Preamble : I don't want to write another list of what each woodworker should know in order to work safely. Everybody may find what matters using a search engine with key words "woodworking safety". Albeit all these articles talk to the others and I would have liked to find someone writing : "for my own safety I try to..." which means many more people convey a standard point of view about safety without wondering anything. I avoid these kind of topic that lead to nothing most of time. On the other hand I get involved in every exchange that tend to explain why something would be unsafe et try to find out a better way. It's all about mental attitude and the last one requires the point of view to be argued. Nothing good nothing bad but keeping open minded.WhyDi

I didn't feel comfortable with the origin ring fence mostly because of its inability of keeping the pressure shoe parallel to the table when adjusting but also the metal cover that didn't allow the user to look at the workpiece when machining. Besides and although I am not able to reasonably argue what follows, I was most of time under the impression the metal over guard might fall on the working tool and checked its fastening over and over before moulding. These endless checking quickly turned annoying and rather than giving up that fence I made the decision of modifying several elements, expecting to get a better feeling. It took much time and I got satisfying results and failures as well.

I got mitigate outcomes with the two first modifications. The template guides shown in the bottom left hand side of the below picture copied the origin guide with external diameters from 80 mm up to 185 mm but never proved efficient and I no longer keep on their making. The only convenient one works sometimes with the overarm router in conjunction with non-pilot bits.

Hence I needed a satisfying way of guiding the workpiece and the wood like guide rings gave me the first gratification. I now only use that technique when moulding concave shapes.

Here is the over guard replacement. I modified one of the above template guides and machined two apertures so that accommodating the origin pressure shoe. The fastening along the vertical track remained the same. The plywood-angle enabled the over guard to keep roughly parallel to the table when height adjusting and I finally locked a thin transparent plastic-pot with three screws in order to prevent anything from falling on the working tool.

But what precedes is not my main use of the ring fence that most of time channels the thin dust produced by the sanding drum. Here too the see-through over guard sets a shield between the rotating tool and whatever object unexpectedly falling. I just took the ring fence in pieces and only kept the base. It really was that simple.

That vacuum outlet proved so efficient that I got the idea it may be workable when machining with a 45° cutter head and it does. That thought came from a former project you may read about in that paper. The wooden brace accommodates the ring fence under-pin and the brace dowel fits a table hole. Right or left from the spindle, the ring fence base locks on the table with the origin threaded bar.