LS Positioner review

I've had a router for a number of years now. First a quarter inch collet, then a half inch machine. The former died after a fair life. Brushes and bearings gone. Both were Elu, 97 then 177E. Nice tools. I bought a really cheap table for inverted use and soon discovered it's limitations. From a show I next bought a Roy Sutton designed table. Roy makes a lot of videos and has books on routing. Angle iron frame, MDF top and some sort of hard plastic insert. Cast Aluminium fence with wood face. The downside was that the plastic 'sagged' and left me with edges which caught each time I used it. It's serverd as a platform for a place to construct projects since then, covered by a melamine sheet.

I've just purchased my third router table, from Incra. An American outfit, kit imported into the UK by Roger with little if any concession to the EU market. It has imperial markings; and when you consider that it seems to sell on accuracy the markings are pretty key. Roger sent me the sales video after my first enquiry, after which I was hooked. The video is professionally made, but the guy demonstrating simply knows that tool so well and appears totally confident with it. Clearly no actor, I think he must be part of the organisation. The quality of the product is obvious.

My first question was the table. Two versions of the fence are made, marked 17 and 25 inches. Just that they don't tell you what the length is! Seemingly it is the maximum distance you can set the fence from the collet centre. That's a long way. I would be just a little cautious routing when twenty odd inches from the fence. Certainly way beyond my needs. I settled for the shorter of the two. Even then it took me lots of googling to work out that for a 17" fence I needed a 36" long table. Picture it. Standing at the table with the fence facing you. Some working area in front of the router bit, table front to collet (say with fence over collet). Two inches or so of fence. Seventeen inches of fence travel. Eight inches of clamp which fastens the fence to the table and lets it slide. Believe it or not that gives you only 8" in front of the fence. Big beast. I'd tried to work it for a smaller table but after clarification from Roger I settled on a 24" wide table, 36" deep. Even that results in the fence hanging over the edges of the table by two inches each end. Strange. This was after a diversion where I was looking at the Unilift table insert. Woodpecker also do tables, but the dimensions are all messed up with respect to the Incra tables. I decided I'd invest in a depth guage for just over a fiver instead of just under two hundred for the Unilift. The selling pitch for the Unilift is accuracy of setting. Handle fastens through the plate to the router, giving 1/32" per revolution. That provides the accuracy. Yes. Another was the ability to change bits with the router in the table. Bit of a nuisance I must admit. Especially when the router won't lift up through the recessed hole in the table as was the case with my Roy Hutton table. Turns out my router won't work with that setup without an extension. I can live with an accuracy of half a millimetre available with my current kit. So, table selected, fence selected I placed my order.

Delivered Friday I unpacked it and set it up on Saturday... and Sunday. I'd decided to adapt the table to take the new top. Intermediate frame of softwood sat between the metal frame and the new 1-3/8 table top. Frame bolted to the metal frame, table top chocked to stop it moving in the frame. Due to the combined weight of the router and fence, it's going nowhere. Once the glue had dried I unpacked the fence. For once it was wrapped in hefty plain brown cardboard so recyclable. No damage in transit, everything secure and still in its place. Amazes me how these packaging designers do it. Three booklets in all. One for the base fence (ls positioner), one for the superfence (sits in front of the base fence), and a templates 'book', near A3 size with lots of joint templates (all imperial, including the router bits on which the designs depend). Each part of the fence, above the basics, had its own instruction sheet too. Yes there was conflict in one item. Bolted the main holder (bracketry, basically a squished tube with the patented screw lock and viewing window) to the bench. It was secure even with finger tight nut and bolt. The structure is extruded aluminium, so most fasteners are of the type using a bolt and captive nut or threaded plate which slips in an extruded channel. Fiddly but very effective. Once I figured out how to fit the main (front to back) sliding carriage into the main holder, the rest slipped in place with no problem. For some reason the designers share out the screws between hex headed bolts, allen bolts and a few Phillips screws. Why not stick to one? Provided was a long shafted allen key on a handle, which is the major need when adjusting things. Nice touch IMHO. Next the table insert. Hefty sheet ali again, with some form of anodizing - looks pretty and hopefully protects it from oxidisation. My router is the same setup as a modern one, so it came drilled appropriately, two screws and it was secure. Unlike the Roy Sutton table, I could fit my router through the hole in the table, which makes for an easy bit change. It terms of getting the insert level, there are ten, yes ten, adjusters. Somewhat course, but I eventually got all sides level with the table top, with one corner very slightly raised. I mean fractions of a mil, but just about enough to stop the fence gliding over it easily. Luckily it is the corner furthest away from the fence so hopefully it won't be a problem. My straight edge said it was flat from edge to edge, including the insert. Promising.

Having watched the DVD, it only took a minute to see how the basic movements operated. I'd a small drawer which I needed to shave about 1/2 a mil from to clear the opening comfortably; I was confident enough to make that my second pass on the machine. The first one was a measuring check. I'd been cutting 4mm rebates 4mm inset and 4mm deep, for oak faced ply. I set the fence up for a 4mm offset, used the Trend depth guage and cut. My micrometer (and magnifying glass) told me it was 4mm inset and my depth setting was less than half a mil out. I was satisified.

Pros.

1. Solidly engineered
2. Fastenings are appropriate to the job
3. Adjustable fastenings are very well thought out - largely hand tight which is good for the ali and quick for the user
4. Nylon threads in ali is a neat way of keeping the ali in tact over time. Novel and good use of technology.
5. The fence extrusion makes good use of the channels for fastening it all together.
6. The split fence (<= 20 thou adjustment) is smooth and effective.
7. Infeed and outfeed both move forward and back as well as adjusting for the bit size.
8. Opening is big enough for even monster cutters.
9. Screw adjustment for the fence is really neat, good to 1/32" quick adjustment with snap down lock. Repeatable too.
10. The intervening 1/32" is catered for by a 64 click wheel for the accuracy folks. Very good design and well made.
11. The scales are clear.. ish. The hairline is in a big window making viewing quite easy (why choose red and blue for scale colours? More contrast please)
12. Accompanying DVD explains usage clearly, covers 90% of what most users will want. Played OK in Linux movie player
13. At full extension, when locked down it just won't move. Nice and solid.
14. Well finished. No raw/sharp edges to catch stray fingers!

Cons

1. The various template scales are just that little too tight in the scales. No need for it. Recommends using furniture polish to make them slippy, then says avoid getting it on the plastic strips? Why? Re-design or re-sizing please.
2. For dovetails the scales need two colours. For some reason the designers chose insipid blue and red. Very low contrast. Especially behind the perspex window.
3. The DVD won't play in Windows media player or Real player. Quite possibly a region thing.
4. The inserted instructions on the high rise fence seemed not to fit with the kit I had. Possibly due to it fitting different Incra fences. Should refer to the main booklets
5. I still had bits and pieces, nuts and bolts left over when it was theoretically all put together. I find that a tad worrying. What had I missed! Probably for another setup, but even so.
6. Mismatch between the video and the booklet. Minor nits only.
7. Errors in the book (Reference guide and template library). Again minor nits, grammar and the shop stop has been updated since the book was printed.
8. Not a nit. The table is basically MDF. The cut-out is left 'bare'. I.e. untreated. For those of us not working in air conditioned workshops, it would be nice if the bare edges were treated with something to decrease the porosity of the wood. Cost? Small. Benefits to users? Large.

Summary? The bees knees. Dogs .. well, you know. I'm well pleased. Most of my cons are in the nit picking category so I'm happy with it. My next challenge is to see if I can rig it up as an accurate fence on my table saw. Already noted that my table saw mitre guage fits the router table - one thing the Americans are ahead of Europe with. Standard mitre slot sizes.

Minor aside. I know I'm not very accurate marking out. So I purchasedd one of these. Sheet spring steel, bit fragile, but if you're a 0.5mm automatic pencil user, it can add significantly to your accuracy. Nice one Incra.

Finally, for those such as I, less sure with Imperial metrics:

Fractions 1/32
Inch, mm	  Inch, mm	  Inch, mm	  Inch, mm	  
1/32  0.79	  1/16  1.59	  3/32  2.38	  1/8  3.17	 
5/32  3.97	  3/16  4.76	  7/32  5.56	  1/4  6.35	 
9/32  7.14	  5/16  7.94	  11/32  8.73	  3/8  9.52	 
13/32  10.32	  7/16  11.11	  15/32  11.91	  1/2  12.70	 
17/32  13.49	  9/16  14.29	  19/32  15.08	  5/8  15.88	 
21/32  16.67	  11/16  17.46	  23/32  18.26	  3/4  19.05	 
25/32  19.84	  13/16  20.64	  27/32  21.43	  7/8  22.22	 
29/32  23.02	  15/16  23.81	  31/32  24.61	  1/1  25.40	 

And if you want to go either way in terms of fractions - just replace the 32 with whatever you have on your rule.

# Produce an inches to mm conversion chart



def gcd(a,b):
    """Return greatest common divisor using Euclid's Algorithm."""
    while b:      
 	 a, b = b, a % b
    return a


rate = 25.4
print "Fractions 1/32"
print "Inch, mm\t  Inch, mm\t  Inch, mm\t  Inch, mm\t  "
for i in range(1, 33):
    print "%d/%d  %2.2f\t " % (i/gcd(i,32),32/gcd(i,32), (i * rate)/32),
    #print i, gcd(i,32)
    if i % 4 == 0:
        print
print