MicroJig Splitter System

One of the goals I have for my shop is to make it as safe of an environment as possible.  Like most cabinet and furniture makers I find the splitter and guard that came standard on my saw, more of a hassle than a help.  When I need to rip a lot of material I'll use a rip blade and install the splitter that came with the saw.  As an example, when I had over 100 board feet of 8/4 Canarywood to cut to rough size for a dining table and six chairs, the splitter was a necessity.  I had heard about the micro jig accessory a few times and a recent newsletter from the consultingwoodworker.com happened to do a review on them.  I decided to order it on line because I knew I had a lot of shelf facing to make for the bookcase I was just commissioned to build.  The instructions were clear and pretty precise in what you needed to do for the  installation.  It gave me a good reason to make another zero clearance plate as you can see.  Everything went fine until my first cut!  The kit comes with four different splitters to give a perfect amount of tension to the stock.  These fit securely into the throat plate but once the wood reached them it was a no go! With my calibers, the splitter measures 1/8" and the kerf my blade creates is 7/64". I checked and double-checked and finally wrote an email to MicroJig (http://www.microjig.com/products/mj-splitter-steel-pro/design-concept.shtml ) to voice my frustration but not expecting any results other than "sorry 'bout that".   In my email I told them that I have a Tenryu blade. The splitter measures 1/8" and the kerf the blade creates is 7/64".  You can imagine my surprise when they replied the same day and told me about the Tenryu being metric sized which cuts 3mm or less.  What totally surprised me was their response -- they told me that if I would send all of the pieces back to them they would send me the kit for the thin kerf which would work with my blade at no cost to me!!  I will need to make another zero clearance throat plate but that's a good thing to have in different blade kerfs anyway -- I'll use this one for the rip blade.
It's really great to do business with a company that show the same commitment to their customers and clients as I do.  If you're like me and know that the splitter really is a thing to have you should look into their product.  Less than $40.00 for the top of the line kit which is  a better deal than getting a new tablesaw with a riving knife.