Ⓕ Make A Table Saw Cross Cut / Miter Sled Combo (ep58)

hey guys welcome back I'm Nick for the longest time I've wanted to make myself a table saw crosscut sled not only for safety but accuracy and repeatability but why stop it just a crosscut sled when I can add an insert and make it a miter sled - you guys want to see how I built it stick around I started the project with three quarter inch Baltic birch plywood bringing that over to the table saw I could cut all my pieces to size starting with the base and then moving on to cutting my front and back fence pieces I could then apply a liberal amount of glue to my pieces that were going to be my front and back fence I smooth all that glue out and put it into some clamps any extra glue squeeze-out can be cleaned up with a chisel then head back to the table saw and cut these pieces to their final size the front fence needs a three quarter inch by three quarter inch rabbet along one of its edges that I took care of with two passes over at the table saw here you can see that extrusion fits nicely into that rabbit that top track extrusion I could then just cut the length over at my miter saw and here's where I got a little bit picky and went through a couple different fastener types until I finally found the one that I actually liked they all would have worked but I'm just picky about how things look I guess I settled on a washer head style sheet metal screw you can run those throughout the length evenly spacing those but where the saw kerf is leave room about three inches on either side of the saw kerf I didn't do that but you'll see why later that comes in handy I opted to use these aluminum miter slot runners because of their adjustability and you don't ever have to worry about wood movement you could use hardwood if you chose I adjusted those so they sat in the miter slot really nice with no side-to-side movement yet they slid in the miter slot nice and easy using a couple spacers in my case I just used some dimes I elevated the miter slot runners up so that they were proud of the table saw surface that way when I went to apply some CA glue I made sure that I had good contact again if you're using hardwood runners you can just use regular wood glue in this case setting the plywood in place couldn't be any easier I had the runners nice and flush with the table saw top on the front and then I just set the plywood so it was flush with the table saw top on the front as well it isn't critical at this point that you have it perfectly square just so that everything's flush in the front you should be fine I should also mention that I did an offset from the center of the plywood to the saw kerf it was to the left of the saw kerf by one and a half inches I'll explain more about that later once the glue had cured that I could just flip it over and install the screws to secure it permanently I like to pre-drill drive in my screws but then tighten them by hand so I don't strip them switching gears and moving to the back fence I laid out all of my lines that I was going to cut over at the bandsaw once I had all my curves cut on the bandsaw I could move over to my oscillating spindle sander and make sure everything was nice and smooth and sanded down to the line I also eased over the top sharp edges with a 1/8 inch roundover bit over at my router table with my sled base in the miter slot tracks over at the table saw I then raised my blade towards the front and back just so that the saw blade protruded through just a small amount this was going to give me reference to where my blade kerf was going to be so I could lay out my dedos for my miter slot tracts the distance for the miter slot tracks isn't necessarily crucial but I did go equidistant from the blade kerf in either direction this is more or less me investing in my future some other projects that I have ideas for and jigs that are going to take advantage of those slots being equidistant from the blade itself then I could cut the aluminum extrusion for the miter slot tracks to length over at the miter saw again I pre-drilled the holes for the miter slot track and I used number six half-inch long wood screws I clipped about an eighth of an inch off the end of those so that they didn't protrude through the bottom of the wood at all the neat thing about these aluminum extruded miter slot tracks is that a quarter-twenty hexagonal bolt head fits in the track nicely I was going to need a place for those bolts to enter and exit in the rear fence I cut a couple dado slots about an inch and a quarter tall inch and a half tall I used some painters tape to try and minimize any type of tear out or chip out because my dado stack isn't the sharpest in the world if I were to redo this I would probably use a backer board or just make these cuts over at the bandsaw because you could go about another quarter or maybe 1/2 inch taller to allow for some longer fasteners in the future once that's done you can secure that back fence so that it's just flush with the base of the sled doesn't necessarily have to be 90 degrees to anything this is more or less for stability with that back fence in place then I just raised my blade as high as it would go and made about 90% of the kerf cut throughout the whole sled I left a little bit hanging on yet at this point I began laying out for my miter sled insert being my whole sled was offset to one side of the blade I was going to have to notch out my back fence slightly with my miter gauge set to 45 degrees I could then make my first cut into the fence I followed that up with a rip cut stopping just shy of the original blade curve I could finish cutting that piece with a handsaw and then cleaning it up with a chisel this is ultimately what your piece should look like to avoid any inaccuracies I wanted to allow for sawdust to have a place to go when I'm using the sled itself so I put approximately a 1/8 chamfer on the bottom inside edge of my fence are then pre-drilled for one screw to secure the back fence this was going to act as a pivot point for when I went to go calibrate the sled using a square go ahead and Mark the location of this hole so that the mark will be visible once the fence is installed using a framing square I tried to get that fence is 90 degrees to the blade as possible it's not super critical that you get it exact at this point but just try and get it as close as you can to 90 then clamp it in place pre drill and countersink a hole and drive a screw in to secure the other end of the fence in place we'll be adjusting this shortly then I can continue the soccer completely through the sled this is where I should note if you have a flesh sensing technology saw you're not going to want to cut through this aluminum without putting your saw and bypass mode so make sure to do that or else you're going to trip the brake on your saw I then remove that top track and widened out the hole so that when I'm not in bypass mode I don't have any of that conductive aluminum anywhere near the blade to fully adjust and calibrate the sled I was going to employ the five cut method the best way for me to try and describe the five cut method is get yourself a piece of wood it doesn't matter what size it is however the bigger your piece of wood the more accurate it will be your first cut and go ahead and label that edge one or cut one make a small cut and then rotate it clockwise you're going to make another cut and rotate it once again and then continue all the way through until you've made a cut rotated and then made a cut until you arrive back at your first original cut that you marked is number one or in this case we're going to call it cut five slide your piece about an inch doesn't necessarily matter how much to the right make your cut now you're off cut you're going to set that aside your major piece that you can just get rid of for now you're not going to need that anymore the top portion you're going to want to measure that for width in my case point seven six nine inches the bottom portion measure that and subtract it from your first one mine was point eight zero three inches which resulted in me having a negative point zero three four inches divide that by the four angles that are in your rectangle or square and I came out with a negative point zero zero eight five take that number and divide that by the length of your fifth off cut and then you multiply that the distance between your pivot screw and where you're going to make your adjustments in my case I had a negative point zero one zero inches or ten thousandths if it's a negative number you're going to want to raise your fence up on the adjustment side a positive number you're going to want to adjust it down using a scrap piece of wood that's cut to a point I put that on my mark and get my feeler gauge and everything clamped into place that way when I unscrew my fence I can move it forward the thickness of that ten thousandths feeler gauge once I have that move forward I clamp that in place and I drill a brand new pilot hole and countersink for a screw to go in to secure the fence at this point I wanted to we'll check and make sure that everything was accurate I moved everything the appropriate amount so I employed the five cup method once again and I ended up being only four thousandths off over the 25 inches I know some people say they want to get within 1,000 I'm not that particular and in fact I did a small test here with a scrap piece and with my machinist square sitting in front of some light you can tell this thing is as square as can be and that's definitely good enough for me and being the sled has only the blade curve to it if you use a sharp blade you get almost zero tear out to your pieces now using my random orbit sander I sanded the base of the sled down to 220 grit and then applied a nice coat of paste wax to the entire bottom and you can see here this thing slides really nice and there's zero side-to-side movement then I went to apply the tape measure I set my stop block at basically zero inches and that's where I started I could apply the tape measure and lay it all down and then double check it by moving the stop block over to exactly one inch then you can see from my view finder that I was off just a hair I can loosen up the screw holding the viewfinder put it back to my one inch mark and tighten a screw back up please note that when you're working with self-adhesive tape measures like this your stop block is going to have thickness that thickness is going to then translate to the either the left or the right side of the blade so your zero mark isn't going to start at the kerf and that'll be dependent on whatever type of stop block you're using I opted to use this Craig swing stop I like the feature that it swings out of the way so you can square up your material and then you can swing it back into place and then your stop blocks ready to go once you cut your tape measures to length I just used a file to file everything smooth and ensure there was no burrs or any place that I was going to catch myself using some sort of straightedge clamp to my fence to maintain it's nice and straight I added a couple more screws from the other side to secure the fence permanently I could then square off the ends on another piece to start working on my miter sled insert I laid out everything by hand however if you end up getting the plans from my website all the measurements will be included in there and then brought that piece over the bandsaw and cut just to the waste side of the line you can notice a shim here in my table saw sled because I wanted the kerf line to match up with the pencil line on the piece that I was about to cut once I cut that edge I could then just rotate my piece counterclockwise and knowing that my table saw sled is square I could cut my triangle nice and square then I marked out the location to drill the holes to secure the miter sled in place inserted some bolts and some star knobs as well I'll have links to all the parts I used in this project in the web article and I'll have a link to that article in the description of the video below then I could rip a couple pieces to width to act as fences for my miter sled insert then switch back to my 3/4 inch dado stack I could run a groove 3/8 inch deep in both of my fence pieces then I screwed in and secured my remaining miter slot aluminum tracks then I cut them to length with a 45 degree miter on both of their ends I used a backer board to minimize how many burrs I had on the aluminum with those pieces cut I could then drill and screw those pieces in place into my triangular miter sled at this point I had the miter so that they were touching in the center I thought this would be a good time to cut those back as well about an eighth of an inch on either side and once again this only has to do if you have a flush sensing saw you don't have that there's no problem cutting through that but definitely make sure that you're not cutting through any aluminum if you're not in bypass mode if you have one of those songs not that your hands should be anywhere near where the blade comes through on your miter sled I still didn't like how the blade was protruding through so then I cut a piece of scrap wood to a 45 degree point and then used a smaller chunk to act as a back using a little bit of CA glue I just glued these pieces together and then glued the whole assembly in place going back to the crosscut sled portion itself I had to address the issue of the blade protruding out of the back when making cross cuts I decided to just make a small box that will get screwed on to the back of the sled here you can see those two screws that I had put in earlier that I would have just left those out had I known what I was going to do for a blade guard after removing those two screws I could drill it through hole to let me know where the screws supposed to go countersink those holes clamp my new blade guard in place and just drive a couple screws through to secure it in place I also added some chamfers to the blade guard itself in the meantime I just cut out an X shape out of some masking tape and then put that on top of the blade guard to act as a stencil then you can go ahead and get out a four year old can of red spray paint realize that that explodes all over your hands and then just hand paint the red X in place I noticed through using the sled already that I want to slide it between my fingers and the sharp edges on either side of the sled aren't necessarily the most comfortable in the world so I used a quarter inch roundover bit in my trim router to ease those over so where I'm grabbing the sled it's a lot more comfortable to use than just using some wipe-on poly urethane I wiped that all over all the bare wood well there you go I'm going to mark this one as complete I have been wanting to build this for a long long time and I'm just so happy that it's done and I finally got it over and well you know what I really am enjoying it already I've made a few cuts on it and yeah I went a little bit bigger than a lot of table-saw sleds out there but I wanted to make sure I had 24 inches at least of capacity in case I was going to do any type of cabinets you know the sides I had to square them up or or cut them to length I want to be able to make sure that my sled could accommodate that does well who's not going to be building anymore shop cabinets but yeah I just like I said I'm just super happy you don't have to go as fancy or is it elaborate as I did but I looked at it like I've been wanting a sled for a long time and it's not one of those things to where I'm going to use it and it's going to go sit on the shelf I'm probably going to use it on a daily basis or at least every other day so I wanted it exactly how I wanted it I wanted it to look nice as well I mentioned earlier about the offset how the the base is actually to the left of the blade off of Center by about an inch and a half the reasoning behind that is because I'm using this swing stop and the swing stop will go 14 inches to the left of the blade at this point and then to the right it only does about 10 inches if I were to make those even I'd have a small area than a measurements I couldn't get to about a half inch of measurements I don't know if that makes sense but so I can go 14 inches to the left and if I need to go anything longer than 14 inches I go to the right and then I just put a little block on my fence and slide my fence over and that essentially acts as an extended stop and that way I can just run it through like that and then I have basically however far my fence goes that's the distance now that I have for my stop and then back to the miter sled which I thought was a really cool part or a really cool feature but most of your frame material that you're going to do is going to be 3/4 or 1 inch thick which is totally fine and this will accommodate this because of that notch that we made in the fence if you do have anything that's a little bit thicker and it doesn't want to get around there all you have to do is take a piece of wood that you know that the two edges are parallel put that in there slide it back then secure your miter sled in place and then you miss the fence completely I could have designed it like this but then that miter portion is hanging so far forward and you're bending over and I got a bad back to begin with so but I think that worked out really nice and I think that with that knotch that's going to cover about 90 maybe 95 percent of my cuts that I'm going to make frames for or anything like that well that about wraps it up that's all I have for you on this one I had plans to make some additional jigs to utilize this in more ways and those who are hopefully becoming in the future so if you're new here I encourage you to hit that subscribe button I pretty much do build videos every week and if this is something that you want to tackle or if there's some parts and stuff like that I will have all the links to all the aluminum and the star knobs and all that stuff over on the web article at Nick Fury comm and I'll have the link in the video description for that and if this is a video that you liked make sure to smash that thumbs up button I appreciate that or if you have any questions or comments leave those down below and until I see you guys next time you guys take care

Channel: Nick Ferry

Views: 3,776,126

Keywords: nickferry, ferry nick, table saw, table saw sled, crosscut sled, miter sled, Do It Yourself (Hobby), ultimate table saw sled, perfect mitered panels, small table saw sled, perfect miters, how to make a cross cut sled, how to make a cross-cut sled, woodworking table saw sled, table saw sled plans, nick ferry, woodworking cross-cut sled, 5 cut squaring method, how to make square cuts, build a table saw sled, woodworking shop jigs, best table saw sled, sierra de mesa trineo

Id: ZtwK9X8o1Gw

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/joelav]

Nice work and great video. I like non-ghetto workshop jigs. This is very non-ghetto.

[u/WarmackWW]

Great video! That is the best explanation I have seen on how to square up the crosscut sled fence.

[u/somethingfortoday]

Very nicely done, and great explanation of the five cut method.

One observation. Instead of making holes in your back fence to slide in bolts, you could stop the miter track a half inch or inch from the fence but keep the dado full length. Then you could just slide the bolts to the end of the track and lift them out without fighting the back fence. I don't think you will ever find yourself using the miter track past the mid point of the sled.

[u/grantd86]

Honest question do you get the hardware donated for projects like these? I see a lot of magazine shop projects that are just loaded with hardware and im starting to see it more on the you tube channels I follow too. When I price out that hardware I just have a hard time justifying most of it. Good job on the build.

[u/LeatheL]

That's a great sled. I like the kreg stop blocks and tracks. How much did the blue color influence your choice?