Like I said, I will be getting some wedgies. I've been hinting that the wedgie sled is limiting. I'll point out the concerns I have with it. I know some folks will have zero problems with the sled or wedgie and thats great. I just want folks to know that the wedgie system is not the be all end all to segment cutting and ti his credit Jerry never makes that claim.
Arlin, you brought up grain matching. Grain matching is very seldom done anymore and here are the reasons.
There will always be one joint that is not matched in every ring. You now have a choice to make, do you not pay attention to those joint locations in the turning and just stack the rings? That kind of ruins the effect of going to the trouble of grain matching. The other option is to keep the non matching joints in the same area. Now you have a front and back to the turning. This limits the way a piece could/should be displayed.
The famous guys (ones with books or videos) and the guys who have been doing this for years will tell you; Never cut all the segments for the same ring out of one board. There is no faster way to end up with rings of different colors (even using the same species) than doing this.
Here is why I consider the double fence limiting and said it wouldn't work for my style of turning. If you look at the picture AHill posted the blade side of the sled is somewhat fixed. The measurement from the front side of the bottom fence to the back side of the top fence will limit the size of segment you can cut. That measurement will be dictated by the size of the wedgie. Below is just an example of a turning that could not be done with a double fence. The segments in the ring above the feature ring were about 7" wide. You could not cut those segments with a double fence sled
I'm sure some are sating I'll never cut a 7" segment. Whats the measurement on the smallest end of the wedgie you are using? Thats the segment width you will be limited to and I think most would be surprised at how often it's going to be an issue.
Now back to the grain matching color banding because it kind of ties in. I wll take the widest segment dimension and cut 2 or 3 sticks out of different boards. I cut a few segments from each stick until I have enough segments for the ring. Then I rip those same stick to the next smallest dimension and repeat. by spreading any color differences throughout the piece it appears more uniform in color by not having bands.
I plan on buying some wedgies. For me they will be a setup tool for sleds that will work with my style of turning. The only purpose of this post was to explain my earlier comments and give folks a heads up on potential limitations of the 2 fence sled. This in no way is knocking Jerrys products or his sled.