Another precision product from Harvey. Every time I look at this equipment I am in awe. Truly amazing, beautiful and functional.
Beautiful. I was surprised at just how big the RG-2 is. Looks like I’ll be ordering an RG-1 for those smaller projects!
My ST-1500 shipped with the t-track version of this hold-down. I'd seen the Arch in marketing releases and it looked nice but the price tag had me thinking, well that's something I'll never buy. Then my slider shipped with one.
It was a nice surprise. The box and foam were premium, so opening it felt pretty fancy. The machining is excellent, and the tips of the arch are coated with some sort of rubbery surface, which on use is very effective at not marring your material.
I needed to run a bunch of components through my dado-stack to cut half-laps for an outfeed table I was building. I used the newly installed slider and the Arch for this. I have to say, I was blown away at how nice the Arch is to use. It's very fast to adjust and clamp down, great clamping power, very easy to adapt to different thicknesses of material, honestly just an unbelievably pleasant experience to use. So much stuff is designed in an over-complicated way that it's a treat when something simplifies a process like this, which makes me MUCH more likely to incorporate into my flow.
After using the Arch on my slider, I'm certain I'll be getting a couple made for dog-holes down the road. It's that nice. It's Harvey/BridgeCity price nice. For real. I didn't think I'd ever be up for spending $150 on a dang hold-down but here I am.
I haven't put the slider through heavy paces yet but early on it is performing very well. The hardware is substantial, the slider component itself is quite heavy. The surface treatment is very good, I'm a fan of the matte finish. The adjustable stops are very good. The micro-adjust is effective. You can easily choose your zero point, calibrate the cut, then adjust back and forth and easily return to your zero. The stops themselves have a slight bit of deflection but almost every stop I've ever used does. Just don't slam your material into the stop, and you're fine.
I have a SawStop ICS, and I chose to leave the extension wing on my saw which meant purchasing longer bolts and some nuts to mount it. The instructed mounting method is to remove the extension wing. The main table for the SawStop has threaded holes, which mate perfectly to the designated holes for the ST-1500. However, the SS extension wing does not have tapped holes. The hardware with the ST-1500 includes bolts, washers, and lock washers to affix to the main table. If you leave the wing on, you'll need longer bolts and nuts.
For installing it, I found using 4 Bessey parallel clamps flipped into spreaders to be very helpful. Put the legs on the slider, flip it over, and use the spreaders to help support it. In that way you can easily raise and lower the slider with the clamp screws till you have the exact clearance you are shooting for using a straight-edge and feeler gauges. I have mine at .012" clearance over my table and it glides perfectly, with a minimal height difference to keep cuts as square as possible.
You will need to remove the fence if you are ripping sheet good, as it gets in the way. The only drawback with this is that you have to re-square the fence every time you put it back on. I use a setup plate on my arbor, which makes the process easy to get accurate, but it's a bit time consuming loosening and tightening the set screws for the fence once you square it again. I'd love a solution for being able to easily remove the fence and put it back, back to square every time, but it's a small price to pay for having the benefits of the slider. I leave the fence on most of the time, and only remove it when I need to rip sheet goods. For most other ripping, if the slider is installed in the standard position, it can be slid back quite far, so you have enough clearance in that pocket to rip most shorter things still.
Material is well supported, and it makes gliding things through the saw quite smooth and effortless. The extension for the fence works well, easy to adjust, and the extra stop can be placed at a fixed calibration point and then left there, so you use the scale viewing window on the extension from that point on.
I'm pleased to have this upgrade on my saw, it has already made my life easier in the shop.
Harvey's customer service has been out of this world. Every bit of help I've needed was addressed thoroughly, beyond expectations. I ordered this and the Big-Eye Fence at the same time, my first experience with Harvey, and I have no hesitation recommending them. Very good experience, very good components. I'm glad I chose this slider over the SS slider.
I have an Incra TS-LS on my SawStop pro cabinet. I upgraded and purchased a 5hp SawStop ICS and was looking at adding the Incra for it as well. In that timeframe, the Big-Eye released and I started watching videos from trade-shows and early purchasers. It was so compelling. I decided to go for it. One serious advantage over the Incra is the space savings. The incra fence need a full 52" clearance beyond the end of the table extension for the saw in order for the fence to open all the way, taking away an extraordinary amount of floor space. Additionally, if you leave it extended and bump it, it will potentially go out of alignment, a very easy thing to do.
The Big-Eye is an absolute dream to use. The clamping lever on the top is genius. The way it engages with the rails is so powerful it feels bolted down. The adjustability to fine tune everything was straight forward. The ability to slide the aluminum hi-low fence to be behind the blade is so handy. I used 3-2-1 blocks for that in the past, one step I'll never have to do again. The bearings glide very well, so moving the fence back and forth is very satisfying. The zero parallax scale viewing window is so nice, I wish I had it on everything, including the ST-1500 slider. The scale is very easy to read, my preference is always black hashes on a white background. Once I got it all calibrated I made a cut through 2 5/8" maple to test, not a hint of burn, and just the faintest whisper of saw marks - most of the cut surface was glassy smooth. My stock Biesemeyer fence from SS was wonky from the factory, with waves in the surface and VERY difficult to fine-tune. Total lemon of a fence, and dangerous. Burning on every cut, no matter how much I fiddled with calibrating it. To get a clean cut out the gate with the Big-Eye was an absolute dream.
I'm so happy to have this fence on my saw, the core of everything I do in my shop. I can't recommend this enough, it is a gamechanger for me and an engineering triumph for Harvey.
As an aside, this is my first order with Harvey and I've found the customer service response to be outstanding. I'm well pleased, and they've won more business from me in the future.
Not only is this an outstanding looking fence but it also works extremely well and is perfectly accurate. Thank you Harvey for the craftsmanship.
This is a great tool! It came fully assembled and I had it ready to use very quickly. I would recommend this tool to anyone looking for large re-saw capability and industrial quality. I should never need to upgrade. Thanks Harvey!
This tool is quite versatile, works very well on my bandsaw AND tablesaw! It's a great addition to the bandsaw and I'm very surprised it's included for free.
This fence and rail system for the table saw is made of the finest materials and is enhanced with the most accurate engineering I have ever used on a table saw. Although it is expensive in the way of cash, if you use a tablesaw in order to rely on, accurate preparation of materials for important woodworking projects this and rail system is superior and worth every penny.
It was back ordered so it took a while to arrive. But have it setup. Dust collection is great so far.
Freaking excellent quality. Way more than I needed. Fitted onto my SawStop with some modifications to the rails. Exceeded my expectations
Everything I’ve ever bought from Harvey Woodworking has been amazing in design, beauty and craftsmanship. I am loving having my router table built into my table saw! So far, I’ve bought the Fusion F-2 table saw, the full router table system and the Compass RG-2 Universal Roller Guide. It is all of fantastic quality. All I have left to get is the out-feed table, and the compass sliding table, and my dream saw will be complete! Everyone who has seen it has said it was the most beautiful saw they’ve ever seen; and I couldn’t agree more. Even the packaging is very luxurious, (for lack of a better word).
Still thinking about it? Stop! Just go buy one… you will not be disappointed! ☮️
This is my first dust extractor so I don’t have anything to really compare it to. I will say though it is much quieter than I assumed it would be and the airflow when hooked to my table saw or router station allows me to keep a very clean work area.
Have used for only a couple of cuts this far but I am very happy with my purchase. I will add that once assembled and check for square it seems to be spot on. No more excuses..😂
Have not used it much yet but it seems to work very well. The installation is fairly simple but it could definitely use a solution for fine adjustments for positioning up and down relative to the table edge. So far ver pleased.
I've been using my Big Eye B-52 rip fence for a couple of months now. Fence deflection can kill accuracy and increase the probability of dangerous kick back. The rock solid stability of the locking mechanism on the B-52 Big Eye completely eliminates the rip fence deflection I had been fighting for years with my UniFence system, and it has added tremendously to the accuracy and safety of my 1980's era Delta UniSaw. Setup took me about a day and a half due to the addition of a torsion box table to the right of the saw. The set up for the parallelism of the fence to the blade can be a little fiddly, but once it's locked in it isn't moving. I love the zero adjustment on the rip scale. You can easily reset it for each different blade for the ultimate in accuracy. The cursor is extremely easy to line up and easy to read. The fence glides smoothly but I do keep an air hose handy to blow sawdust out of the track where the rollers run, and I wipe down the steel guides regularly. If sawdust debris builds up on the rollers they won't run as smoothly, but cleaning is easy and infrequent if you keep the track cleared out. Another fantastic feature is the ability to lock the fence without it moving left or right from where you've set it. That eliminates a lot of frustration during setups and once again, increases accuracy. The flip stops are also handy, and I'm still finding new uses for them. I would like to find out what type of aluminum extrusion I can purchase that will directly replace the High Low fence. I'd like to make an extra long fence just for use when I want to rip a full 8' sheet of plywood. Any suggestion in that area would be appreciated. I'm looking forward to years of use from this fence, and it has made woodworking fun again! Thanks for such a well made product!
Upgraded from wood top table to Harvey's router system. Many new features. Easy to use and fun.
Upgraded to Big Eye fence. Already used many features. Very accurate and versatile. Happy I upgraded.