HC260 - ideas for shop-made fence?

[matthew]

Had an HC260 for many years, and it's quite a good machine - keep pondering something bigger but it's small, portable, easy to fix, so I've stuck with it.

The one weak point I find is the fence - it's not accurate, flexes, clunky to adjust etc. What's more, I'm needing to replace one of the castings for the second time - the metal fatigues and cracks.

This is a popular machine - has anyone made a replacement fence? Or have any ideas how to, before I try to invent something? I don't even really need it to swivel as such - just to be able to make small adjustments to get it square.

 

[Trevanion]

I don't own a HC260 nor have I seen one so I'm just going off pictures I'm looking at. You could possibly throw the angle adjuster away and make a 1/2 thick steel plate which bolts to the aluminium fence in the t-slot and attaches to the horizontal adjustment arm. You could them have shims or even grub screws on every corner of the piece of steel to adjust for square and just tighten it off and it should be absolutely bomb proof then. That's assuming all your flex is coming from the weak angle adjuster and not where the horizontal arm attaches to the machine.

 

[matthew]

Many thanks for the reply! Was definitely considering getting rid of the angle ajuster, but the plate + grub screws seems a good plan. There is a little flex in the fence itself, but the weak point I feel is the angle adjustment, so getting rid of it completely seems a good plan Will try to come up with something...

 

[MikeJhn]

Would have helped if you had said it was a planer thicknesser, I just composed a long detailed reply on how I replaced the fence on my bandsaw and then realised it was not relevant, teach me to try to be helpful. (hammer)

Mike