Thread: table sled

as a temp solution i would use a straight piece of wood or aluminium and clamp them in place for the right width as a fence, or if your good enough you could make a wooden sled with a rail system on the edge of the table.

If the edges of the top are smooth and parallel to each other, and to the blade disc, you can make a simple crosscut sled from a piece of MDF sheet (12-19mm) by attatching a solid timber guide under the sheet firmly against each of the table edges. This can be done by screwing the guides through the sheet from above and allowing the screw heads to pull into the sheet until slightly below flush with the surface.

Then screw a peice of timber to the top of the sheet at the end that will meet the blade first. Ideally this would be something in the order of 150mm high and 35 thick, and the width of the sheet. Screw it from below the sheet, making sure that there are no screws within 25mm of the blade position, as you will cut part way through this peice and the sheet, and don't want to find a screw with the blade. This part ties the two sides of the sled together after the base is cut. Because you would not normally be using this to reference cuts, it does not need to perfectly square to the cut line.

With the sled off the saw table,raise the blade to about 50mm above the table, position the sled on the table at the infeed end, fire up the saw, and cut about 2/3 of the way along the base, using the blade you intend to use for crosscutting. This will leave a zero clearance kerf in the sled base.

Finally you need to mount a second piece of timber at the operator end of the sled, similar size to the one at the front. This is the reference fence that you align your work to, so it needs to be straight, and as close to square to the kerf in the base as you can get. If it is out a little, you can adjust it by repositioning a little, or by adding a second thinner piece in in front with shims between the parts to get it spot on.

By their very nature, sleds generally involve removing guarding from the saw, so consider ways to buid some guarding into the sled. Options include a block at the back of the reference fence to conceal the blade at the end of the cut, and a wide acrylic strip from front to back over the kerf line to keep hands clear and limit material being thrown at your face.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

thanks every one for the advice i have learned a lot