Thread: Home Made Table Sleds Question.

make a second sled. The zero clearance is one of the benefits of using a sled

Just making a rod for your back trying to make a sled do double duty.

Thanks guys for the wise counsel. I suspected that would be the case but always good to check.

If you are making small boxes make a small sled. My little mitre sled will take wood only about 150mm wide
and with mitres you need a clamping systen so the timber doesn't move

A good point Nick, many thanks.

Here's the sled I use for cutting 45degree mitres. It doesn't look like much but it incorporates an old idea that makes it amazingly accurate.

Here's how its used. First, the left hand mitre is cut by placing the workpiece against the sloping fence on the right hand side. Length doesn't matter at this stage, just as long as its long enough with a bit of spare. Slide it through to make the cut, then make sure you chalk-mark the end just cut - you will need to know which is which later.

Then the workpiece is placed against the sloping fence on the left hand side. The length stop is adjusted to give the exact length required. The workpiece is pushed up against the stop and the cut made.

Then repeat for any other piece that needs to be cut to the same length.

If you are making a rectangle rather then a square, move the length stop and cut the other size pieces.

When all your pieces are cut, assemble, making sure all the chalk-marks face in the same direction.

This works because the only measure that matters is that the two fences are exactly at 90 degrees to each other. This is easily done with a square - you can see the bolts on the left hand slope where I occasionally readjust it to 90 degrees. Therefore there is a slight tolerance built into the system should, for example, the tablesaw alignment be out. If the sled or blade alignment are a bit out the corners will always add up to 90 degrees - even though one might be 45.1 degrees and the other 49.9 degrees. That's why its important to always mark the ends - you don't want to join a 45.1 end to another 45.1 end.

It also doesn't matter if the blade is not quite vertical - the angles will compensate each other when the frame is assembled.

Note also the movable stop makes sure all lengths are the same. If there is any variation in length then it has the same impact as cutting inaccurate mitres.

The other items on the sled are just a blade guard and a handy ruler.

I have lots of home-made sleds and jigs for separate jobs - over 40 of them in fact - so I don't make them flash. Just mdf and if they are lucky a spray of lacquer. I usually find they don't last long before I've come up with a new idea or better way of doing something and remake them. This mitre cutting sled is a keeper though.

Making dedicated jigs and sleds is the key to productivity - removing fussy time-consuming setup tasks and turning critical measures into non-critical ones.

So yes, make another sled.

cheers
Arron

sled.jpg

Originally Posted by Arron

If the sled or blade alignment are a bit out the corners will always add up to 90 degrees - even though one might be 45.1 degrees and the other 49.9 degrees. That's why its important to always mark the ends - you don't want to join a 45.1 end to another 45.1 end.
sled.jpg

Oops, just realised it should be 44.9 degrees, not 49.9 degrees.

cheers
Arron

It's certainly possible to cut both angles on one sled. As the photos show, you just turn the sled around to cut whichever angle you want. This one started out as a trial but I've made about sixty boxes on it so far and it's good enough that I can glue up the box straight off the saw and achieve excellent mitred corners. It is about time I replaced it with something just a tad larger now. This suits my little Ryobi saw with it's mitre slots on one side of the blade but the principle would work fine with a bigger table saw using just one guide rail and a wider sled.
IMG_2429.jpg

IMG_2431.jpgIMG_2426.jpg


I'm a newcomer to the Forums so hopefully I've added photos correctly as it's not entirely clear to me just how to do this. If these don't work I'll have another go.

Rex