wide table set up

[vrbradley]

I have had a pair of rail extenders for sometime.I know there has been much said here about the wide table. I havent been able to find the answer so I will bore you all and ask anyway:

Is there ant limitation as to the orientation of the extended raile ie. I'd like to have about 30"' of rail to the right of the blade and the rest to the left side. Wonder if you can do this and if there are any pit falls if you do?

I'm a lefty and have my saw set up backwards from most of you, but that just has to be, I do not feel safe with everything backwards.

Brad

[drumpriest]

Brad, as long as you have enough rail that you arn't straddling the connection points, I don't see why that would be a problem. You just need to give support under your wide table. Legs or a cabinet of some form.

[vrbradley]

Keith

I'm not sure i know what you mean "arn't straddling the connection points" sorry to be dense, I just want to make sure before i tear my saw dont to make these changes.

Brad

[LarryG]

Not Keith, but WTH.

I'm 99.44% certain Keith is referring to the two clamps that hold each rail to the saw's main, center table. These would both need to be holding the same section of rail. If the butt joint between the two rail sections fell between the clamps, there'd only be only clamp on each rail section and it'd be difficult if not impossible to get the rails accurately aligned so they'd be perpendicular to the blade.

[vaking]

I'm 99.44% certain Keith is referring to the two clamps that hold each rail to the saw's main, center table. These would both need to be holding the same section of rail. If the butt joint between the two rail sections fell between the clamps, there'd only be only clamp on each rail section and it'd be difficult if not impossible to get the rails accurately aligned so they'd be perpendicular to the blade.

So depending on your target configuration you may end up having the extension set of rails cut into 2 parts and attached one part on the left and another part on the right of the saw. Not too bad but may be a good time to build a mobile base with rail supports on both sides.

[gmack5]

I don't see a Problem!

I'm also a "Lefty" and my thoughts are these:
If the BT3100 can be setup for a "Righty" with the majority of the Rails to the Right, there is no reason that I can think of, that you couldn't extend the Rails the same amount to the Left.

This would allow you to attach your SMT on the Right and your Accessory Table on the Left.

The attachment points (T-nuts) that hold the Rail to the Main Saw body are approximately 11" +/- 1" apart. This gives you; 41" - 11" = 30". which is just about what you said you wanted to the Left of the Main Saw Body.

The only "problem" that I see is that you won't be able to use the measuring tape that is on the Main set of Rails, but then you can't do that now.

If you're going to build a cabinet for your Saw, you might want to think of building it with the BT3100 mounted on the RIGHT end of the Cabinet, if you can, which is just backwards to the way the "Righties" are doing it. You may not get the full 30", but it'll be close, within an inch or two at most.