Pro tip: my miter saw fence drifted a quarter inch after I moved my shop to a colder garage last winter.

I shimmed it with a strip of brass from an old hinge and now it's been solid for eight months, but has anyone found a more permanent fix for this kind of seasonal shift?

3 comments

3 Comments

beth_stone25d ago

Oh come on, caseywest, calling a brass shim a band-aid is a little harsh. That's a solid piece of metal, not a piece of tape. I've got a buddy who's been running the same craftsman saw for fifteen years with a shim made out of a feeler gauge and it's still dead nuts accurate. The whole "get a better saw" take is expensive and not always realistic either. Not everyone can toss eight hundred dollars at a new tool because their garage gets cold. A few thousandths of movement from thermal expansion is totally normal for any saw, even the expensive ones, and a brass shim is a proven, reversible fix that doesn't require drilling into your fence mounts.

lopez.elliot2mo ago

Isn't it wild how much a little temperature change can throw everything off? I had the same exact thing happen with my table saw fence in an unheated shed. I ended up drilling and tapping a couple of set screws into the fence base so I could tweak it back, but your hinge shim fix is pretty clever. Honestly, if it's been solid for eight months, that sounds pretty permanent to me.

caseywest2mo ago

Pretty permanent" is a stretch for a brass shim. That's a band-aid fix for a problem with the saw itself. You should adjust the actual fence mounting points or get a better saw that doesn't warp with the weather.