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Dedicated 45 degree mitre sled

10K views 14 replies 5 participants last post by  mnorusis 
#1 ·
Intro

Since I now have a "real" table saw (thanks Timbo!) and my current project is going to call for a mitred "frame", I decided now is a great time for a 45 degree mitre sled. Thanks to RKW's mitre sled project (and thanks to RKW for answering my additional questions), I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do.

Some info and decisions:
1) I enjoy working with tools that look as nice as the projects I work on, so I'll use leftover "nice" wood for all of the parts of the sled. That isn't to say there is anything wrong with an mdf table saw sled, as long as it gets the job done that's what matters most, to me personally there's just something about working with things I've made that I feel look nice as well.
2) I want to build as much of the sled as possible and purchase as few parts as I can manage.
3) I want each side of the fence to be 24" (plus some extra so that stop block can actually be positioned at 24")
4) I'll build t-slots into the fence to take stop blocks and put some measuring tape on them for accuracy.
5) I'll also add t-slots into the main sled base for hold-downs

To start, I milled 2 left over pieces of curly maple and squared them up (amazing how easy that is with a real table saw, did I mention I got a new table saw this weekend, thanks Timbo!) Final dimensions 10"x35"x 3/4" thick. I joined these together with pocket hole screws to get the main table of my sled at 20"x35".



For the mitre slot rails, I have a good sized board sitting in my wood pile that I'm fairly sure if lignum vitea, but for some reason I keep wanting to say it's ipe. (It's amazingly heavy for it's size and very very slick right off the table saw. If you can tell from my awful pictures what it is, please chime in. I'll get a better picture of the board for the next post) I ripped a 3/4" strip off the side of this board, and then flipped that piece and ripped that into 3/8" pieces, giving me (2) 3/4"x3/8"x(more than long enough) mitre rails.

Finally, I laid the rails into the mitre slots on my table saw, brushed on some 5-minute 2-part epoxy (what can I say, I'm not very patient sometimes) and laid the board on top of the rails, doing the best I could to line up my centerline on the main sled base with my table saw blade and making sure the bottm edge is lined up with the edge of the table saw. (I'll be adding a "frame" to the sled towards the end, so I'm not horribly concerned with it being deadon center).



Sadly, I don't have any 3/4" screws to finish attaching the rails to the sled (and I found out fairly quickly that I can't sink 1/2" screws in far enough to hold the rails on) so it's off to the store at lunch time tomorrow for some screws to finish up the mitre rails.

After that, I'll get to work on the fence part of the sled.
 
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#6 ·
Hey Mike, Good to see you have the saw up and running! I also need to make a 45 miter sled, once you get the sled sliding smooth apply some paste wax to the bottom ( and the saw top ), really helps the sliding action.
 
#7 ·
Rails and Fence

This evening I finished up the mitre rails by counter-sinking 3 @ 3/4" screws into them from the bottom, making sure they were not protruding so they don't scrape my mitre slots.

After that, I ripped a strip of walnut into two long pieces about 30" long and 1 1/4" wide. These will be used for the 45 degree fence. Since I want to be able to run stop blocks on the fence, I put a t-slot down the middle on the router table. The t-slot bit I purchased only cuts the wide part of the T, so I had to cut the channel that the shaft of the t-bolt runs down with a 1/4" straight bit prior to cutting the wide T part. I cut the channel in 3 separate passes down to the depth I wanted and then made a final 4th pass with the t-slot bit. Once that was done I made a 45 degree cut using the mitre gauge that came with my table saw on each fence piece so that the fence can be positioned correctly. (this cut doesn't need to be dead on, as long as we align the fence properly later)





With the fence pieces all set, I used a couple of squares to layout the fence in the general location I want it. This doesn't need to be dead on yet, as I'm not mounting it at this stage, but I do want to know generally where it is going to go. So I laid it out and then traced the outside edge.



With that guideline in place, I marked off where my pocket-holes screws are and then drew layout lines for the t-slots that my hold-downs t-bolts will slide into.



(sorry, that's a pretty terrible picture, the lines are really tough to see, if you click through you can see them a bit better in the larger version).

Tomorrow I'll (hopefully) get the t-slots cut for the hold-downs and probably cut the stop blocks while I can still use the fence pieces to set my table saw blade height since they won't be mounted onto the sled yet.
 
#12 ·
Fence and Stop Blocks

Before installing the fence, I needed to rout the t-slots for the hold downs. I did this by just clamping a straight piece of hardwood to the sled to use as a fence for the router.



Here's a picture with all of the hold down t-slots done



At this point I went ahead and pushed the sled onto the saw blade to have a guide for where the saw will cut.

Then I used the pieces of the fence to set my table saw fence and blade height, to cut out the notches of my stop blocks. Sorry I don't have pictures of this part. But you really just cut out a notch so the stop blocks will ride on the fence properly.

With that done, I laid the fence out where it was going to go on the sled. Since my sled corners are dead on at 90, I initially used my large carpenters square to place the 2 pieces of the fence at a 45 degree angle to the sides (which geometry class tells us also puts them at 45 degrees to the top edge of the sled).



I then traced pencil lines, removed the fence and put down glue.



Then placed the fence where it needed to go. First by using the carpenter square to get each piece at 45 degrees to the sides



At this point I also made sure the fence point was as close to the center of the saw kerf as I could get it.

Then, I used the largest precision square I have to ensure that the 2 fence pieces were dead on.



I continued going back a forth checking each piece vs. its respective side with the carpenters square, making sure the fence point was at the center of the saw kerf and using the percision square to ensure the fence was right at 90 degrees. I adjusted each fence piece as necessary and stopped when I went through that series of checks 3 times w/o adjusting anything.

Finally, I placed a piece of plywood on top and then a large piece of concrete on top of that since I couldn't see a great way of clamping this down w/o messing everything up.

Once the concrete was in place I then proceeded to re-check all of the above to make sure nothing had shifted. Everything checked out w/o needing any adjustments, so there it sits to dry overnight.

I think I'll probably put some screws through the underside of the sled into the fence to make sure it can't move at all.

Then I'll make my hold downs and use the sled to cut a frame to put around the maple.

Almost done…
 
#15 ·
Hold downs and measuring tape

Just some minor details attended to for this update.

First, I cut out some hold downs to use in the t-slots I cut in front of the fence (shown without the t-bolts)



Then I applied the measuring tape I bought from woodcraft to the top front edge of the fence. This actually worked out very well as I can line up the part of the stop block that runs along the top side of the fence with the measuring tape. Woodcraft sells both L-to-R and R-to-L measuring tape in 6' and 12' lengths. I decided to just purchase one R-to-L 6' measuring tape and use it for both sides. I applied the first 30" strip to the left side, as that's naturally the side I cut on 2nd, and will most likely use that side to place the stop block for final measurement/cut of each mitred piece. Then I just made sure to start the rest of the measuring strip at the next foot increment on the right fence (which happened to be 3 feet). Since there are red numbers 1 through 12 for each foot, this really won't be an issue, and saved me from having to buy another whole strip unnecessarily).



At this point I realized I don't have the necessary pieces to make a frame around the sled (I probably do but will need to wait until my current project is finished to see what is left over). So for now, this project is done. The last bit to do is to just apply some paste wax to the bottom of the sled and put some eye-hook onto the front edge to be able to hang the sled on the wall.

I used the sled to cut some scrap 1×2 pine for a sample frame and it came out perfectly. Using opposite sides of the fence to cut adjacent pieces for the frame results in a perfect 90 degree angle.
 
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