26 What inspired TS-Aligner
Description
This article is from the Woodworking FAQ Collection 1, by multiple authors.
26 What inspired TS-Aligner
The original concept was developed after hundreds of frustrating hours
of trial and error woodworking. It was pretty clear that woodworking
machines were generally designed well enough to do precision work
but lacked the ability to make precise adjustments. While several
products were available to woodworkers that claimed to resolve this
problem, a detailed investigation revealed that these claims were
largely overstated. They all seemed to be designed to fit within
a particular price point rather than to solve the problem. They
suffered from the use of inadequate materials (injection molded
plastics) and invalid measurement principals.
In the spring of 1991, with the assistance of a machine consulting
firm, standard machine shop measurement principals were translated
for use in the woodshop by the use of a measurement fixture. This
fixture later became known as TS-Aligner (because it was most useful
on the Table Saw). The design was reviewed by several woodworkers,
a mechanical engineer, several machinists, and even the president of
an extremely large woodworking mail order company.
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