Incra® Miter V120 Gauge

I now have a mitre guage Incra V120that is accurate, sturdy and easy to adjust and fine tune. With the quality of this product I will be looking at other Incra products for my router and table saw in the future. Satisfied owner.

Reading all the rave reviews for this unit I purchased one. I am sorry to say it does not live up to my expectations. Ok, I don't own a shop grade fixed table saw. I have a new Rigid Contractors 10" fold-a-way. Problems encountered: 1.The plastic (Or Whatever) base of this unit extended below the leading metal edge of this unit forming a lip that hung up on the front edge of the table saw table continually. I called Incra and they said it was made this way on purpose, what?  Their fix was to file off the front of the plastic at an angle. What?  I finally decided to use shims and achieved a flush bottom. I think that shims should be included with unit. BTW I used old auto Feeler Gauge leaves, a cheap way to go instead of expensive shim stock. 2. The face of this Gauge is not made for use with the Rockler clamps. I had to add a 3/4" thick facing to be able to use said clamps.  I can't store this gauge with long facings screwed in place so the Rockler clamps are real handy for my purposes.

Incra V120 Miter Gauge
(click to see full-size picture in new window)

On first look this is an excellent looking product. Further inspection revealed some flaws. The plastic disk on the bottom of the head is slightly thicker than the forward edge, causing the gauge to hang on the saw table. I called Incra and they said that it was made that way to accommodate various tools it would be used on. If I desired I could take a file or some other abrasive and chamfer the edge so it would slide more easily over the table lip. I was not pleased with this response. If I had paid full price it would be on its way back. I will attempt to solve the issue with a cheap set of feeler gauges for shim stock to mate the surfaces. The next issue is that 4 of the teeth used to align angle are larger than the rest and flat topped,, after careful inspection this does not appear to be an issue other than appearance. Another cosmetic issue are the several nicks along the bar. It will in all likelihood have many more before it is retired. This may be the one that fell through the cracks. In spite of all the issues this is still light years ahead of the one that came with my new table saw. This is not made in China, at least the box it came in said made in USA which I thought meant quality. I will make no recommendation one way or the other.

I bought the V120 based on positive reputation for Incra tools. What a disappointment! While I wouldn't quite call it flimsy, it is less substantial than I expected. I like the notches for setting miter angles, but have not evaluated their accuracy other than at 90 degrees. My greatest complaint is that the "vertical" fence of the miter is not. Near as I can tell it is about 3-degrees off vertical, which led to ill-fitting miter joints. I tilted my tablesaw blade three degrees, ripped a bevel into my auxiliary fence, and reattached it to the miter gauge. Now I have a vertical surface for my workpieces as checked by a  engineer's square. Should not have been necessary!

Although the V120 seems to offer repeatable results it is not a substantial unit, especially the fence. Also the fence on my unit was not square with the saw table and required a lot of shimming to compensate for a 3/16 gap needed to square up the fence. To add to the frustration I followed the instructions and aligned the miter with the blade first before checking the fence for squareness. The fence has to be removed to square it up and then realigned with the blade. Rockler did offer to replace the unit, a plus for customer service, but I already cobbled the unit with shims. On sale at half price the unit is a reasonable upgrade, at full price  better miters can be had.

I own a small ranchette and do all of my own carpentry work. The V120 appeared to be a cost effective replacement for the flimsy miter that came with my Rigid table saw-it isn't by any means. The fence on my miter gauge was not square which required me to add several shims and only made the unit even more unreliable. I don't usually take the time to write reviews on the products I buy online, but I have to say that with the V120 I am SAWLY disappointed. I rarely have use of this gauge, but when I do it is generally set a 90 degrees. The metal adjustment teeth started bending immediately. This gauge just isn't built well enough for any kind of precision. For cost I don't exactly expect outstanding, but the V120 is really, in the end, useless.