Table Saw Pattern cutting

This is a technique I read about somewhere a few years ago. I definitely did NOT come up with this myself.

I was making a pair of down and dirty dressers for a client today when it hit me how useful and fast this is. I thought it was worth taking the time to snap a few photos and share with anyone who might not be familiar. I use this technique all the time!

You can use this technique for cutting a straight line on any material even if it is not parallel or perpendicular to any other referenced edge.

It all starts with a auxiliary fence – Shop made from 3/4 ply. There are only 2 important features. 1. the face of the fence is held above the saw table by at least the thickness of the material to be cut. 2. You build it in such a way that the fall off has a place to “Fall”. Here’s a photo. Notice the space to the right of the blade. There are about 3 inches between the blade and the real fence. Plenty of room for fall off.

The second part is setting the fence. The idea is to set the auxiliary fence so it’s lined up EXACTLY with the edge of the saw blade (in essence, absolute zero) Here’s another photo.

Now to the stock – Once you figure out where you need to cut, the idea is to fasten a straight edge exactly to that line. (any piece of straight wood – 3/4 anything is fine as long as it’s straight). I keep a piece of plywood 3/4X4X48” handy for this specific task. You can either nail it to your workpiece or use double sided tape. both work fine, but I tend to use brad nails (don’t sink them all the way so you can easily pull them out). The holes are easy to fill if you need to.

Finally to the cutting – All you need to do now is turn on your saw and run the workpiece through the saw with the straight edge up against the auxiliary fence.

If you set the fence exactly even with the blade, you’ll have a perfect cut.

Once you have your aux fence made, keep it close by. You’ll use it a lot! The whole process is VERY fast and VERY accurate. I mostly use this method for cross cutting plywood that is longer than 24” (my TS rip capacity) and wider than my cross cut sled can handle (20”). But I also use it for cutting any non-square cut. Think about how your bevel guage could be used in tandem with the straight edge and you open up a whole slew of possibilities.

Thanks for reading – I wish I could give credit to the person who wrote the article I read so long ago. It’s really helped me a lot!

Bob Bronner
RI Woodworking.

-- Bob B - Warwick, Rhode Island