So I’m resetting the rails of my generic 3/4″ plywood table saw sled to fit the saw at work and I messed up the alignment on the first try. It’s fixed now but my problem is I ran it past the running blade with it somewhat misaligned and now the kerf in my sled is about 2 blade widths wide. Instead of putting down a new thin floor and then recutting, I was wondering if there might be something I could just simply fill the gap with and then recut. That way I’d preserve all the height cutting potential the sled has that adding additional floor would take away from. So far I’ve thought of using either Bondo or regular wood filler. Whatever it is it’d need to withstand the blade cutting through it without chipping.
Any suggestions for a filler?
Replies
Just fill the gap with a strip of wood.
I think no matter how carefully you try and align an existing kerf on a sled to a new saw, you gonna screw up the zero clearance qualities of a crosscut sled. The main fence would need to be adjusted anyways, which is the most time consuming part of making a sled. I’d just make a new one.
Just filling with wood as advised above is prob the easiest route, although I might argue could be more time consuming than building fresh.
Save what you can and make a new one. To save the depth of cut use 1/2" ply instead of 3/4 with a hardboard skin and plan on replacing the skin occasionally.
Maybe instead of a crosscut sled you just inadvertently built a sled for dado’s???
Mike
Throw some 1/4" MDF on it. I do that anyway fairly frequently (plus the fence) since different blades don't have the exact same kerf.
Or glue in a strip of wood if the kerfs are parallel.
Thanks for the advice. I've decided to do a quick fix for this older sled and just make an entirely new one. Makes sense as the one I have now has no options, not even hold down clamps. This one deserves a retirement I'd say.
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