Miter sled for cutting bowl segments

I made this miter sled for my son-in-law, who is expanding his turning interests into segmented bowls. The basic plan for this sled came from “Segmented Turning” by Bill Kandler. This book is available from Bill at www.segmentedturning.com . The width of the miter sled to the left of the blade, and the depth, can be changed to accomodate your particular saw’s table. However, all the critical cutting action takes place in the upper right hand corner. Here, you should keep the dimensions as per the plan. I made the sled out of 3/4” Baltic Birch, although other flat and dimensionally stable materials can also be used.

With the blade perfectly alligned with the miter slots, and a sharp crosscut blade, the angle of the fence can be tweaked to the last hair’s breath of an angle. I made four fences; for six, eight, ten, and twelve sided segments. Note my “air tight” assembled segments.

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A standard type clamp is used to hold the stop block in place on the far right side of the fence. It of course can be moved to create segments of various lengths. Note that I have added a toggle clamp on the fence, just to the right of the blade, as some segments are cut in very short lengths.

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According to Kandler, segments cut on this sled seldom require additional sanding.

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"