Laguna bandsaw fence modification

Modifying the fence on a Laguna 14-Twelve bandsaw

The stock fence on the Laguna 14-Twelve bandsaw rides on a chrome plated rail, and the sliding action is smooth. However when the locking knob is loosened, the casting that rides on the rail has enough slop to affect positioning precision. When trying for a precise nudge, it is irritating to see the far end of the fence shift position once the lock knob is tightened.

To improve upon this, I drilled and tapped the fence rail casting to install 8-32 nylon-tipped setscrews to ride lightly against the rail, removing almost all slop. Now when the lock knob is loosened, the fence moves with very little "hysteresis"..

Here is a photo of the fence in it's upright configuration. You can see the guide casting that locks to the rail at the bottom left of the photo.

Into this casting, I drilled and tapped for 8-32 threads after disassembly. They can be seen in the following photo where I have the red arrows.

The setscrews used are 8-32 x 3/16" long. Standard setscrews with steel tips would damage the rail, so I used non-marring nylon-tip setscrews as seen in the photo below. They were purchased from McMaster-Carr.

The following photo shows their nylon business end - the end that bears against the chrome rail and removes play.

I inserted the setscrews in the casting, attached the fence onto the rail, and adjusted setscrew tightness to just remove the slop without inhibiting motion.

It works wonderfully. Now when I loosen the fence, it slides left and right without slop. The fence itself tracks without "wagging" at the far end, and it's much easier to adjust the distance to the blade.