to all DW682 Plate/biscuit joiner owners
EricAnderson
| Posted in General Discussion on
How many of you have cursed the opening in the fence when you want to
use it for narrow pieces of wood such as boxes with narrow sides. How
about trying to put a biscuit/plate into the end of a board and having
the end fall into the opening in the fence? I think I have about 40%
of the time. Seems I am always “falling” into the center opening of
the fence. For the life of me, I don’t know why Dewalt/Elu has this design flaw.
I know that it probably has something to do with casting the fence, but
it sure flaws the design. I just couldn’t take it any longer and put an aluminum plate on the face
of the fence. It worked great and I don’t know why I have not done it
before.
use it for narrow pieces of wood such as boxes with narrow sides. How
about trying to put a biscuit/plate into the end of a board and having
the end fall into the opening in the fence? I think I have about 40%
of the time. Seems I am always “falling” into the center opening of
the fence. For the life of me, I don’t know why Dewalt/Elu has this design flaw.
I know that it probably has something to do with casting the fence, but
it sure flaws the design. I just couldn’t take it any longer and put an aluminum plate on the face
of the fence. It worked great and I don’t know why I have not done it
before.
Has anyone else done this or have another approach they tried? Does
the Porter Cable have this problem?
Replies
Since most biscuit joiners can cut slots for several biscuit sizes, there's a lower limit to the fence opening or the blade will contact the fence when you're cutting #20 slots.
Could you cut your slots in wider boards then rip them to the desired width?
Clear acrylic lets me see what I'm doing. Scribe a centerline before applying to the stock fence.
Bill
I'll have to see if that is a problem. I did not have the problem with the way I was using it for this 3" high side cutting into a 22 1/2 inch miter.
ibid
we used 1/4 mdf with half a hole cut for the centermark. I like the clear acrylic, though.
The opening seems to be almost exactly the same width as a slot cut by the joiner for a #20 biscuit. There is some production hardware out there (hinges believe it or not, some KD connectors, etc...) that use a mortise cut on the face of the stock. I assume that is why they left it open, so the blade would not contact the fence when used this way.
I'm not sure what hardware like a hinge would do to make it a problem to fill in the central area. In the very least, they could have an insert available. My add-on plate makes it a problem to push it against a large flat surface, because the plate makes the joiner stand proud of a surface when the fence is pushed up against the face of the joiner. If the fence had the open area filled, that would not be a problem because it would be flush with the rest of the fence surface. My plate does not hide the alignment markings, so that is not an issue.
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