close, to within 1/32nd on the rule and it falls inside the teeth, when you lock in your setting, drawing your setting into perfection. Wear eyeglasses to get a good setting? Don't need em.
I know I keep hammering the Incra fence home, but until you truly understand how this thing works, and how easy it is to use to get flawless results, you can understand why Beis advertises accuracy to within 1/64th and Incra to within 1/1000th, and perfect repeatability to exactly where it was before, taking the measurements off the scale. Faster, better, no wasted stock dialing in a setting, no time wasted recapturing settings. You'd think I was an Incra salesman or something. I'm not, I just love the fence. Perfect alignment, no bow in the middle of the fence, no slight off angles to leave saw marks in the wood. I go from table saw to finish piece, even one exposed on an outside edge with this setup using the Forrest WWII 40 tooth. Glass smooth surface. I dust it with 220 grit.
Here is a picture of the rules. See that little dial to the right, each one of those lines is 1/1000 of an inch. What a great way to tweak in a setting, instead of unlocking the fence,and bumping it a little. Sure beats taking out the tape measure, with the floppy end on it, eyeballing the setting, and making a pass. I could see a cartoon with a guy standing in the middle of a huge pile of sample cuts, frustrated, saying, "The heck with those Incra guys, they think they know everything, I can do it the old fashioned way, you'll see, if I keep trying, I will get a cut to within 1/1000th too, so what if it takes me forever to do it, besides, what's wrong with my cuts being off a little bit, who is going to notice?"
Hey I didn't build the fence, I just bought it. Until you experience, what it is like to effortlessly eyeball a setting, make a cut, then take out a dail caliper and measure the wood, and it is accurate on the dial caliper, and the needle is pointing so close to the perfect top that is is not off by even 1/1000th of an inch. Then the wood bows a little bit, so you take out the big clamp, and straighten it out while you are gluing it up.
Nissim, I wanted to add that your European design fence blew me away. I am always impressed with engineering that is done so well, it reduces everything to simplicity. Like instead of a car with bells and whistles, and fireworks going off when you leave the key in the car, BMW simply requires you to lock the car from the outside, using a key instead. That way you know you have a key outside of the car. Your European fence is a great idea, make the fence adjustable, then the workpiece exits, and their is no fence surface to lock in the workpiece to cause a kickback.
Ok Incra it's time to get back to the drawing board, we gotta implement that ability. Wait a minute, the face of the Incra fence has a T-Nut slot on it, so you could build a spacer fence and use it like an offset, the way you do with a spacer when making miter cuts on a miter gauge. You could even use locking nuts, that are the same allen wrench size as the long allen head screw driver bit, that is used when you want to lock your 3rd not usually neccessary to lock outbound side fence lock.
Here I go again, I have to go do some cedar T&G work on the fitness room. Since the boards are already cut to fit, I will have to make splines. Hmm. so do I use a router with a groove bit, or do I install a slim dado setup in the saw? I think the router will give me the featherboard capability that I want, but are the boards all the same width? Or can I keep them tight to the fence manually? Or do I oversize the slot a little bit, to allow for expansiion, and don't worry about it? Hmm..
Ok, I'm getting wordy again. I can't help it, I get excited about this stuff.
Last edited by Bob Feeser; 09-20-2007 at 12:53 PM.
"Fine is the artist who loves his tools as well as his work."