Thread: Table saw sled runners - what to use

Hardwood strips for mine worked great. But now I have a sliding table instead of a crosscut sled...

Check out adjustable shelving tracks. Not sure if it will work with your "T" track but it works great in my table saw. I made a large sled for the table saw and made it to last. My runners are aluminium but I have seen narrower shell types which may fit the "T" track.

Have looked at the elcheapo solution of cutting board but the stuff is not really thick enough and goes brittle in time and the powders as it slides. Go with the UHMW as a better solution.

With regards sleds - give a thought to where the blade exits and how to avoid any problems.

If it helps I have included mine.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f153/sled-68703/

Have a look at this. I like the 5 cut method for squaring it up as well

How to Make a Cross-Cut Sled - YouTube

Rob

Originally Posted by Arron

Hi. I often make tablesaw sleds and jigs. The difficult bit is usually the runners - the things which run in the T tracks and keep it all straight and square. Most of the sleds are just rather rough jobs for tasks that I do ocassionally, and thus don't warrant the time and cost involved in sourcing the store-bought runner material. Are there any DIY solutions ? Does anyone have a sneaky, back door way of making runners?

I was thinking of buying a pe chopping board from the local 2dollar shop and slicing that up ? I wont get very long tracks though, so maybe there is a better source.

cheers
Arron

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i built my sliding table fot my table saw using as guides two pieces of aluminum flat bar (1/4" x 3/4"), which i got from a local "metals supermarket" supplier.
here in Toronto, home depot has them too, but more expensive.
both my Bosch and Delta saws have 3/4" wide mitre slots.
in order to "tune up the width" of the bars, i used steel wool, which created a smooth slide.
a tip of Trewax completed the task.
the good of it (i believe), is that it is temperature independent.
i recommended this same approach to a friend, and he mentioned to me that the bars he got wer too narrow, but he "tuned up" adding tiny layers of aluminum duct tape.
good luck.

Originally Posted by NCArcher

Don't mess around
3/4 x 3/8 x 24" = $9
Polycarbonate Sheets & UHMW Polyethylene Lengths : CARBA-TEC
I bought 4 a while ago and they are great. I have countersunk holes drilled along each length. I just take them off a temporary jig and reuse them next time.

ditto.....

I also bought 4 lengths, 2 are permanently on one of my sleds and the other 2 have migrated around my temporary sleds ... until 1 of them got cut up recently to be used as slides on the computer desk!

fletty