"charlie b" wrote in message
...
snip
So other than the fact that you're use to a long fence is there any
reason why you wouldn't even consider going with a short fence?

charlie b

I'd have to echo Leuf and say that while once the the part of the piece
you're cutting has already been cut when it passes the rear of the blade,
the problem is that it's still attached to the part you haven't cut yet. It
gets hard to keep a 6 ft. board parallel to the blade when the amount of
moment arm able to force it out of parallel is increasing as you cut. It
seems to me that the short fence thing would have more merit if the cutter
was hypothetically something like a laser beam perpendicular to the top of
the table. Then, as long as you were tight against the fence next to the
cutter, it wouldn't matter what the part behind or in front of the cutter
did. I have a Unitfence, so in the cases where a shorter fence might come
in handy, I can accomodate that easily.

todd