# Home made Magnetic Bandsaw fence



## GoNavy429 (Oct 7, 2013)

Got tired of clamping down a 2x4 for my bandsaw as a fence, so started looking for a bandsaw fence, the magnetic one caught my eye, but jeez...cheapest one was over $100. So I thought can't be that hard to make one..and it wasn't...:laughing:...found some old magnets from a speaker I think, or maybe from an old hard drive, can't remember but they were just sitting around the shop, so I screwed them into a scrap piece of 1x2 red oak, then glued and screwed another piece of 1x3 red oak to form a 90 degree fence. Worked great, and they are super strong...heads up, don't let these mags get close to each other..lol...I like to took a finger off when they snapped together, had to use a vice and a screw driver to get them apart. This is an easy project, and it works great. The fence sits about a quarter inch proud of the table, the thickness of the magnets, which is more then enough to rotate the fence to break the mags hold to the table, adjusting is just a matter of tapping it to move, but holds fine when cutting, way better then the old clamp a 2x4 method...:laughing:... here is a couple pics, cut a small piece perfect for the miter slot and a 1/8" spline, fence works perfect. So if you have some old magnets laying around, great for a band saw fence and it cost me zero, made from scraps.


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## GoNavy429 (Oct 7, 2013)

Couple more pics


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## JohnnyG73 (Sep 10, 2013)

Great idea! Gotta love saving money


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## 4DThinker (Mar 13, 2013)

Looks like a great home-made solution! One thing about magnets though is that to separate them you slide them apart. It means the fence is easier to slide than pull straight off. I've got a similar magnetic fence but don't trust it. One levering sideways push of the board you are trying to resaw and the fence may slide. 

I use mine to locate the fence, lock it in place with the magnets before clamping it down with c-clamps. Yes, that defeats the whole reason behind your project. I hope your fence works perfectly. My magnets weren't up to the job.


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## GoNavy429 (Oct 7, 2013)

4DThinker said:


> Looks like a great home-made solution! One thing about magnets though is that to separate them you slide them apart. It means the fence is easier to slide than pull straight off. I've got a similar magnetic fence but don't trust it. One levering sideways push of the board you are trying to resaw and the fence may slide.
> 
> I use mine to locate the fence, lock it in place with the magnets before clamping it down with c-clamps. Yes, that defeats the whole reason behind your project. I hope your fence works perfectly. My magnets weren't up to the job.



Ya that is why I left the gap off the table to the bottom of fence and didn't flush mount the magnets. It allows me to just rotate the fence and the mags break real easy, because these are hard drive mags, they are crazy strong, it was a son of gun to slide completely off the table, they hold very good, to move them to adjust you have to tap on either end pretty hard. Also the reason I put a couple support blocks on to keep the fence part from breaking off when I rotate it to take it off or make a big move. In the third picture you can see how I rotate it to break the mags. On mine the mags are opposite from the fence, meaning the fence board is in between the blade and magnets, which when I rotate the fence away from the blade there is nothing to stop the rotation and once magnets are 40 or 50 degree from horizontal to the table lose all their strength, it works surprisingly easy. Everything is glued and screwed so it's pretty strong. I am sure a hundred dollar fence would be nice, but this is FREE and I don't really use my BS enough to justify an expensive fence, this fit the bill and was easy to make just wanted to pass along.


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## Gene Howe (Feb 28, 2009)

Pretty slick. Now to find som HD magnets. 
As a fellow SS user, I'm interested in the fence in pic #1


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## GoNavy429 (Oct 7, 2013)

Gene Howe said:


> Pretty slick. Now to find som HD magnets.
> As a fellow SS user, I'm interested in the fence in pic #1


Thank you, That is the standard Shopsmith fence that came with the saw has a sacrificial board attached. I got the SS when my dad passed away in 2005. In the above pics the TS is not set up (blade removed), have it set up for the band saw on the other end of the SS, but I leave the table on, nice place to set stuff on...lol....speeds setup when I want to use the TS, just need to slide the unit over and install the blade, it's ready to go. The fence is actually on the wrong side of the blade slot, I was using the horizontal drill press the other day and needed a backstop, so I moved it over...lol...as you know SS are very versatile, love this thing


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