: Great fixture! I see you've got Mickey's hands, where's the rest of him?
: Before you go to a patent attorney, what's the size of the bearing?

Hi George

Before I answer any questions, I assume you have read all the reasons why this won't work, and with that caveat I will tell you that I too have had some experience using a table saw, (and pretty much all the rest of the gamut of power tools) for both pleasure and profession. I started using a table saw, band saw and the rest when I turned twelve (under a lot of old school supervision of course) so that works out to about fifty years and ten months of pretty heavy experience (if my math hasn't deserted me as well), and I'm getting more safety conscious every day. Still have a total of 20 fingers and toes (even though I only use two fingers on this keyboard 8-) It wasn't that long ago that I started using featherboards,and push sticks.

I've built boats, barns, backhoes, and violins, and everyting in between. I'm certainly not trying to sell anybody anything. I never had to rip a pile of thin strips of (hopefully) equal thickness before, and I am fairly sure I have come up with a way that works very well for me.

Now George... to answer your question, the bearing in the photo is just an old cam follower that I had around, it's approx 1 1/4"D, but after trying the strip ripping concept, most any bearing, or smooth fairly hard surface for that matter would work as well. If you must have a bearing, and don't have an old one lying around, a good source of cheap bearings, FYI, is inline skate wheel replacement bearings at your local sporting goods.

Part two of this reply is, yes of course the edges of your boards must be parallel, as would they to properly use feather boards in either case. And yes, if your fence is not parallel with the sawblade it's going to bind just the same. And no, you only have to set the desired strip thickness space between the roller and the blade one time, as well as the featherboard placement.(unless you wear the end off the featherboard from ripping so many strips 8-)

happy days
ron