Seeing how wide the table featherboard is made me realize that any type that mounts to the table leaves you high and dry when the board is wide enough to cover the whole table. That would be an advantage for the roller-type stock guides that mount to the fence.
Great review, I have just purchased a set up to use on my dewalt table saw. I agree with every one of your comments. I will be trying to find alternative clamps to hold the fence, the Dewalt fence made it difficult for the camps to drop down as far as I would have like and were longer than it needed in my case. The pads on the bottom of the fence dragged and I ended up pack t up when fixing it to Dewalt fence. I did find that the feather boards didn't actually need that much pressure on the board to work properly. The push stick was a little long for my case and I have ordered the shorter version. I believe that I'm only likely to set it up for use on projects that involve cutting a lot of the same cut. Time will tell. It's a small thing but it did look like the board you were cutting in your demonstration had a fair bow, it's possible that it may contributed to the drag when pushing the board through. It was a fair hit to the bank account so I hope it will be a useful addition to the workshop. Happy dust making to all.
Excellent unbiased review. Thanks! And yes, those hard foam feathers do ease up with a bit of use. I have the large one like you have, and use it all the time.
Very nice and thorough review. I will be getting the whole set soon for my sawstop jobsite saw. The limited area on indeed an outfeed was the only complaint I had with my saw. I have a small shop so a bigger saw was not an option. So this setup will be great for me, thanks for your review.
One of the things I see in may of these first time trial reviews is a slight misunderstanding of how the rubber fingers work in Bow's feather boards. When you try to test the holding power by pulling your work-piece back against the feather board, you will notice that the piece can move backward a few millimeters with minimal friction. That is because the laser-cut shape of the fingers allows some movement in both directions at first, but in the reverse direction the fingers lock one against each other, and AFTER they lock, the piece becomes VERY hard to move backward any further. That few millimeters of movement should not put anybody in danger.
Thanks for such a thorough review! Based on your (and a couple other) reviews, I also purchased these same items. Just received mine and strangely enough, the threads on one of the knobs on the Feed Support was jammed up like yours. Fortunately, it seems that the threads just weren't cleaned out all the way so I was able to run a tap through it.
QC doesn't mean everything that ships will be perfect every single time. Maybe you got the 1 in a billion bad one. Great overview though. I've never heard of this and will check it out.
I was just looking at their product line and I see there are two styles of those rubber feather boards, the regular black ones are what you bought. Look into getting the replacement rubber inserts that are called ultralight ones and are grey in color. $14.99 for the ultralight ones.
The ultralights don't have the same holding power, and are intended for the "dual" setup, as two black would impose too much friction for moving the work forwards.
Seeing how wide the table featherboard is made me realize that any type that mounts to the table leaves you high and dry when the board is wide enough to cover the whole table.
That would be an advantage for the roller-type stock guides that mount to the fence.
Great review, I have just purchased a set up to use on my dewalt table saw. I agree with every one of your comments. I will be trying to find alternative clamps to hold the fence, the Dewalt fence made it difficult for the camps to drop down as far as I would have like and were longer than it needed in my case. The pads on the bottom of the fence dragged and I ended up pack t up when fixing it to Dewalt fence. I did find that the feather boards didn't actually need that much pressure on the board to work properly. The push stick was a little long for my case and I have ordered the shorter version. I believe that I'm only likely to set it up for use on projects that involve cutting a lot of the same cut. Time will tell. It's a small thing but it did look like the board you were cutting in your demonstration had a fair bow, it's possible that it may contributed to the drag when pushing the board through. It was a fair hit to the bank account so I hope it will be a useful addition to the workshop. Happy dust making to all.
That's the best review I've seen on this. Thank you.
Excellent unbiased review. Thanks! And yes, those hard foam feathers do ease up with a bit of use. I have the large one like you have, and use it all the time.
Thanks Jim for another great video
Very nice and thorough review. I will be getting the whole set soon for my sawstop jobsite saw. The limited area on indeed an outfeed was the only complaint I had with my saw. I have a small shop so a bigger saw was not an option. So this setup will be great for me, thanks for your review.
One of the things I see in may of these first time trial reviews is a slight misunderstanding of how the rubber fingers work in Bow's feather boards. When you try to test the holding power by pulling your work-piece back against the feather board, you will notice that the piece can move backward a few millimeters with minimal friction. That is because the laser-cut shape of the fingers allows some movement in both directions at first, but in the reverse direction the fingers lock one against each other, and AFTER they lock, the piece becomes VERY hard to move backward any further. That few millimeters of movement should not put anybody in danger.
Thanks for such a thorough review! Based on your (and a couple other) reviews, I also purchased these same items.
Just received mine and strangely enough, the threads on one of the knobs on the Feed Support was jammed up like yours. Fortunately, it seems that the threads just weren't cleaned out all the way so I was able to run a tap through it.
Excellent review. Thank you!
QC doesn't mean everything that ships will be perfect every single time. Maybe you got the 1 in a billion bad one.
Great overview though. I've never heard of this and will check it out.
im using it as a router fence.
I was just looking at their product line and I see there are two styles of those rubber feather boards, the regular black ones are what you bought. Look into getting the replacement rubber inserts that are called ultralight ones and are grey in color. $14.99 for the ultralight ones.
Thank you.
The ultralights don't have the same holding power, and are intended for the "dual" setup, as two black would impose too much friction for moving the work forwards.