I was working with some nice teak paneling and needed one more small piece to finish the job. But the only piece left was from the scrap pile and both long edges were uneven. I wanted to trim the piece to size using my tablesaw and rip fence, but the bad edges made this unsafe.

Looking around the shop for options, I spotted a sheet of rigid foam insulation board with straight edges. I taped the teak panel to the insulation board. Then I used the foam as a sled to rip a nice straight edge on the paneling. Once I had one good edge, I removed the foam sled and ripped the other edge of the panel to bring it to final finished size. The tape and my hands worked well to hold the panel securely on the sled, but I wouldn’t recommend this for long workpieces, which may be hard to control.

Jim Richey

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