Thread: Bandsaw log cutting sled

This has been on my todo list for some time.
I was going to use some 19 mm melamine but recently I picked up some 6 mm thick Al plate and thought this might be good to use.

The base plate of the sled and the T-track for the log end gripper plates are all 800 mm long
The blue bits are 2mm thick angle iron


Here it is with a 500 mm long log


This shows how the back of the main fence and the distance from the blade adjustment knobs.


One disadvantage of Al is it does not like sliding on cast iron so I lined the underneath of the base plate in contact with the BS table with some HDPE sheet and that slides really well
The T-Track slide is made from 1 m long 2 x 24 mm steel flat bar attached by CS screws through a mountain ash strip into the Al base plate.
The resulting slide has minimum slop but requires a firm/positive push to move it.
Hopefully with time and a little wax it will required less force.

The T track slide that fits in the BS T-track is 1m long so it still holds the sled positively onto the BS table when the log clears the blade.


The log end gripper plates are also made of Al plate and adjustable for position along the pair of horizontal T-Tracks.
There is enough slop on the T track to allow for a bit of angle to accommodate non-square cut logs.


The grippers themselves are just pointed 6mm steel bolts.
If the bolts were just threaded through the 6mm thick plate Al plate they could not be tightened very hard without stripping the Al thread.
To get around this, the holes in the Al plate are drilled and tapped to 12mm and fitted with a threaded steel plug with a head.
Tightening the bolt against the log thus applies the force against the steel plug head which makes it a lot stronger than just a 6mm Al thread.


I started to make the plugs out of brass in case the blade hit one but seeing as the bolts are steel I figured the plugs could also be steel.
I could have used short 12mm steel bolts as plugs but I was too stingy and so ended up turning then out of 16 mm bar. This took way longer than I thought it would.

I will also make a small pair of log end gripped plates to use on smaller logs.