Today we found out that Uncle Sugar is handing out more money.  I don’t agree with it but since they send it I’ll spend it.  I’m going to upgrade my fence system on my 1947 Delta Unisaw.  It’s a great saw but the OEM fence needs replaced.  Here’s my question.  Which fence do you have? Love it? Hate it? What would you buy?

Ron, when I had a full grown table saw, I loved my Beismeyer, it's the original positive lock positive stop fence system, they invented it, and they are the best, IMHO. It's simple, and robust, and in my opinion simple is better, and the quality is out standing, not to be matched, again IMHO. Also if you can swing it, the Beismeyer overarm guard would be a great partner.

 

Ron,

Depending upon what you want to do a properly set up OEM Jet-Lock fence is hard to beat.

Man it's been a long time, since I purchased mine, I just did a check on the fences available for Bies, did Delta purchase them?

Another thing, I set my Beismeyer up on my 12" Grizz in 2002, and never adjusted it once up till I sold my saw and fence two years ago, I aint kidding, it stayed true the entire time!

I have a Delta T-2.  Have had for about 7 years or so.  Very good results.  Only time I had to mess with it was when I put the two table saws together and had to match all 4 runners and 2 blades together.  Very fine adjustment to put fence back to dead zero.  Never had any issues but I did reverse how the lock worked.  My old fence went that way and I left the habit as it was.  

I have the Delta UniFence.  I like that it only has one rail, you can move the fence so that no fence is extended past the blade, and the fence has two heights.    Danl

I have to agree with John it is hard the beat the Beis. And you can add tons of jigs to it for Tolpins Tablesaw Magic. Oh by the way the one on my Grizzly has never needed adjustment.

I have the Biesemeyer and love it.  Set it up when I got it 15 years or more ago and have not needed to mess with it since.

I'm going to send a letter to Delta with a few pictures of the beast and inquire if they have any suggestions for an upgrade that can be calibrated as well as what I have done with the twins.  Maybe put a dig in about can you make this better.  Might get a free or reduced price on a new one??

 

One can dream ya know.  Course they may wonder what I was thinking tying two contractor saws together in the first place...

 

 

John, yeah...Delta bought Bies some time ago and started selling that fence on their saws. I bought a Unisaw in 2001 and it was one of the options (Bies versus Unifence). I went with the Unifence, since that's what I had on my Delta Contractor saw and I really, really like it. But the saw I now have has a Bies clone, and they are nice. Ron, another I've read good things about (but have never seen or touched in real life) is the Vega fence...might be worth a look.

14 hours ago, John Morris said:

I just did a check on the fences available for Bies, did Delta purchase them?

 

Yep in 1995.

Does the Biesemeyer have a front and back rail or just one front rail?

3 minutes ago, DuckSoup said:

Does the Biesemeyer have a front and back rail or just one front rail?

Front rail, at least my T2 clone is.

9 hours ago, Gunny said:

I'm going to send a letter to Delta with a few pictures of the beast and inquire if they have any suggestions for an upgrade that can be calibrated as well as what I have done with the twins.  Maybe put a dig in about can you make this better.  Might get a free or reduced price on a new one??

 

One can dream ya know.  Course they may wonder what I was thinking tying two contractor saws together in the first place...

 

 

 

...Didn't know you knew Taiwanese also. 

10 minutes ago, Gunny said:

Front rail, at least my T2 clone is.

Check on the front rail.

7 minutes ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 

...Didn't know you knew Taiwanese also. 

 

Pictures are a universal language.

6 minutes ago, Gunny said:

 

Pictures are a universal language.

 

Don't forget to reverse the photos, after all Taiwan's on the other side of the planet. 

Actually it has only one rail but you can make lots of attachments for it since it is all one tube

I have a 6 ft long piece of 2 inch sq steel. Plan to make my rail go entire width of my twin TS. 

I have the UniFence, since I got my saw after Biesmeyer came out but before Delta started putting them on.

 

Pros
-  can pull the fence back so you can use as a cross-cut stop without it being where the blade is.  Or if you want to go European mode, so fence stops at back of blade to avoid pinching if the wood has a little spring in it

- has two positions.  Lower one is thin so would work well if you are trimming a piece that has laminate or veneer applied

- height is somewhat adjustable, so you can raise enough to not have sawdust become a problem

 

Cons

- Hard to get a jig that straddles the fence because there is no square back side and the guide extends beyond the fence in the near side 

- If you need to switch from the fence on the right to the left (e.g., you are doing bevels on a right-tilt saw), you have to take the fence off and move it to the other side as it's not reversible (see con #1)  Not a big deal, but you can't just slide it over the blade.   Also, at least on mine, there is no indexing tape measure on the left side of the blade

- Made of aluminum.  Most fences that I see have a little saw blade shadow on the blade side where it got too close

 

 

All that said, I've never found it so much a problem that I'd want to change to something else.  Been using it since mid 80s