The simplest table saw crosscut sled on YouTube. Essential woodworking shop project.

hey i want to thank you all for your interest and enthusiasm about this series of essential woodworking jigs as the collection is growing i decided it would be helpful to keep all of the plans and instructional videos in one place so that you can refer back to them whenever needed they're all free over at myshopjigs.com of course i'll still be posting all of these videos here on youtube one of the most common cuts to make on a table saw is a cross cut unfortunately the only tool for making cross cuts that comes with a table saw is a miter gauge on a lot of saws you get something like this and don't get me wrong you can usually get by with these and make cross cuts that are good enough for most projects but there are some problems with miter gauges first they're usually just a little too small and can leave a lot of the wood unsupported attaching an extension fence can help it will support the left side of your board and also lets you attach a stop block for making repeated cuts but the board you use for the extension might not be perfectly straight and can be somewhat flimsy plus you're only supporting one side of the cut another problem you might have encountered is trying to cut a board that's just a bit too wide to fit on the table so you have to pull the miter gauge almost completely out of its slot introducing a lot of instability and leading to a sloppy cut but the biggest issue with miter gauges is accuracy since they're designed to be rotated to various angles they might not always lock back in at that perfect 90 degrees for a cross cut a big improvement would be an aftermarket miter gauge like this one from incra it has a built-in extendable fence and a pretty good system for locking the miter back into place but again you're only supporting one side of the cut and finally your cuts could be affected by any play that might be in the miter slot since it only uses one of your saw's slots a cross cut sled addresses all of these concerns and is one of the most useful accessories you can make for your saw with a well calibrated crosscut sled you can be assured of perfect 90 degree cuts every time without having to adjust anything it has two runners one for each miter slot to assure that there's no wiggle both sides of your work piece are supported and its zero clearance curve gives you much cleaner cuts with less tear out you can safely cut small pieces without fear of them dropping down into your sock and the best part is that you can clamp a stop block anywhere along the fence on either side of the blade for making repeated cuts now of course you're still going to want to keep your miter gauge for making well miter cuts but you're going to be surprised how often you use your sled and how well it takes the guesswork out of making perfect 90 degree cuts every time like any woodworking jig there's a million different kinds of cross-cut sleds with different features i've made these in all different sizes but i find this size is at least a pretty good size for most table saws you can easily modify yours to any size you like based on this design one of the most common features you might want to consider adding is an adjustable stop block i've included these before but honestly i find that a clamp and a scrap of wood works just as easily just as quickly and is just as accurate as with all of the projects in this series i've kept this sled as simple and basic as possible to encourage new woodworkers to make one i want to start by making the runners that are going to fit into the slots this needs to be a really good fit not too tight not too loose you don't want any wiggle in there but you also don't want it so tight that you can't slide the sled through so it's just going to take a little bit of trial and error until you can get two good runners there's a number of materials you can use to make runners you can use plastic or what i like to use is quarter inch plywood you can also use hardboard or masonite that works really well too what i don't recommend using is solid lumber if you use any solid wood it's likely to expand and contract slightly due to changes in humidity and it'll make the sled really sticky and hard to slide or too loose [Music] this is the fit i've got right here if you have one of these t tracks like this you don't want it to go all the way down to where it might go in there because when i'm using this sled it's actually going to be up here flush with the top it feels like i could go a little bit looser i think i'm going to slide it over just a hair yeah that's a lot better i recommend using three quarter inch plywood for the sled i'm making mine 16 by 30. i'm going to glue the runners to the bottom of the sled to do that i need to drop them into their slots but they need to be raised up slightly proud of the surface of the table so sometimes i've stacked coins in there you can use like folded sheets of paper or cardboard or i'm gonna use some nuts this time with those in place i want to lower my blade all the way down out of the way next you need to decide where you want to position your sled on those runners whether you want them right in the middle or off to one side or the other i think there's kind of advantages to the different ways if it's over this way it's going to give you a lot more support for longer boards most likely that would be on this side but you won't have a whole lot of room on this side for clamping stop blocks you might want to put it over this way because you have a lot more room for clamping stop blocks and that's probably where you would put those but for this cross cut sled i think it just makes most sense the most sense just to kind of split the difference and put it right in the middle so what i want to do is bring my fence over so that i can square it up so on this sled that's about nine inches on each side of those runners so i can slick shut square it up and lock that in place another thing you'll notice is that i cut these runners down to size that are a little bit longer than the depth of this board that's just going to make it so i don't have to try to line up those edges right with the edge of this board i'll cut those to size once they're in place so for now all i need to do is put a little bit of glue on these runners i really don't want to put so much on that it squeezes out all over the table saw i'll line this up with the fence and then just carefully drop it straight down onto those runners like that i'll put some weight on it to hold it in place while the glue dries okay the glue dried for a little over an hour take this off those look good and remove my nuts and now i can test this out whenever i've made these in the past i've always reinforced these runners with a few small screws but i really don't think that's necessary as long as you've got a good glue bond going all the way across those runners they should be fine so i'm not going to bother with any screws on them of course if you want to go right ahead use any kind of a hand saw to cut the ends of these runners flush i'll use three quarter inch plywood to cut out four two and a half inch wide strips for the front and back fences [Music] i'll glue these together in pairs i should be able to clamp both pairs together at once with both of those fences dry i just need to clean up these edges a little bit and square them off i'll just shave a little bit off of each side i'll cut these down to the same width as the sled now i can drop the sled into place and just make a partial cut [Music] about halfway through the board is fine i need to remove my riving knife just for a moment now i want to raise this blade up to there i'll glue this rear fence into place i'm not really sure if this is called the rear fence or the front fence i guess whatever you want it to be i'm going to call it the rear fence and call the one closest to me is the front fence so this one this rear fence doesn't really have to be square to the blade does it really matter but i like to square it up anyway so i'll just use a square and use my blade as a guide thing you want to make sure that you're doing here is that the blade isn't touching one of the teeth it might be sticking out and getting it offset so make sure that it's not hitting the teeth and then i can line this up i'm just gonna let that sit for a minute or so just to let that glue grab then i can clamp and screw it in place honestly i'm not really sure why i square up this rear fence it doesn't make any difference at all save yourself the trouble just glue it in place and then you can cut through it i just want to wait long enough so when i put these clamps on it doesn't slide around the important thing is whenever you put screws on the bottom of this make sure that they're countersink that they're not sticking up now it is critical that this front fence is exactly 90 degrees to the blade that's the whole point of a cross cut sled so this one doesn't get glued in place in case you need to make adjustments on it with that back fence installed providing support for this split i can extend that cut closer to the front i want this front fence to be set forward about two inches the again the exact measurement doesn't really matter and i'll square it up with the blade just like i did the back one and at this point it doesn't need to be perfect [Music] it's pretty close and i'll just draw a line where i want that to go now i can do is bring this whole thing back off the edge of the table keeping this exactly where it was and if it moves a little bit i can just line it back up with that line and i'm not going to glue this down i'm going to install a single screw on one side just to act as a pivot so that i can adjust it now i can pull this back forward and raise my blade up a little bit like that now i'll be able to use my square again making sure that i'm not resting on the teeth and square this up with that carefully slid back making sure i haven't moved it i want to clamp this in place [Applause] now i can slide this forward and double check that i've got it square spot on so if it's not square you've got plenty of room there to add additional screws just remove the one screw make a minor adjustment and add an additional screw another thing you might consider is making more of a slot on this plywood base rather than just a hole and then that'll give you enough room to maneuver the fence back and forth a little bit as needed and then i like to put a couple of additional screws making sure that i've got some close to that slot to help provide support there [Music] i'm cutting out these strips to make a couple of safety features i'll cut this strip down into three pieces using my crosscut sled i've just set up a stop block here [Music] so what these are going to be used for is to kind of keep my fingers safe when this blade goes all the way forward i don't like the way that blade sticks out especially once it cuts all the way through so these will just kind of remind me to keep my fingers out of the way and this let the blade get buried in those i'm going to screw these into each other rather than glue them just in case i ever need to replace or adjust the fence and finally i'll screw these two strips into place these two strips give the sled a little extra support and they serve as a reminder where to keep my fingers and finally i like to apply some paste finishing wax to the runners and the bottom of the sled just so that it slides a little bit easier you just wipe this stuff on and then let it dry for about 10 minutes and then buff it off

Channel: Steve Ramsey - Woodworking for Mere Mortals

Views: 797,113

Keywords: woodworking, woodworking project, how-to, DIY, easy woodworking, steve ramsey, WWMM, Mere Mortals, The Weekend Woodworker, woodworking plans, Free plans, wood, making, building, makers, hobby, weekend projects, Weekend Woodworker, power tools, tablesaw, table saw

Id: 0sdm_Ow-BTU

Length: 16min 12sec (972 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021