Replacement for pm2000 Accu fence.

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SteveColes

Steve
Corporate Member
I've had this saw since the fall of 2006. And in general I love it. BUT, I have always had a problem aligning the Rip Fence and getting good clean rips. I always assumed that I was at fault. Some how I was doing a bad job of alignment and the dirty rip cuts were bad technique. Now all of that is true:gar-La; , but the problems are made worse by real defects in the fence itself.

I found that the face of the fence is wavy:swoon:. The heads of the bolts that slip into the slots that hold the plastic face to the steel are thicker than the slot and thus distorts the face. The holes that the bolts slip through have raised edges that also help to distort the plastic face.

As of this last Friday, I just assumed the fence was defective. But wasn't sure PM would replace it since it has been 4½ years since I first got the saw. I know, I am questioning whether or not I should even be allowed to use the saw if it has taken me this long to figure out a part was defective from the beginning:slap::dontknow:

So yesterday, I did a searches and found out that a lot of people found the same things I did. They were able to get fence to work better by doing some combination of shims, using different attachment bolts, grinding down edges of the holes and replacing the fence with phenolic coated BB.

Tomorrow, I will call PM and see if I can get a replacement that will not require me to do all that work. But in case, I would like to find a third party replacement. And if so, I sure would like a fence that doesn't have to be removed to adjust for square but still will be auto-squaring when locked down at the front.

I know that I don't want the Incra or Jointech type. So I have heard things about the Vega Pro, the Mule Cab Accusquare, and of course and a Biesemeyer.

Your thoughts, advice, suggestions and insights, Please
 

eyekode

New User
Salem
Steve, the fence on my G0691 is very similar. And it was wavy when I recieved it. I ended up jointing it with a handplane. It worked great!

Don't get rid of the fence you have. It is every bit as good ad bessey or a vega. You just need to get the face material flat. Or replace it with phenolic bb which is flat. Whenthe bessey develops twist you can't fix it!

By the way I would be happy to joint yours for you. I owe you a favor or two!
Salem
 

junquecol

Bruce
Senior User
Steve, you could just replace left face with some baltic birch. After attaching it, you could shim it into both square and straight, and then face it with some laminate.9I have a bunch of laminate scraps0 Of course you could just leave the laminate off. On my home made Beisemeyer clone, which is over ten years old, I have yet to put the laminate on. Bruce
 

gator

George
Corporate Member
Steve -

The original Accu-Fence (like the one that came on my PM64A) had BB face laminated with formica. It has no waviness and is perfectly flat. I have always said, after I saw the plastic faces they added later, that I am glad I got an 'OLD' model. If you can put on BB faces with laminate, the Accu-fence is every bit as good as the Bies and the mod won't cost you anywhere near the cost of a new Bies.

George
 

MrAudio815

New User
Matthew
Steve, the fence on my G0691 is very similar. And it was wavy when I recieved it. I ended up jointing it with a handplane. It worked great!

Don't get rid of the fence you have. It is every bit as good ad bessey or a vega. You just need to get the face material flat. Or replace it with phenolic bb which is flat. Whenthe bessey develops twist you can't fix it!

By the way I would be happy to joint yours for you. I owe you a favor or two!
Salem



Thanks Steve for posting this~! I have a PM2000 as well and I have been frustrated with my wavy fence for a while. I did use a dial caliper that ran in the miter slots and I had to go back and forth from the front to back at least ten times to get it almost perfect. Within .0025 yet it is still wavy in the middle and other areas, luckily they go in and not sticking out. After I did this, my cuts were ten times better.


Salem Which Hand Plane did you use? I don't have any but would like to get one for this purpose and other tabletop type hand planning.

Thanks again for posting. I thought it was just me. And if you call PM they Deliver~! PM is AWESOME in making it better and they do have a 5 year warranty. I chipped paint on my PM and they sent me a PM colored spray paint can for free~! :eusa_danc
 

ehpoole

Administrator
Ethan
Steve,

Honestly, I think your issue is just endemic of the UHMW faces themselves. My Steel City fence (which most consider to be a very good fence) came with UHMW faces on the fence and they too were wavy due to the manner they fasten to the steel beam that is the fence. It was only a slight wave, maybe plus/minus 1/64" or so, but visible if you held a straightedge along the fence's length.

I fixed mine by replacing the left face with 4"x36" (my saw is left tilt, so the right side is seldom used) extruded aluminum T-slot available from Woodcraft (Pinnacle brand, if I recall). Thanks to the T-slots, I can now easily attach featherboards, stop blocks, sacrificial fences, etc. to my fence. I did have to drill new holes in my fence to align with the channels in the aluminum extrusion, but that is simple enough (esp. on the drill press, the fence is heavy gauge steel). I then used 3/8" 1/4"x20 bolts and T-nuts to secure the extrusion to the fence. My fence is now dead straight along both it's height and width now.

IMG_23753.JPG
 

eyekode

New User
Salem
I used a wooden jack plane but ideally should have used jointer. I jointed it directly onthe fence because if you adjust the bolts it affects the fence. I used a good 36" straight edge and feeler guages to judge my progress. I would not recommend this as your first experience with handplanes. Practice on wood first :)

It is pretty darn straight/flat now but I like the idea another poster had of using some aluminum extrusion with t-slots. I may have to do the same.
Salem
 

Douglas Robinson

Doug Robinson
Corporate Member
Steve:

Since I am using a Incra on my PM2000, would you like to try the factory fence that came with my saw? Maybe it does not suffer from those problems.

Doug
 

SteveColes

Steve
Corporate Member
By the way I would be happy to joint yours for you. I owe you a favor or two!
Salem
Thanks for the offer but see below.

Steve, you could just replace left face with some baltic birch. After attaching it, you could shim it into both square and straight, and then face it with some laminate.9I have a bunch of laminate scraps0 Of course you could just leave the laminate off. On my home made Beisemeyer clone, which is over ten years old, I have yet to put the laminate on. Bruce
Thanks, I don't think I would need to shim it since the metal box seems to be true. Also I think I have some BB with phenolic coating that I would.

Steve -

The original Accu-Fence (like the one that came on my PM64A) had BB face laminated with formica. It has no waviness and is perfectly flat. I have always said, after I saw the plastic faces they added later, that I am glad I got an 'OLD' model. If you can put on BB faces with laminate, the Accu-fence is every bit as good as the Bies and the mod won't cost you anywhere near the cost of a new Bies.

George
I agree, except this particular fence does not hold it squareness setting either. I really think the fence is defective :BangHead:

Steve,

Honestly, I think your issue is just endemic of the UHMW faces themselves. My Steel City fence (which most consider to be a very good fence) came with UHMW faces on the fence and they too were wavy due to the manner they fasten to the steel beam that is the fence. It was only a slight wave, maybe plus/minus 1/64" or so, but visible if you held a straightedge along the fence's length.

I fixed mine by replacing the left face with 4"x36" (my saw is left tilt, so the right side is seldom used) extruded aluminum T-slot available from Woodcraft (Pinnacle brand, if I recall). Thanks to the T-slots, I can now easily attach featherboards, stop blocks, sacrificial fences, etc. to my fence. I did have to drill new holes in my fence to align with the channels in the aluminum extrusion, but that is simple enough (esp. on the drill press, the fence is heavy gauge steel). I then used 3/8" 1/4"x20 bolts and T-nuts to secure the extrusion to the fence. My fence is now dead straight along both it's height and width now.

I really like that.:icon_thum

Steve:

Since I am using a Incra on my PM2000, would you like to try the factory fence that came with my saw? Maybe it does not suffer from those problems.

Doug
Thanks, but I won't need it.


Well I spent this morning going over the responses on this thread and some others in other forums. I talked to PM Support and I talked to Vega about their fence.

After describing my problems, they said the whole fence assembly was probably defective and they are sending me a whole new one. I am still concerned that the reality is that the UHMW face will be a potential problem immediately or later. So if there is a problem, I'll go either the phenolic coated BB. Or go with the aluminum extrusion as Ethan Poole suggested.

The Vega fence turns out to be a real alternative. It has a whole bunch of features that I really like and the only negative I have ever heard is that the installation instructions could be better. I've ordered the Vega Fence with the intent of installing a bit later:embaresse:embaresse

Thanks to all for your help.:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap
 

jhreed

New User
james
Thermal expansion on UHMW is greater than aluminum or steel. If it is bolted down securely and the temperature rises, the UHMW wil buckle. You might try loosening the fastening bolts, slightly enlarge the holes in the UHMW and then re-tighten.
 

MarkE

Mark
Corporate Member
Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread. :eusa_clap

I have a Unifence with the Uni-T-Fence bar. It has a UHMW face which has a slight (.002) bulge in the center. I am going to try some of these suggested solutions to see if I can easily remove that bulge.
 
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