Biesemeyer Fence

I am sure the Beis people will tell you that it’s well within tolerance
Just put a piece on.
If you want a piece that is less inclined to move seasonally make a laminate form many layers and glue it with plastic resin glue, resourcinol, or epoxy but not water based glue because if y use water base you have to wait for all the water to leave the wood before you can hope it’ll stabilize.

-- When the moderator chooses sides, his site sucks.

as far as I know (have one myself) the bies type (and clones) fences have the steel tube which is not machined to any tolerances and can be out of straight to a certain degrees, and then there are the faces on top (ply+lam) that is bolted to the steel tube over the length of the fence using 4-5 bolts (can’t remember the number right now. these bolts can be loosened and you can shim the faces to the steel tube to get a straight fence. OR you could put an additional flat board over the existing fence and shim it where there are gaps (same thing just adding another board which I find to be redundant).

makes sense to you? if not I could try and sketch it out

-- ㊍ When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

I usually keep a “sacrificial fence” handy which is just a plywood box that slips over the beismeyer fence. This is mainly when cutting angled rips or rabbits where the blade might touch the fence.

I imagine one of these could fix your issue though.

-- "Hard work is not defined by the difficulty of the task as much as a person's desire to perform it.", DS251

Thanks to all three of you for replying to post. I’m going to call the Biesemeyer folks tomorrow and see what they say. If they can come up with a recommended fix then I will follow their orders. If not, I will probably just add a new face and shim it. I’m pretty sure Mc Master-Carr has peel shims that are .002 each, which will make it easy to shim. Would you guys recommend S2S plywood over MDF ?
Thanks

Since it’s a fence you’d be pushing things against I would prefer to use something with as little friction as possible – UHMW, Phenolic up at the top followed by laminate ply or laminate MDF.

-- ㊍ When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Let’s see 15 thousandths is 1 and a half hundreths which is pretty close to 1/64th”. That’s the accuracy I shoot for, but rarely achieve, so if it was mine, I’d probably try to shim it too. Before I upgraded to a Bies I used playing cards and beer can aluminum to shim a UHMW fence to within a couple thousandths along the whole length. I’m not sure though that it made any difference in my work.

I don’t recall checking the Bies but will do that tomorrow.

Good luck with it.

-- Trees, a wonderful gift --Joe--

Thanks to all for the responses. I called Biesemeyer today and their suggestion was to put a new face on the fence to the tune of 76.23. I thought someone had asked how the other side of the fence was, so today I measured it for straightness. It’s more than twice as bad as the other side..It’s out about .042, which is more than 1/32”.
The new fence face does come with shims, plywood, and new laminate.
I am now answering all stop because I can almost buy a new fence for what it will cost to reface the one I have.
Guess I am just going to live with it for awhile.

Unfortunately, with a fence that is out 1/64”, you can never square up a piece of wood so it is a perfect 90°. Getting wood to a 90° accuracy is the most important dimension in woodworking. A miter gauge can be set to cut a perfect 90°, but when you rip it, the squareness is lost. I have the same problem with my Biesemeyer fence and I’m still trying to fix it. Maybe a torsion box structure attached and shimmed to the fence might work.

I feel sure I will get mine fixed but it may take a while. I’m going to order the kit (1350147) but I am interested in what is behind the laminate. Yes I know there is a piece of plywood but there are also shims. I think that is the key to the straightness of the fence.
I ripped a couple of pieces of wood today and once while locking the the fence down, I noticed the opposite end was moving around a lot.
Sometimes when I come upon a problem that I can’t figure out immediately, I sleep on it for a while and sooner or later the night light comes on.