Greeting,
I would like to build a better crosscut sled for my ts on these forums I been reading a lot about crosscut sleds. The one I would like to try to build is the one Rich has made pr any other suggestions would help. These are the things I would like to no right now my base is 30 inchs wide and 21 inchs deep I made 2 halves at these sizes how long do you make the runners and how wide and thick.
I’m useing1/2 inch baltic plywood, what is the best way to screw the runners into the base and what thickness and width for the fences and what is the best way to screw them into the base. Also what about squareing the fence to the blade. If Rich or someone else can help I sre would like that.
thanks
Steve
Replies
Let me tell you about mine, and others can critique the thing. In it's simplest form, it's very inexpensive and very fast to build.
1) Make or buy a runner. I ended up buying a 24" Incra Miter Slider for my final version. Other folks will no doubt talk about making wooden ones, but my sled relies on a single runner so I wanted it to be as good as possible.
2. Cut the plywood to whatever approximate size you want.
3. Measure the distance from the right side of the blade to the right miter slot.
4. Attach your runner FURTHER from the edge of your plywood than the distance you measured in step 3.
5. Set the sled in place, and make sure there's no play between the runner and the slot, but it still slides smoothly.
6. Back the sled off the front of the saw, raise the blade, and slide the sled through the blade, cutting off the left edge of the plywood. You now have your reference edge.
7. Take whatever you want to use for the fence (I used a glued-up poplar beam) and attach it with a single screw through the bottom of the plywood.
8. Square the face of the fence to the reference (left) edge of the plywood. I used a 24" framing square after verifying that it was as perfectly square as I could detect.
9. Attach the rest of the fence in place.
10. Make a cutoff support for the left side of the blade. It could be as simple as a piece of plywood the same thickness as the sled, clamped in place.
That's it. I build my first one in maybe an hour. My second one, much bigger and rather more feature-rich, only took a couple of evenings. I'll go take some pics...
did
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Here's my first one - pretty small at roughly 10" crosscut capacity, with the sled part about 24" wide. The runner is just poplar, cut and planed as needed to slide smoothly.
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Guess I should add the pics...12 is the whole shebang. 13 shows the blade gap. 11 shows the stationary offcut side.did<!---->Cure Diabetes - Whitefish, Montana, 2007!<!---->
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Steve,
A good, general-purpose sled is the size of the cast iron table itself plus whatever extension "wings" are on the saw. The length of the runners should be about the same as the front to back dimension of the saw table.
Fences should be approximately 2 x 6 material, narrower at the ends than the middle.
For the construction technique I described, make the runner width about 1/8" less than the width of the miter slots. Make the dados in the underside of the sled about 1/8" wider than the runners. A 1/8" deep dado is enough if you're using 1/2" Baltic Birch for the sled body. Go a little deeper if you're using 3/4 inch material.
Glue the runners into their dado slots firmly against the inner walls of the slots with a bead of PVA glue. The full width of the runners can be left about half unglued to allow the runners to expand laterally as needed. Some of the glue will squeeze out under the full width of the runner. That's ok.
The runners ideally should be quarter-sawn or rift sawn, but it really doesen't matter too much as the design of the sled accomodates expansion of even flat sawn stock.
To square the fence to the blade - first the saw itself must be accurately adjusted so that the blade is parallel to the miter slots. The sled is assembled and the front fence (farthest from you) is glued and screwed in place. The rear fence is assembled without glue, but with one screw at each end. Adjust the fence as close to square as you can to the blade, using a framing square or tri-square. Tighten both screws moderately tight. Real accuracy comes with the next steps.
You'll need some 1/4" material such as panelling or hardboard. Prepare 2 pieces about 15" square. One side of each piece must be trimmed true and straight. Call this edge Side 1. Place one piece on top of the other, with both Sides 1 against the rear fence, to the left of the blade and trim a little more than a blade width off the right hand edge of the two, simultaneously, holding them both tightly together and against the fence during the cut.
Turn the saw off.
Flip the top piece over to the right as though opening the back cover of a book, keeping its Side 1 against the fence. Both cut edges now are against each other. Any deviation of the cut from perfectly square will be magnified by a factor of 2 as determined by the mating of the 2 cut edges. If they mate perfectly all along the cut, the fence is square. Most likely they will touch at the near or far edge, creating an angle between the edges.
Adust the rear fence as needed to counter the angle of cut. Use a pipe clamp to pull one side or the other of the fence toward the front of the sled. Don't grab the front fence with the clamp, use the corner of the sled body for purcase. The screw hole in the sled body will enlarge slightly as you force the fence into position. Retighten the screw a bit if necessary at the end of the fence you're moving.
You may need to make several test cuts and fence adjustments to get the cut to be perfect. When it is, slide the sled toward you until the fence clears the near edge of the saw table, keeping it carefully in place on the saw. Drill and counter sink 3-4 holes up through the sled into the fence on both sides of the saw kerf. Drive and tighten screws in the holes on the left side of the fence.
Carefully loosen the single screw at the right end just a bit, don't let the relationship between the fence and the sled body shift, squeeze glue between the fence and sled, tighten the screw and drive and tighten screws through the remaining prepared holes.
Loosen the screws in the left side of the fence slightly, squeze glue under the fence, tighten the screws.
Attach a block to the fence at the rear of the sled to contain the blade where it emerges as you push the sled forward.
Use the sled.
Rich
Edit: This all seems like it's more complicated than it is. Read it through a few times. It's really simple. One of these days, I'm going to prepare a series of images to show the construction.
Edited 3/22/2007 6:34 pm ET by Rich14
RichMy sled was one of the first jigs I made for my shop, and it works great. Have you ever made one with the fence bolted to the base as Gary Rogowski does in his FWW article? I made mine as you did, glued and screwed from the bottom. It does sound much harder than it is. Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
Tom, No, I've never bolted the fence on. Rich
And here's my big 'un - I can crosscut up to about 22" and the sled side is 36" long. The fence is 48" long with about 8" of it extending over the offcut side, and has a Rockler T-track in it with a stop for repeating cuts. The toggle clamp is kind of a hand position indicator - keep my hand to the right of the clamp and I'll still be able to count to ten at the end of the day. The row of screw heads is the attachment for the Incra slide; there are also 3 holes to access the width adjustment screw heads in the slide.
14 is the offcut side (the block at the end is the backstop, so I don't slide the sled back too far). The offcut side has a poplar runner that fits very tightly in the miter gauge slot - it has to be kind of smacked down, and won't slide.
15 is the sled without the stop in place on the fence.
16 is the underside of the sled. I used 1/4-20 flathead screws into threaded inserts in the fence for attaching the fence.
17 is the clamp and the face of the fence where the blade buries.
18 is the whole shebang - covers the whole top of my saw.
19 shows the sled pushed all the way through a cut.
did
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