Poor man's sliding table... Dumb idea?

[Eric DeSilva]

I need to trim down an end grain glue up and even out the sides on my TS--its a 12" x 18" cutting board that is 2.5" thick. Top and bottom have been flattened, its just the pieces making up the long side are slightly uneven. One side is good enough to run along the rip fence, so I can straighten the bad edge, and maybe then rip a hair off the good side for good measure.

But, it started me thinking. What I really need is a sled that has a miter bar on the bottom so it runs in the miter slot, and some kind of clamp on the top to hold down the cutting board. Align it, clamp it down, then square cut. You could build it out of 3/4" ply or something, and even run a couple aluminum tracks 90* to the miter bar on the top to allow you to arbitrarily clamp something to the sled.

So what am I missing? Is this a dumb idea for some reason? I've seen a billion pictures of virtually every TS jig you can think of, but don't think I've ever seen anything like this.

[Dewey Torres]

What is stopping you from building a standard TS dual runner sled???

[Eric DeSilva]

What is stopping you from building a standard TS dual runner sled???

Have one. I guess I was thinking that the ability to position something arbitrarily was useful. Dual runner sleds also seem generally fairly narrow; seems like this could be used to make something longer. My sled is a good 2' wide, but that doesn't do you much good when you want to rip something w/o a straight reference that is 2.5' long...

[Dewey Torres]

I must be misunderstanding you. I thought you cutting bard was only 12” x 18”?

[Charles Trout]

I think you want a panel cutting jig, like this?

http://www.cabinetmaking.com/pages/panelcutter.htm

There are many different sizes and styles. A quick search should yield tons of info.

[Rod Sheridan]

http://usa.felder-gruppe.at/?page=maschinen_details&xat_code=b8042d772562d0288281&parent=e3ca6caa3236803d8882


I think one of the above should do the trick, and you don't even have to make it yourself!

Regards, Rod.

[Eric DeSilva]

Think panel jig, but without the squared front (obviously means one runner only). To take it to an extreme, say you had a circular piece of wood, or something really bowed, and you wanted a straight cut on one side. Is there a safety issue with making a sled that has one runner that you could clamp the piece to, rather than pushing against a rip fence or the front/back fence of a panel cutting jig. I can make the cut I need to (either with my panel jig or, for that matter, the rip fence)--I'm just wondering whether anyone used such a thing and whether anyone saw any issues with using one.

As I think about it, the problem I see is that it would be most useful if you could do really long rips with it. The problem there is that your miter runner then has to be really, really long as well. Maybe that is the answer.

[Eric DeSilva]

I think one of the above should do the trick, and you don't even have to make it yourself!

Yup. Solves all the problems, except for the "poor man's" part.

Maybe I should phrase this differently. Anyone ever built a cheap sliding table for their TS?

[Bill Huber]

What you are talking about is a jig somewhat like a tapering jig. You put the board on it, clamp it down and make one side straight.

In fact you could just use a tapering jig to do it if it is large enough.
Here is my tapering jig, now if you just think of it as being much wider you could do just what you want to do.

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/taper

106680

[John Schreiber]

Another approach would be a variation on a "straight line rip jig." Basically, it means attaching your workpiece to a straight edge, using anything from clamps to screws or duct tape, then running that straight edge along the fence.

Try Goggling Straight Line Rip Jig and you will see some examples. It's really quite similar to Bill's tapering jig above.

Another idea is to use a hand held circular saw and a guide.

[Eric DeSilva]

What you are talking about is a jig somewhat like a tapering jig. You put the board on it, clamp it down and make one side straight.

Bingo!

I take it yours is designed to run along the rip fence?

Seems like a good design...

[Jason Beam]

Yep - I built one like it a few years ago. It's my favorite way to taper :)

[Bill Huber]

Bingo!

I take it yours is designed to run along the rip fence?

Seems like a good design...

That is correct, it runs along the fence.

But you can do the same thing with a rail it you need the width.

[lowell holmes]

I have the sleds, but I prefer my Incra miter gage. I have a perfectly square board that is 1 1/4"X3"x36" long attached to the miter gage. The gage rides in the slot to the right of the blade. My cast iron top and extensions are waxed with Johnson wax and very slick. I can cut large panels safely and accurately. There is no fricton to deal with. The blade will pass through the auxilary miter fence and the kerf makes cutting to a line exact.

A sliding table is the only thing I can think of that is superior. :-)

[Steve Rozmiarek]

http://usa.felder-gruppe.at/?page=maschinen_details&xat_code=b8042d772562d0288281&parent=e3ca6caa3236803d8882


I think one of the above should do the trick, and you don't even have to make it yourself!

Regards, Rod.

Hey Rod, I have one of those jigs, and I have to say, it works VERY well!

[Joe Chritz]

For the project at hand a crosscut sled would be over and one with and moved on to the next part.

If there isn't any straight edge and no other way to get one I would use a version of the straight line rip jig or a guided saw. There are a number of ways to attach that I just happen to go for cheap, a simple 6" wide, 8 foot long piece of plywood with a straight fence of scrap attached. That sits on the board and rides against the fence. If you widen the fence and flip it and add some destaco clamps you have what you described only it rides against the rip fence.

You could add a runner but I don't see what that gains you over running it against the fence.

Joe

[Mitch Barker]

I had to cut some compound miters for sides of a jewelery box. I came up with a sled that allowed complete flexibility in setting up the fence, stop blocks and holdowns. Believe it or not I get very repeatable angles by simply drawing a line on the panel and visually aligning the fence to that line. It's probably as accurate as a "Dubby".

I cut the slots with a "T" shaped router bit. I used a grinder to shape the heads of 3/8" carriage bolts so they slide in the T slots. In general routing your own slots is much cheaper than buying T track, and you can add slots to any piece of wood.

I attached some pics (first time trying this)

Mitch