DON’T Build a Miter Station — Do THIS Instead

this is my miter saw about six months ago I was actually thinking about selling this not because I didn't need one not because it isn't useful but because it was such a pain to set up a scrap fence every time I needed to do repeatable cuts first I'd have to try to find a long enough piece of scrap too short but not too long too long then find the right size wood screws too short too long then attach it to the saw then clamp on a stopwatch oh come on I thought about building one of those miter saw stations you see everywhere on YouTube but I just didn't have the time the space or the motivation to build a giant Altar for a saw I just want to cut with it not pray to it but then I came up with an idea so simple so brilliant that it changed the way I used my miter saw it's an eye if you hear me it is my creation it's alive and over the next few minutes I'll show you how you can do the same for your miter saw any miter saw you ready let's do this thing [Music] hi everybody hola amigos Lee here from busted knuckle Woodworks today I'm showing you how to build this quick easy and versatile miter saw auxiliary fence it's adjustable it's configurable it's fast and easy to set up and remove and you can build this in under an hour using a few pieces of easily obtainable Hardware I'll link the parts I'm using in the description the first thing you'll need to do is get yourself a piece of 1 by 4 material about six feet in length that will allow for a two-sided fence with two feet on one side and four feet on the other I find that to be a pretty handy configuration but of course you don't need to build it that size you can build a single-sided fence if you like it could be four feet or three feet or two feet whatever makes sense for the type of cuts you need to make that will determine the length of the material you need I'm starting out with this piece of 1x4 primed MDF you can use any type of material for this as long as it's not bowed warped or Twisted since MDF is a manufactured product I can be reasonably sure it's true all along its Lane I'm chopping this eight foot board into two foot and four foot lengths we'll need to attach these to the existing miter saw fence as you can see this one has pre-drilled holes most miter saw fences come pre-drilled but some don't or if they do the holes are in a bad spot no worries you can drill a pair of quarter inch holes yourself these are just aluminum so no need for a special bit or anything if you do drill your own holes make sure to locate them in an area that's flat in the back and doesn't drill into any of these reinforcement ribs also make sure your holes are equidistant from the base the next step is to Mark the hole locations onto the boards I like to shim the boards about an eighth inch from the table this gives any sawdust a place to go so it doesn't build up in front of the fence let's go ahead and Mark which Edge is the bottom so we don't get confused we've done that let's bring these over to the router table we'll need to cut two grooves into each one three quarters of an inch wide and 3 8 of an inch deep to accommodate t-tracks I'm using the t-track itself to set the depth we'll want the first Groove to line up with the marks we made for the holes [Music] then we'll set up the second Groove for the t-track stop the distance from the edge of the stop to the center is three quarters of an inch so we'll Center This Groove three quarters of an inch from the bottom edge of the boards [Music] let's go ahead and mount these t-tracks I'm using 3 8 inch screws here this MDF is actually only 11 16. so a half inch screw would protrude out the other side if your material is an actual three quarters of an inch you could use half inch screws we'll slide these one inch quarter 20 t-bolts through the holes on the back fence [Music] then Loosely hold them in with these one inch quarter 20 through knobs don't tighten these down quite yet Slide the rear t-track onto the t-bolts position the fence where you like then tighten the knobs in the back finally Slide the inline t-track stop onto the front t-track and you're done [Music] all right [Music] there are a few other options you could add to something like this like a tape measure I don't use one because this auxiliary fence is movable so a tape wouldn't really be practical unless you had a way to re-register it every time you put the fence on and besides I have trust issues so I always measure manually anyway foreign [Music] quick easy really useful it gets the job done and we didn't have to build a ridiculous Cathedral for us all let me know in the comments what you think of this and if you plan to build it yourself hey real quick my friend Jared Wilson and I have a new woodworking video podcast it's called the new cranky workshop and we'd love to know what you think of it check out an episode right here and visit the channel for links to where you can get the audio version I'm Lee from busted knuckle Woodworks see you in the next one adios amigos [Music]

Channel: Busted Knuckle Woodworks

Views: 616,910

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Id: gP7AVmdyzlM

Length: 7min 0sec (420 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023