Looking to upgrade my mitre guage for my table saw. I have the Delta from lowes. Was looking at either the incra 1000hd or 1000se. Any opinions on which would be the better one to get from experience and why? Also open to other suggestions but dont want to spend over $300 on one. Thanks in advance for your responses.
I’ve got the he and love it. Honestly I don’t know how often normal folks need the ‘hd’ portion, but I’ve used it several times for dialing in segmented bowl pieces, as well as fitting non-perfect miters with their mate. Buy once, cry once…have the capability forever.
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Simple, as RGi said "cry once"... better to have and not need, than need and not have... it's not like sheep stations between the two asking shekels... but then I have a "HD" face and cannot give a conclusive comparisson.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Keebs. I needed a spare. I have 2 TS's, and several sanders and other router tables and sometimes need to park a miter gauge, and didn't want to carry it all over the shop. Plus the one on my main TS, has a big fence on it most of the time, and I get tired of taking it off.
My goal was the best 100 dollah miter gauge I could find. I bought all on Amazoo that had free returns, and I did return every last one of them, all were trash, bought some from a few other places, and have to tell you amazon wins returns wars. I ended up getting the black one form Peachtree, it is very similar to the Kreg's I have been using since they came out, and out of the box it held up against my pricey machine shop angle, dead square out of the box, no playing or fussing needed.
GeorgeWest .... I bought all on Amazoo that had free returns, and I did return every last one of them, all were trash, bought some from a few other places, and have to tell you amazon wins returns wars. ...... I suppose you can buy a pricey one, but I am not sure why you would need to, all you want is an accurate one, this is that.
People amaze me at times... If you put a shekel value on frustration, time wasted, sleepless nights, looking for alternatives and eventually total them up... you may find you could have bought several pricey ones and still come out ahead.
The primary way to get a good accurate one, short of a mystic or a 4 headed coin (2b sure, 2b sure), is to buy all the shit that gets rejected first 🤑💵🤑
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
I think the Incra heads are great for bang/buck, just don't like the slot width adjustment. If your TS miter slots are truly a nominal 0.750", you will find the 1000 hard to beat.
The Wood Whisperer did a good review of several miter gauges a couple of years ago including the 1000 SE and HD that is worth watching. Maybe I am missing something but I don't really see much use of the vernier gauge with 1/2° (+/-) adjustability on the 1000SE being that useful with 5° detents. It seems like you would need 1° detents for that be useful?
Between the 1000 SE and HD, I think that for only $10 difference ($155 vs $165 on Amazon), I would go with the HD. While I do not need 1° granularity (finer with the vernier) often, I have actually used it once or twice. If you need an exact angle like that, having the ability to lock it in without guesswork is nice.
Note that I have the discontinued Incra 3000 (replaced with the 3000SE) which I think has the same protractor with 5° detents as the 1000SE but also has a micro adjustment detents that gives 1/2° increments between the built in 5 ° detentes which gives me 1/2 ° settings.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
Yeah, for the between detents (5°) adjustments you need to align the 1° marks with the vernier and forgo the detent. For fine adjustments like that (and tuning for a perfect 90), I'll just place some tape layers or other shim stuff between the fence and bracket on one side, between the screw and fence. Tape being generally 0.004" or so gives you really great control when that 0.0x degree tuning is needed.
Looks to me like the ticks on the vernier are 10ths of a degree?
I guess you can line up the zero on venier with the 1° marks on the gauge to set it pretty accurately? ...But for $10 more, you can get 1° detents with the HD. I suppose a look at the manual would answer my question.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
I believe that’s the way it’s intended to work, Nathan. And, like you said, for $10 more you get 1° detents. I love my HD, even if I only use the fine measurements once in a long while.
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Not an Incra fan boy myself. I've bought 2 of them, and both would not adjust, just junk. I quit trying them, frustrating. I did get an SE 1000? it was on a Delta TS I bought to flip. It was dead nutz, and I kept it as a user, still have it. Like 30 years maybe? Paired an old Delta with the saw, and sold it.
I think more than anything that they feel the need to send adjustment instructions with them new, pizzes me off. All other better brands I have bought worked 100% right out of the box. I think my favorite is the Osborne, they just take up too much wall space with their "elbow" so I swapped to Kreg's a bunch of years ago, also extremely accurate. I guess with woodworking a hypothetical 1* change in adjustment on something wood, that is going to move, just doesn't register. Pluss 99.9999999% of my cuts are 90, 45, or 30* Anything outside of this is probably going to meet my shooting board, at least if it's a critical joint.
The Fulton I linked above is as accurate, and built a lot like the Kreg, and for a great price compared to all of the top tier ones. I still would just add one more of them if I needed another. I'm not sure what that nightmare looking thing just above is, but it looks like you need an advanced degree to use it, way too many parts. I don't think I am alone in that the majority of the cuts made at a TS are out of the range I suggested.
