I am making a Router Table and wanted to use the miter gauge from the craftsman table saw. I notice it has a small roller on the very front of it. Is it advisable to take this off each time I would want to use in on the router table, or is there a place I can buy a Track that would match this gauge. I heard the craftsman gauge is a wee bit wider that most other mither gauges.
Chances are that what you call a roller is actually a washer.
Many miter gauges have these washers attached to the miter bar to allow it to work in a T-slot. Yes, it will work fine if you remove the washer. Then you can use the gauge in a straight slot.
And yes, some (not all) Craftsman miter bars are not "standard" size. If you have a strange size, you may or may not be able to buy T-track for it. How's about posting the bar dimensions here?
A little more info would be good.
Easiest way to find out is to just try it in a piece of track. I have a Craftsman saw/gauge also and heard similar reports about it being a non-standard size. Turns out it works fine in a a 3/8" x 3/4" track (without the roller/washer) that I put in my router table.
Cheers! Dukestser
Actually, it's a wee bit narrower. A Craftsman miter gauge will work on virtually anyone's machinery, but a Delta (for example) won't fit into a Craftsman slot. I have an article on my website with actual dimensions of Craftsman vs practically everyone else's miter slots.
And, no, the washer on the end won't help matters. More to the point, why put a slot on your router table in the first place? It weakens the table, and only about 7% of your router table work needs a square guide anyway. Just build a sled that runs against the fence. Look at Eagle America's for an example.
I like the miter slot ONLY for BenchDog Feather boards. And rather than make or buy a sled, simply use a 12" square piece of 3/4" plywood to push the work through. Let it ride along the fence.
a sled with a backer board and some hold down clamps works great for rail and stile bits and raising panels also. i put 2 slots in my table when it was built thinking they would be handy. i have never used them for anything!!! check out pat warners site. lots of good info there for jigs and sleds for nearly anything you can think of.
And a sled will work just fine for that. Still no need for a miter slot. Check out all the rail and stile work done by Bob Rosendahl on "The Router Workshop". Also check out the rail and stile work Norm does with his Eagle America sled.
No router table of mine will ever have a miter slot. For one thing, I will never have issues with parallelism. And then there's the table weakening issue I mentioned before.
I do have a miter track in my router table. I believe I bought it from Woodhaven. The shape of the extrusion is such that its width can be adjusted somewhat by how much the mounting screws are tightened. The miter gauge from my Craftsman saw fits quite well. I have the gauge with the clamp attachment; this can be handy for routing the ends of narrow pieces. (Although others have pointed out that a sled not only does this job but is likely to be easier to use with a backer board.) John
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