Alternative to dial gauge

[safari]

As I don't have a dial gauge I put together this jig which uses a digital caliper. This has probably been covered somewhere on the forum but I found it an easy way to set up the blade and the fence relative to the mitre slot.

Saw jig 2.jpgSaw jig 1.jpg

[Evanism]

Indeed. Simple ingenuity rules.

Before I had my razzmatazz dial guage, I used a friction fit bit of timber in the mitre, an almost arbitrary length of timber pined and glued at 90 degrees and put a flat headed plaster board screw in the end.

I would mark the blade tooth with a red texta, rotate the screw out until it absolutely touched kissed the front edge with a "ting", do the rotate 180 thing and slide it to the back tooth.....ting ting ting...

Pretty good I thought. Super fast.

Then I bought the deluxe super snazz dial guage with the little ball bearing mounts and its STILL only 1/1000th out....bugger me! Spend $90 and didn't gain a zac in accuracy and I swear it takes longer as I need to fiddle with the dial!

The old stick and screw is now in full reuse, and sits under the saw in a basket even for checking the Incra fences.

Simple is good