attachment to fence (board buddies)

[shmish]

Hello,

I would like to add a strip of wood along the top of my fence. The wood is laminated, and is 1.5" thick. I need this height so I can attach some board buddies to the top of the fence. The height is needed so I can rip thin-ish strips. Anyways, what is the best way to go about attaching the wood? There are t-nuts on fence, so I guess it's best to find the appropriate length bolt and screw into the nuts? I'm guessing that I need 1/4" longer than the thickness of material I am attaching?

Secondly, what size/type of nut is used for the groove on the face of the fence? I bought some nuts from Lee Valley that I thought would work but they were too big.

cheers!
Doug

[fredg50]

A square nut (3/8" wrench size) will fit the slot on the face of the fence. That nut will fit a 10-32 or 24 machine screw. That's what I used to attach a 3/4 piece of MDF so I could mount the steel fence that came with the Grip Tite magnetic feather board. It worked out good.

[Slik Geek]

what size/type of nut is used for the groove on the face of the fence?

Doug,

On the face of my BT3000 fence, I use metric hex head machine bolts, or hex cap screws and matching nuts. M6-20 (20 mm long) works good with 3/4" plywood jigs. The screw head slides in the fence groove or channel, while the nut secures the jig to the fence.

In the jig, I drill a 5/8" diameter "countersink" in the plywood surfaces that faces the blade. I drill this hole deep enough to clear the nut (at least 3/16"). Then I drill a 1/4" hole in the center of that countersink all the way through.

The 1/4" hole allows a slight bit of play for the screw. Because the M6 screw head fills the fence channel so well, I found that the slight misalignment in plastic end of the fence made it difficult (or impossible) to slide the screw head into the channel. A few moments with a small file and you can align the plastic channel with the aluminum fence channel.

A 10mm socket wrench works good for tightening the jig in place.

[LCHIEN]

The slots in the top, left side, and right side of the rip fence are all different. You have to decide which you will use. The following site
specifies nuts that are custom made for the job, you should buy some extras or one of the assortments for future use.

http://t-nuts.com/prod.shtml