Customer Reviews

Woodstock W1108 24-Inch Track for Board Buddies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have Board buddies this is a great accessory. The track allows you to move the Buddies without remounting them on different areas of your fence. It saves alot of time. I attached a 1" x 3" x 3' piece of pine on the side of my fence and then mounted the track on top of that. I didn't really see a way to mount the track directly on the fence. I can't say enough about this product. It is a must have.

By bolting this to my saw fence, I can add or remove the buddies any time I want. For cuts that put the fence close to the blade, I remove the back buddy so it won't hit my blade guard or splitter. You could bolt the buddies directly to your fence but adding this track makes the buddies more adaptable. They work great.

This accessory rail works great but has one design flaw; the four counter-sunk screw holes. If you don't mark and drill the the holes for the screws dead-on, good luck getting the screws in the holes, or if you do, the heads to seat fully (flush) into the holes. They should have used counter-bored clearance holes to give the user/installer a little more tolerance to work with. I was mounting mine to the top of my steel fence body with 10-32 screws, drilled and tapped into the top of the fence. I blew it! Don't work when you're tired!! I'll never forget it now.

I bought this to mount Board Buddies on my Dewalt-744 table saw. The saw has a 19.5" fence, so I had to cut the aluminum slide on both ends with a hack saw so that the wood screw holes would be centered over an auxiliary wooden fence a.k.a feather board that I made. The saw's aluminum fence is 1" wide with screws on its back side away from the blade. I had to replace the Dewalt screws with equivalent 2" sheet metal screws to attach the featherboards. I made the wooden fence out of two pieces of 3/4" hickory so that it would be hammer-handle tough. I needed two pieces to make the fence wide enough to take wood screws from the slider as it is 2 1/4" wide. The holes for the wood screws in the slider are set 1 3/4" from the edge. Ideally, one would make the featherboard out of one piece that is 1 1/4" thick, but good luck trying to find some.

All went well until I had to screw the aliminum slide onto the auxilary wooden fence. I drilled deep pilot holes. But, two of the brass-colored wood screws provided with the slide snapped off when the screws got deep into the wood. The first time it happened, I was able to recover by separating the two hickory boards and unscrew the stub because the screws fell exactly between the featherboards. Then I decided to glue the boards together so that the screws would be more secure. On my second attempt to mount the slider, a second wood screw snapped. This one was much more difficult to extract. I had to use a hand grinder to dig a pit around the stub so that I could get a lock wrench on it.

MY ADVICE: use the stainless steel wood screws that are supplied with the Board Buddies instead of the cheap brass-colored screws that come with the slider.

I ordered this with the Board Buddies for a new saw. I would not consider using the Buddies without a track. When it came,it had the wrong hole spacing on the "T-nuts". After contacting Woodstock International, it seems I was shipped a version of the track made for Craftsman saws. E-mail response from them was rapid, courteous and helpful. Once we figured out hte problem, they shipped me replacements at no cost.

Excellent product . Must confess I'm using it totally ddifferent that the mfg. intended. I thought I was buying a 24 inch hard line guide -- not aan add=on fixture for a table saw. My usage has been very satisfactory. I' trying to maintain a disaplane of only hand tools in the worshop. I am enjoying the product.

This track is very solid. It's quite a hefty chunk of aluminum and should last practically forever. I got it along with my Board Buddies, figuring it would make moving them around a lot easier.

I haven't moved my Board Buddies since I installed them on the track. I keep them close to each end of the blade so that I can feed short or long stock into the saw with no worries. It makes sense to me that one would want them to be close to the blade since that's where you'd need them. What this means is that I don't really have a use for the track. I adjust the Board Buddies side-to-side all the time but not forward/backward.

If you have Board buddies this is a great accessory. The track allows you to move the Buddies without remounting them on different areas of your fence. It saves alot of time. I attached a 1" x 3" x 3' piece of pine on the side of my fence and then mounted the track on top of that. I didn't really see a way to mount the track directly on the fence. I can't say enough about this product. It is a must have.