INCRAMiterV120 Miter Gauge

I ordered the INCRA MiterV120 Miter Gauge in June 1013 and the seller was Amazon itself. The quality of the steel the gauge is made with is good in my opinion given its price point. It was thick and did not feel flimsy to me at all. However that GlideLOCK Miter Bar Expansion Disks system needs some work. There is a YouTube video titled "INCRA Miter Gauge - Complete Version" which is made by INCRA the company whose YouTube account is named "incratools". About 2 mins 35 secs into the video they show you how to adjust the GlideLOCK system and in the video it adjusts like butter for them. However when I tried to make the adjustments on the gauge I received it was no where in the vicinity of being easy to adjust at all. The instructions you receive with the gauge say the screw you turn to expand the plastic washers requires a lot of torque by design. No way was it made for the torque I was having to put on it to barely turn the screw and even with the little bit of movement I got, there was seemingly no effect in increasing the bar width. What is supposed to happen is you turn the adjustment screw clockwise. When you do this it pushes down on the plastic washer which has a cut in it. As you crank the screw down the washer begins to split apart at the cut in it. As the washer splits apart it starts to bow out more and more which is what increases the width and allows you to remove any play in the bar when it is inside the track. On my gauge nothing was happening when I cranked down on the screw. It got to the point where I could tell the screw head was going to strip. Anyone that has stripped the head of a hex screw knows what I am talking about - there gets to be a little bit of play in the screw head just before you strip it out with the hex wrench. So I stopped there and proceeded to remove the screw and washer to see what was going on. First off the machining under the washer is a little rough which is probably causing friction on the washer making it not "split apart" which is how the whole system works. See the picture I uploaded to see what I am talking about. Also the cut in the washer should be positioned at the 4 o'clock position when you are looking at the gauge with the end with the degree readings next to your body and the other end pointed away. You want the washer cut positioned at the edge of the circular cutout it rests in just before the circular cutout turns to a straight line outwards. See the picture I uploaded to see what I am talking about. To compensate for the rough machining I coated the plastic washer in 100% silicone grease. Between the grease and realigning the washer cutout I was able to make it so that when I turned the adjustment screw I actually could see the washer bowing out which in turn allowed the gauge to fit good in the track of my table saw. The adjustment is still hard to turn but not to the point where it felt like I would strip the screw head like before.I am knocking 1 star from my rating to give this product a 4 star rating. I am deducting the 1 star for the GlideLOCK system adjustment not working correctly. I am confident that if I did not do the fixes I mentioned and proceeded like the instructions told me I would have stripped the head of the hex adjustment screws. The manufacturing process needs to be improved to ensure people don't have to go what I went through.

I got this to use on a mid-priced contractor table saw. The miter gauge that came with the saw was plastic, had a short bar, and the bar had too much play in the miter slot. This resulted in many cross-cuts that were not even close to square. The V120 has a positive lock at 1° increments (which I prefer to the V27 which has fewer index positions), and the business part of the gauge is metal. The fence is easily set to square with a try-square (you must do this one-time adjustment; out of the box it was 2° off) The slot bar is heavy metal, and long enough to hold a workpiece through the cut. The only thing is that the mechanism to set the bar width so that it is snug in the slot requires more torque than can be applied with the short arm 3/32" hex wrench that comes with the gauge. The idea is to torque a screw so that the plastic washer expands to increase width. It works, but I might try to make new washers out of a softer plastic. The result is that my cross-cuts are repeatable, and always come out square.

After reading a number of customer reviews for the INCRA V120 Miter Gauge I was a bit weary as to whether this product was worth it. I have a 10 year old General International cabinet saw and the handle on the original miter gauge broke after modest use. A number of reviewers called out the challenges of using what looks to be a 3 mm allen wrench to turn the adjustment bolts used to eliminate the 'slop' inside the miter channel.To make the adjustments I made certain the wrench was completely seated in the top of screw before turning. In my case, each of the adjustment screws needed about a quarter turn to eliminate all the play inside the miter channel. Pushing the miter gauge through the miter slot is smooth, but requires more force than is comfortable for a cross-cut operation, but this can likely be remedied by introducing wax or paraffin into the slot. Next I set the gauge to zero degrees for a test cut. I used a 6 inch forged steel square, not an aluminum one, to see if the stock was cut square. It was dead-on, as I could not rock this square on any sides of the cut end of the stock.As other reviewers point out, the surface area of the fence face is fairly small, however, there are two slotted cuts about 1 inch long in the face which can accommodate the addition of your shop-made miter fence using through-bolts. The miter is indexed by one degree increments with a stop at 22.5 degrees and the ability to set a mitered cut up to 60 degrees is a nice feature.I mainly use this saw for aiding a house renovation project and making cabinets, but nothing requiring extreme precision. For $80 this is a significant step-up from the poorly made factor miter gauge that came with the saw.

Replaced the one that came with my Milwaukee table saw and, oh, what a difference. Now I can get some precision work accomplished.