My New Lean & Mean Miter Saw Setup | The Best Fence Wing System

foreign truth guys you will not make money in production  carpentry without a good miter saw setup just   set up a new miter saw new wings for a guy that's  going to be helping me out kind of an apprentice   wanted him to be as productive as possible and set  up for Success right out of the gate this is the   stand and Wing configuration that I went with I'm  going to walk you through it show you some of the   advantages disadvantages and why I went with these  Wings first thing whenever I want to set up a guy   with a miter saw I want to make sure he has the  tools on the miter saw to set them up accurately   and efficiently I cut a lot of baseboard and a  lot of crown trimming new homes one of the most   important things we need is auxiliary fences that  are going to be higher than your factory fences   the factory fences that come with a saw only come  up to yay high with these auxiliary fences they're   nice and thin but it's going to allow you to cut  crown and five and a quarter baseboard vertically   and give you that extra height that you need  now I've been buying these auxiliary fences   from Custom fabricating solutions for years  for my miter saws notice that recently they   have these new saws these new auxiliary fences  that are notched out got a set here I gotta say   I don't think I'm going to prefer these over the  fences that go all the way up the reason being   a lot of times I cut shorter pieces of baseboard  and Crown and I like to have this support as far   out here as I can obviously with these being  notched out you've got a little bit more room   for your saw actions where it's not going to be  hitting but just wanted to show that pick your   preference on my personal miter saw that I use I  have some of the the material removed up here so   that the miter saw doesn't hit like you see right  here but this is a little bit too much for me so   anyways custom fabricating Solutions whether you  get either of these that's an essential setup on   a production miter saw in my opinion next thing  to talk about zero clearance insert so you guys   obviously have seen DeWalt sells their own  zero clearance insert with their saws it's   not perfectly flat and obviously it's pretty wide  going across here it's a big safety addition if   you install a zero clearance insert like this  on your saws gives you a very flat continuous   support across here for whenever you're cutting  really small pieces and also the groove is very   small I've cut this in going down straight and  45 in both directions and that's the width of   the groove that you get from the blade there so  those are two really key additions to the actual   miter saw itself that I do to any miter saw to set  it up for Success quick plug custom fabricating   Solutions also sells these zero clearance inserts  again I've bought from them for years they make   great products these are really reasonably priced  I've purchased a much more expensive cauliflower   insert which is made out of aluminum it's got  its advantages too but this is a fraction of   the price for one of these inserts so you can get  the auxiliary fences or the zero clearance insert   custom fabricating solutions.com so let's look  at these aluminum Wings these are made by fast   cap they're called their fast cap Best Fence  Wings fun fact my very first miter saw setup   that I use for production carpentry my wings were  these two fast cat Best Fence Wings used them for   a few years they worked really well ultimately I  ended up building my own custom wings but they're   a fantastic system you will notice These Wings  that you see here on this saw are actually longer   now the reason I went with longer  wings I wanted to be able to cut   casing legs for doors and just have a little  bit additional length to use with my stop block   so let me just show you real quick some of the  key features there's a built-in steel tape on here   it's extruded aluminum you'll see you've got a  t-track on the back side here they also have a   version of this that this t-track is built into  the surface so you don't have this lip up here   you can get two different versions on these keep  in mind if you do want to order a custom length   with longer or shorter tracks you can do that you  just need to specify that whenever you make your   order okay so let's talk about some of the key  things to look for in a productive miter saw setup   first thing is continuous support whenever you're  cutting pieces you want to have support all the   way down you don't want pieces falling down on the  floor because you push them too far or something   like that I hate these miter saw setups where you  only have one support block here and One support   block a little bit further down continuous support  just makes life so much nicer honestly I don't   think I could hardly even work without continuous  support on a miter saw for very long it would just   drive me nuts so if I want it I also want my guys  to have the same thing so that's one of the key   things continuous support dovetailing with the  continuous support obviously is the ability to   have a stop block going the whole length of your  support wings so here I've got my stop block   and I can move that the whole way down and have  full adjustability because of the t-track that's   built into the wing so that's another key thing  we want continuous support want to be able to   use a stop block the whole length of the wing  now another handy feature is having a built-in   tape measure on the wing itself here on the base  of the saw you'll notice as I come down here this   side of the tape measure starts at about a foot  that is important because for me to use my stop   block accurately I had to calibrate the tape  measure so that it was a bit further down you   will notice though whenever we come down here  to this tape measure on the left side I have   the tape measure starting at zero that's really  handy especially let's say I want to Mark a piece   of mitered casing I can just line up the inside of  my miter here see I want a 10 inch piece and then   I can just use this tape on the saw and Mark 10  inches that saves movement I'm not having to pull   my tape off of my side or the back of my tool belt  and it's also nice just to be able to reference oh   I need a piece 20 inches long oh this piece is 32  inches long just a handy thing to have that built   in there next key thing gotta have as a production  Carpenter on a miter saw is your crown stop for   crown molding we want to be able to cut crown in  a nested position because that's the best way to   do it we all know it anybody who cuts crown on  the flat doesn't know what they're talking about   just kidding um just wanted to ramp up the comment  section A little bit feel a little love down there   anyways crown stops fast cap makes their own  crown stops these guys right here they clip   onto the bottom of the saw and lock into place  like so so neat little things you can also use   this as a longer material support if you take off  this plastic piece up here what does this allow   you to do it allows you to attach a board to the  front of these and then run it across your saw so   you've got continuous support for crown stops  let me pop this off again they just pop right   into place I've had those forever I've barely ever  used them now back in the day whenever I was using   these uh fast cat Best Fence wings I found that  I like to use a plywood Crown stop going across   the saw like so you'll notice there are holes in  this Crown stop that's to be able to bolt this   down you'll see I've got a couple holes drilled  in these wings that was from fastening my crown   stop to the wings like so so that's kind of what  I'm envisioning for this setup I haven't drilled   those holes yet but if we need a crown stop this  is kind of what I'm picturing the wings do have   to move forward sometimes if you're using doing a  larger Crown not that big a deal but that's what   we've got here Crown stop also a very important  feature of a good miter saw setup okay next key   consideration how fast is it to set up and tear  down first off the way the wings attach onto the   saw it's very quick to pop them on and off not  difficult at all it's got these brackets here   they kind of lock into place not a big deal  to put the wings on and off at all the other   key thing I think about is how many trips is it  going to take me to transport this saw into the   job site and with the size of These Wings and the  size of the stand and the saw I figure it's going   to take two trips one carrying the saw and you can  probably get the stand and the wings in one trip   although it's going to be a pretty heavy trip  back in the day I used a Festool capex with the   ug carton wings that was the ultimate setup for  finals you could have your saw your stand and your   wings all in one compact footprint that you could  actually roll around also unfortunately I wasn't   a huge fan of the 10-inch blade on the capex and  the motor issues we won't get into all that this   is a bigger setup to trade off haven't found  a perfect miter saw set up yet but this isn't   too bad a lot of you guys know uh obviously I've  built my own custom miter saw wings that kind of   have everything that I want on them and those are  really designed with me in mind because usually   once I set up my miter saw on a custom home it's  sitting there for a month at a time I do have to   go back to jobs and do punch lists and finals  sometimes but for the most part my focus is   being actually on the rough trim stage for this  saw my helper is going to be doing a lot more   finals baseboard and shoe molding so it needs to  be a little bit more portable easy to set up fast   to set up and tear down and also a little bit  smaller size so that he can transport it in his   vehicle better my custom miter saw wings are huge  and they're heavy so this miter saw setup is more   of a middle ground for for me personally it can  handle the production work being on site in that   rough trim stage but it's also nice to work on  for that final trim stage where you're doing a   lot of shoe molding and stuff like that with these  Best Fence Wings there's a variety of different   mounting options unfortunately for all the options  that there are none of them are really great but   going back a long time my original setup I used  the DeWalt bracket and then Festool has their own   little blocks that you can add on top of the  DeWalt brackets that your wings will Mount to   also what I really liked as well back in the  day I used the Festool capex miter saw which I   absolutely love how you can connect Wings directly  to the side of the saw on the capex so this little   Gadget here is designed to be used with the capex  it would clip onto the side of your miter saw and   then the wing would attach onto that that brings  me to where we're at present day unfortunately   still not a great solution I've got these  expensive mounting brackets underneath here so   here we are spending a bunch of money on miter saw  Solutions I'm sure you guys have the same struggle   this is fast caps I guess best thing that  they can give us to mount their wings to so   slides into place it's got tons of adjustability  each one of these is like at least 80 bucks if   not 90 bucks so it gets kind of expensive pretty  quick they are highly adjustable though they are   pretty solid and these just stay on the SAW stand  all the time so whenever you collapse it down here   you'll see these two will just stay like so you  can move them back and forth up and down all   kinds of stuff not a great solution but that's  what I'm putting on this saw guys one thing I   almost forgot to mention that really annoyed the  Daylights out of me whenever I purchased these   stop blocks was I bought these set the saw up I  went and I put my wings on and then I found out   that the fences sat higher than the table on the  miter saw what I had to do was add about a quarter   inch or 5 16 worth of washers right here I've  got their fast caps adjusted all the way down   and the only way to make these Wings work so that  they didn't sit higher than the miter saw base   was to add that quarter inch of washers right  here between the miter saw base and the DeWalt   brackets keep that in mind I don't know what  fast cap was thinking the way they designed this   it's really annoying that brings us around full  circle to what is this miter saw setup actually   going to cost I was curious just to put everything  together and see what it was I just bought this   DWS 780 from Lowe's for 500 bucks that's a cheaper  price than it has been in the past usually at 600   the DeWalt stand 230 bucks unless you manage to  get it for free on one of the sweet Deals they   have occasionally the wings the actual aluminum  extruded Wings about 300 bucks I might have paid a   little bit more since I got longer wings precision  adjustment blocks these things absolutely kill you   about 90 bucks a piece you figure 400 bucks for  four of these blocks with tax auxiliary fence 80   bucks for these guys zero clearance insert 20  bucks grand total 1530 dollars for this whole   miter saw setup to me time is money if I can buy  something get it set up in a relatively short   period of time and put it straight into production  that's worth a lot whenever I've built my custom   Wings it takes a long time at least a day in the  shop to build them that's money plus the expense   of the materials so all in this is not too costly  I think it's a decent value overall so hopefully   you guys have enjoyed this video I love talking  miter saw setups this is a fun one I'm looking   forward to seeing how it works in the field I'll  be sure to let you know as we get it kind of   dialed in and put it through its Paces but thanks  for watching hit that like button subscribe throw   me a comment let me know what you think appreciate  you watching and we'll see you in the next video thank you

Channel: Insider Carpentry - Spencer Lewis

Views: 155,413

Keywords: insider carpentry, finish carpentry, miter saw wings, dewalt miter saw, miter saw stand, dewalt miter saw stand, fast cap best fence, best fence wings, miter saw station, production carpentry, carpentry tools, dws 780 miter saw, best miter saw

Id: 4-98WaWtMEI

Length: 16min 39sec (999 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 03 2023