Show Me Your TS Cross Cut Sled

Alrighty... I started on my cross cut sled. It's a sheet of 1/2 melamine about 2x3' with two runners.

It slides nice and easy with no wiggle. I'm getting ready to put the front and back cross pieces on and possible a blade guard. I'm also pondering what to do as an adjustable miter gauge, clamps, etc.

So, show me yours. What have you done that works well. What doesn't? What mistakes did you make? All that stuff...

Reply to
-MIKE-
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Cheap (made from scraps), Simple Forward travel limited by stopped slots in outfeed table.

What there is of it, works well.

Left out blade guards.

Photos at

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Reply to
Morris Dovey

make sure it's square

shelly

Reply to
smandel

Mine is 1/2" virola ply, 1 1/4 white oak cross pieces and is used almost entirely for trimming/cutting panels. Up to 38" wide by any length panels. I have no blade guard; I have no clamps, don't need them; I use it only for straight cuts so no miter gauge. _____________

The back cross piece is extendible so I can set a stop anywhere up to 48".

The back cross piece has sort of a box to house the blade when it gets there; box has a transparent plastic top. There is also a sizeable, stout oak handle on the back, angled a bit, directly above the cut line to push the sled. ____________

I wish I had made the cutoff side of the sled wider. It is about 4" now which means if the cut off piece is 8" or more wide it flops down when cut off. I'll fix that one of these days...

Reply to
dadiOH

Many years ago I built a sled that actually had the fence on the front side. It was easier for me to mark the top of the board and line that mark up with the leading fence end where the blade came through.

With the fence in the back your mark needs to be on the nottom front edge of the board and you need to lean over far enough to see the alignmant of the mark with the end of the bed of the sled where the blade came through.

Because I wanted more than a 90 degree cutting sled I bought a left and right version of these sleds about 10 years ago. They still work very very well. You can cut most any angle accurately and make repeated cuts accurately.

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Reply to
Leon

two things:

I glued a couple 5" disks of 220 sandpaper to the fence to cut down on any lateral slip of the workpiece.

Before I attached the rear fence, I routed a shallow (1/4") recess and screwed in a piece of ply. When it gets worn out, replace it. It's just a replaceable zero clearance plate, but it works extremely well.

Reply to
Joe

Oooooohhhhh - izat a Monkey-Wards RAS against the wall? I sure miss mine.

Reply to
Doug Winterburn

Good idea! I will do that to mine. Thanks

Reply to
Robatoy

Good idea! I will do that to mine. Thanks

If memory serves (and it rarely does), it was about 3" x 3"

Reply to
Joe

The three I use the most:

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saw sleds, about the fourth item down.

Reply to
Swingman

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plex is probably a bit thin (IIRC, 0.093"). I have thicker stock, but haven't replaced it.

Simple. Scrap. Free. Square. Works.

Johnson's Paste Wax on the bottom and on the runners.

I could surf Hawaii's North Shore on this bad boy....

Reply to
Neil Brooks

Fill your tank and head for Iowa, then. It's a spare and you're welcome to it.

Reply to
Morris Dovey

Hadn't thought of stops. Thanks.

Reply to
-MIKE-

I think you mentioned that in another thread and I thought it was a great idea, then and now.

miters.

Reply to
-MIKE-

I did that to the coping sled I made for the router table and it works wonders. I'd say it's a certain necessity for melamine.

Have any pics?

Reply to
-MIKE-

I like that 45-er. Wish I had the space to make several.

Reply to
-MIKE-

I just finished a new sled. Sorry, no pictures yet.

I added a couple of T-slots for clamping. The fence has a T-slot on top for a stop block and sandpaper on the front for when I'm too lazy to use a clamp :-). Also an extension for crosscutting long pieces.

Since I'm starting to do segmented turning, I added a mount for an auxilary fence in front of the main fence. It swings to whatever angle I need for the segments.

And as another poster pointed out, be sure the fence is *square* to the blade.

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

Make the fence adjustable to make squaring easier.

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Reply to
GarageWoodworks

There was an article in FWW (?) years ago about squaring the fence (it might have been "methods of work" or something simliar).

Once the sled is complete except for the back fence:

Attach the fence on one side with a screw so that it's free to swivel. Then swivel it away from the assembly.

Attach a piece of 1/4" plywood to the left side of the table of the sled, so that it extends an inch or so to the right of the blade. They used screws through the bottom of the table of the sled, upward into the ply.

Run the sled through the balde, and remove the plywood waste.

Use a good framing square, set up against the 1/4 plywood, and align the back fence to the sqaure. Temporarily clamp/attach the back fence, and run the sled through the blade again. Then make the usual test cuts and check for square. Make the micro-asjustments, then finalize the fence attachment and remove the plywood.

Seemed to work good.

-Zz

Reply to
Zz Yzx

IIRC some one steered or sent me drawings to make a similar sled. I'll be happy to see if I can find it and send it if you wish.

Reply to
Leon

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