"RobG" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> My old Unifence is pretty close to retirement. I have a line on a Cdn
> built General Excalibur? Does anyone have experience with that?
>
> What else is out there? Great performance, good value... I know, buy
> the best and only cry once...however...
I own one and it works fine. It uses two rails and fastens down on both ends
of the fence. Contrary to the opinion of some that think a fence is better
if it only fastens on one side like a Biesemeyer model, I've had zero
problems with it and am very happy with it. It's thick and solid with two
slots on top for use with jigs of various types.
The only problem with the excalibur is that it clamps at the back and front
so you have to have
a pretty beefed up table extension.
Ted
"RobG" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> My old Unifence is pretty close to retirement. I have a line on a Cdn
> built General Excalibur? Does anyone have experience with that?
>
> What else is out there? Great performance, good value... I know, buy
> the best and only cry once...however...
>
> Thanks to all in advance
>
> Rob
>
"Bigpole" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> The only problem with the excalibur is that it clamps at the back and
front
> so you have to have a pretty beefed up table extension.
Not as much as one might think, at least not on the tablesaw that I use.
Don't forge that the rails lay almost flat on both sides of the tablesaw, so
you've got almost the equivalent of a 1" bar of metal resisting any bowing.
The only beefing up that I'd done is a 2x4 spanning the two rails all the
way over to the right where the legs support the end of the rails. But,
you're right in one respect that if one was regularly crosscutting more than
four feet off of sheets of plywood, then a little additional bolstering
between the two rails might be in order.
I am very happy with the Shop Fox Classic on my 1023s. It is a
re-engineered version of the Biesemeyer that uses heavy nylon sides. Fence
and rails are heavy-duty and extended rails are available. In five years I
have only had to tweak the parallel adjustment once. Several of the
magazines have given it a good gradecard with the main drawback being price.
It is nearly as expensive as the Bies after shipping.
Our son just purchased one of the Grizzly contractor's saws with the
aluminum version of the Classic. I gave it a pretty good workout while we
were finishing out his house this fall. Similar to the Classic and works
well. I still prefer the Classic. But I'm an old fart - hard to retrain.
Grizzly has another that clamps on both ends and uses a micro-adjustment
system. They are kind of complicated and use internal moving parts to
maintain parallel. I used one in the Grizzly, Springfield store a few
years ago and it was smooth as glass. However it has had some iffy reviews
and the Grizzly sales-rep was even steering me away and toward the Classic.
RonB
RonB