The Incra Ultra-Lite is a 'positioning system' which allows adjustment of a fence on a router table/tablesaw/drillpress to accuracies of a few thousandths of an inch. It is the smallest system in the Incra range, but still has 12 1/2" of travel, more than enough for most tasks at the router table. Incra sell it as a joint-making jig, but it is so much more than this - it gives you fast, repeatable accuracy for all fence-based router table work, and once you have one you'll wonder how you managed without it. Apologies to those who already understand how it works, and to those who don't - I hope after reading this that you'll have more of an understanding, not less!
In the box
The Ultra-Lite model available in the UK is the full kit – the Ultra-Lite itself, fence, right-angle fixture, stop positioner, two templates and a few extra bits. All the major bits are shown below, except that I have swapped the black imperial racks for the optional ($6) metric ones which come in an ‘attractive’ green colour:
How it works
The main part of the system is in two parts – the clamp which must be fixed to the router table via a ¾” piece of ply, and the carriage. The key to the Incra system is the use of toothed racks on each of these parts – the teeth interlock when the clamp is in the upright position, locking the carriage solid. When the clamp is disengaged, the carriage can slide in and out freely.
Here we have the clamp (and racks) engaged:
and disengaged:
You’ll also notice that there is a piece of clear plastic with a black cursor line scribed on it, and some scales fitted into tracks on the carriage. The scales can be moved up and down the tracks, but are a sufficiently tight fit to stay put when you want them to.
Back to the racks. The teeth are spaced at intervals of 1/32” or 1mm depending on your choice of rack. With the teeth engaged and the carriage locked, you can ‘zero’ the scale by sliding it until the cursor lines up with a convenient measurement. Say that you want to move the fence by 20mm – you disengage the clamp, slide the carriage approximately to your 20mm offset on the scale, then engage the clamp. This is the clever bit – as the teeth come together, they force the carriage to move exactly to your measurement, as they can only interlock in exact 1mm intervals. I’ve tried to photograph this – not very successfully
, but I think it is just about clear enough to demonstrate what is happening. The top rack is attached to the clamp section, the bottom rack to the carriage.
Here are the racks before engaging – you can see that the alignment is slightly out:
As the racks come together, the teeth hit each other and force the carriage to move – from right to left in this case:
Now the racks are interlocked, and the carriage has been forced to move to a measurement of a full number of mm:
So that is your basic system for moving the carriage – it is very fast and accurate. When doing jointmaking, this is the only system you need to use to move the carriage after the initial setup. The only precursor to this is that for box joints, you must use metric cutters with metric racks, or imperial cutters with imperial racks.
The Incra templates are basically scales with the divisions only at the places you need them for that particular joint – for example, the 3/8” box joint template which comes with the Ultra-Lite has divisions 3/8” apart. The instructions have a better description of the templates if you are more interested in them than I am! If you swap to metric racks, you will have to make your own templates - not exactly rocket science for box joints, but a bit more tricky for dovetails. PM me if you're having problems :wink:
Microadjustment
The Incra also has a system for microadjustment:
It is an analogue system and as such is infinitely variable, but the divisions you can see on the black adjustment knob correspond to a carriage movement of 1/512”, or as near as makes no difference, 0.05mm for metricians. If this is far too large an interval of movement for you, you’ll have to get an Ultra instead which has the divisions scribed for 1/1024” intervals!
The microadjustment is used for initial setup before jointmaking – basically centring the bit on the work. It is fantastic for getting close tolerances on things such as sliding dovetails, full-extension drawer runners such as those used by Chris here etc.
The other bits...
The right-angle fixture runs along the router table top on two pieces of semi-sacrificial ply (just in case you run past the bit and contact them :roll: ) and hooks over the top of the fence. There are three nylon screws on the inside:
The outer pair of screws have locking nuts and are used to adjust the tracking of the fixture. The centre screw can be used to lock the fixture in place on the rail – useful when you are trying to clamp your work to it! I must admit, though, that this is something that I would change about the design – it works well enough, but some system like the linear bearings used on the Jessem right-angle fixture would be much nicer. I guess this would bump up the price dramatically…
The Ultra-Lite model also comes with a simple stop positioner – the Ultra models have a more sophisticated version with fine adjustment:
Here is the setup used when jointmaking – mocked up here using a very unsuitable clamp (I must get a handscrew)
Once you have an Incra, you’ll want to use it for everything. The existing fence cannot be used with big cutters, however, as the opening in the fence is far too small. You can either buy an add-on Wonderfence from Incra, make some arrangement from MDF and bolt it on to the existing fence, or make your own Wonderfence-style arrangement. to fit in place of the existing fence. This gives me a chance to show off my add-on fence again:
Overall it is a very nice system, but it does have some limitations (the ‘Rat owners’ ears prick up – here comes the ammunition ) for dovetailing. Rather than write this up myself, I’m going to steal Chris’ words on the subject from this thread:
If you want a fantastic level of control over your router table, with the added bonus of joint-making abilities for relatively small items such as drawers/boxes, then I think it represents fantastic value at £141 – I wouldn’t be without mine
I bought my Ultra-Lite from Tilgear, but Rutlands and WoodworkersWorkshop stock them as well - it could be worth trying the latter first.
Alf, you are amazing - even a short review like this is hard work!!!!
In the box
The Ultra-Lite model available in the UK is the full kit – the Ultra-Lite itself, fence, right-angle fixture, stop positioner, two templates and a few extra bits. All the major bits are shown below, except that I have swapped the black imperial racks for the optional ($6) metric ones which come in an ‘attractive’ green colour:
How it works
The main part of the system is in two parts – the clamp which must be fixed to the router table via a ¾” piece of ply, and the carriage. The key to the Incra system is the use of toothed racks on each of these parts – the teeth interlock when the clamp is in the upright position, locking the carriage solid. When the clamp is disengaged, the carriage can slide in and out freely.
Here we have the clamp (and racks) engaged:
and disengaged:
You’ll also notice that there is a piece of clear plastic with a black cursor line scribed on it, and some scales fitted into tracks on the carriage. The scales can be moved up and down the tracks, but are a sufficiently tight fit to stay put when you want them to.
Back to the racks. The teeth are spaced at intervals of 1/32” or 1mm depending on your choice of rack. With the teeth engaged and the carriage locked, you can ‘zero’ the scale by sliding it until the cursor lines up with a convenient measurement. Say that you want to move the fence by 20mm – you disengage the clamp, slide the carriage approximately to your 20mm offset on the scale, then engage the clamp. This is the clever bit – as the teeth come together, they force the carriage to move exactly to your measurement, as they can only interlock in exact 1mm intervals. I’ve tried to photograph this – not very successfully
, but I think it is just about clear enough to demonstrate what is happening. The top rack is attached to the clamp section, the bottom rack to the carriage.Here are the racks before engaging – you can see that the alignment is slightly out:
As the racks come together, the teeth hit each other and force the carriage to move – from right to left in this case:
Now the racks are interlocked, and the carriage has been forced to move to a measurement of a full number of mm:
So that is your basic system for moving the carriage – it is very fast and accurate. When doing jointmaking, this is the only system you need to use to move the carriage after the initial setup. The only precursor to this is that for box joints, you must use metric cutters with metric racks, or imperial cutters with imperial racks.
The Incra templates are basically scales with the divisions only at the places you need them for that particular joint – for example, the 3/8” box joint template which comes with the Ultra-Lite has divisions 3/8” apart. The instructions have a better description of the templates if you are more interested in them than I am! If you swap to metric racks, you will have to make your own templates - not exactly rocket science for box joints, but a bit more tricky for dovetails. PM me if you're having problems :wink:
Microadjustment
The Incra also has a system for microadjustment:
It is an analogue system and as such is infinitely variable, but the divisions you can see on the black adjustment knob correspond to a carriage movement of 1/512”, or as near as makes no difference, 0.05mm for metricians. If this is far too large an interval of movement for you
, you’ll have to get an Ultra instead which has the divisions scribed for 1/1024” intervals!The microadjustment is used for initial setup before jointmaking – basically centring the bit on the work. It is fantastic for getting close tolerances on things such as sliding dovetails, full-extension drawer runners such as those used by Chris here etc.
The other bits...
The right-angle fixture runs along the router table top on two pieces of semi-sacrificial ply (just in case you run past the bit and contact them :roll: ) and hooks over the top of the fence. There are three nylon screws on the inside:
The outer pair of screws have locking nuts and are used to adjust the tracking of the fixture. The centre screw can be used to lock the fixture in place on the rail – useful when you are trying to clamp your work to it! I must admit, though, that this is something that I would change about the design – it works well enough, but some system like the linear bearings used on the Jessem right-angle fixture would be much nicer. I guess this would bump up the price dramatically…
The Ultra-Lite model also comes with a simple stop positioner – the Ultra models have a more sophisticated version with fine adjustment:
Here is the setup used when jointmaking – mocked up here using a very unsuitable clamp (I must get a handscrew
)
Once you have an Incra, you’ll want to use it for everything. The existing fence cannot be used with big cutters, however, as the opening in the fence is far too small. You can either buy an add-on Wonderfence from Incra, make some arrangement from MDF and bolt it on to the existing fence, or make your own Wonderfence-style arrangement. to fit in place of the existing fence. This gives me a chance to show off my add-on fence again:
Overall it is a very nice system, but it does have some limitations (the ‘Rat owners’ ears prick up – here comes the ammunition
) for dovetailing. Rather than write this up myself, I’m going to steal Chris’ words on the subject from this thread:With this restriction in mind, is it really worth going for one of the bigger Ultra models instead? Well, if you want the Incra templates, they come with 51 instead of 2. Then they have a much nicer microadjustable stop positioner, and an extension bar stop thingy. Pricewise, they are around £230...well, you know which I chose!Waterhead37":1hd1emqy said:
If you want a fantastic level of control over your router table, with the added bonus of joint-making abilities for relatively small items such as drawers/boxes, then I think it represents fantastic value at £141 – I wouldn’t be without mine
I bought my Ultra-Lite from Tilgear, but Rutlands and WoodworkersWorkshop stock them as well - it could be worth trying the latter first.
Alf, you are amazing - even a short review like this is hard work!!!!
