This is ridiculous....

[Rick Potter]

I am a championship tool junkie, having multiples of most tools, and I cannot finish off a porch without digging into my 'reserve' tools.

I am going to wrap 4x4 posts with plywood to make them look bigger. We will use spacers to straighten them out perfect, then rip bevels on 3/4" plywood and put them together using construction adhesive and biscuits .

This means I need to cut 7" wide by 8' long strips of plywood, then bevel both sides for 11 posts. That is 44 strips to bevel, on both sides. No way I can do it on my Felder slider, as it only has a 5' wagon, and I don't want to trap the cuts between the blade and fence, as it is a right tilt saw.

Can't use the Unisaw either, it is also right tilt, same problem. I cut off the fence rails on the left to install a Jessem slider, so I cannot move the fence to the other side of the blade.

Skill saw would do it, but that's a lot of hoping you can get 88 beveled cuts perfect enough to finish off the posts.

Solution....go to the 'reserve' tool department and break out my fathers old Craftsman table saw, which I have kept out of sentimental value, but never used. It hasn't been used in almost 10 years, but it is left tilt, and runs fine.

The sad part? It took me half a day to remember I had a left tilt saw.

Rick Potter

4 1/2 years into the remodel.
Getting older, but not smarter.

[Mike Heidrick]

Did you remember you have a left side of your unisaw and your fence can move to the other side of the blade?

[Mike Archambeau]

Sounds like a good application for a Festool track saw! Good luck with the project.

[Joe Mioux]

sounds like it is time to buy a left tilt sawstop. ;)

[Jason White]

Ditto.

Makita and DeWalt make them now, too.

Jason




Sounds like a good application for a Festool track saw! Good luck with the project.

[Monte Milanuk]

And Eurekazone long before either...

[Hugh Jardon]

What's ridiculous? Right tool for the right job, and that's what you have done.

[Charles Wiggins]

Did you remember you have a left side of your unisaw and your fence can move to the other side of the blade?

+1

Sometimes simple solutions escape me too in my rush to "get it done."

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Clamp an auxiliary 3/4" fence to your fence, with a 1/8" wide x 5/8" tall rabitt at the bottom. Place your plywood against the fence and mark the top edge on the fence. Tilt the blade, and while running, raise it into the fence, just below the line. It'll take a little bit of adjustment, be sure to lower the blade before moving the fence. Raise the blade enough to completely bury the carbide teeth. Do test cuts while adjusting to get just the right fence postion. You want a sharp point on the miter, but you don't want to see the blade cutting into the face. It's really pretty easy to set up, and shouldn't take more than 3 or 4 test cuts.

The goal is to cut the miter without cutting into the face of the plywood. The rabitt keeps the falloff from getting caught in the blade. You'll need even downward pressure over the blade for best results. I use rubber bottom push blocks, but a featherboard on the fence will work too.

I learned this in the production shop I worked at for the last 15 years. It's extremely safe, and gives excellent, consistent results. It's also really fast. Much faster than using a left tilt saw, imo.

[harry strasil]

just rip em normally with no tilt, then using another piece with a batten fixed to it and clamped under, use your router with a 45 bit and a bottom bearing to do the angled edge, reverse it and do the other side on each one, quick, easy and a true 45 edge.

[Bill Huber]

And you call yourself a championship tool junkie.....]

I think not..

A true Championship tool junkie would have gone out and bought a new left tilt table saw.:D:D:D

[Jason Rutkowski]

And you call yourself a championship tool junkie.....]

I think not..

A true Championship tool junkie would have gone out and bought a new left tilt table saw.:D:D:D


or a ts-55 Festool track saw!:D

[Ed Taylor Greensboro NC]

And you call yourself a championship tool junkie.....]

I think not..

A true Championship tool junkie would have gone out and bought a new left tilt table saw.:D:D:D

Or at least a Festool Track Saw. I'm still looking for an excuse to buy mine. SWMBO is watching me too closely!!!

[Peter Quinn]

Sounds like a good opportunity to put a power feed on either the uni or the felder. You can throw a piece of 1/4" material on the table between the blade and fence to raise the point of the first miter up off the table (so it doesn't try to creep under the fence as you would be ripping A face down), or you can clamp a beveled strip to the fence for the second pass so the point doesn't act as the bearing surface any way. And rip away. Maybe tape tape the cut line, and rip just over final width before beveling?

Last time i used my fathers old C'man was the last time I wan't to. I love him, but the saw not so much. Sounds like a fun project. I did a similar thing to my own porch using a polyurethane trim material with tape miters for the first three sides, worked great. I have a left tilt saw, so no tool purchasing opportunity for me!:eek:

[Kent A Bathurst]

.....Can't use the Unisaw either, it is also right tilt, same problem. I cut off the fence rails on the left to install a Jessem slider, so I cannot move the fence to the other side of the blade.........

Make a temp fence out of 4/4 or bigger - S1S1E, a couple clamps, you're good to go.

Also - people were doing rips like this on right-tilt for decades before the left-tilts were so common. Just gotta watch for alignment + kickback.

[Wes Grass]

Couldn't clamp a guide rail of some sort on the Felder table? Yeah, it'd be a bit tweaky to get set up, but some spacers to the rip fence to get it parallel should make that go pretty easy.

Gerry's solution of running the blade into a sacrificial fence sounds like the best idea to me though.

[Steve Mellott]

I use a right tilt saw for this type of cut all the time. If you are careful, I think it is a safe operation.

Steve

[Kevin Bickford]

Get an EZSmart Guide rail kit. You wont be sorry!

[brian c miller]

How about a lock miter bit on the router table / shaper?

[Scott Stafford]

You are my hero! You make me almost look normal. Almost!

Scott in Montana

[Dino Makropoulos]

Skill saw would do it, but that's a lot of hoping you can get 88 beveled cuts perfect enough to finish off the posts.

Rick Potter

4 1/2 years into the remodel.
Getting older, but not smarter.

Rick,
No tool like your brain.
This is a very simple job for a straight guide ( any guide, even wood)
Trap your CS the same way you saw with dado router jigs.
Using spacers on both ends, lift the jig 3/4" above the wood.
Your cutting line stays the same if you secure the jig with screws.
Slide your work piece under the jig and make few scoring cuts to perfectly align the work piece. Screw 4 stops.
Make the cut. reverse the work piece and make the cut again.
You have a perfect piece every time.

Here is a video that shows the same concept using a Bridge instead of spacers and sliding stops instead of stops made from scraps.
http://www.youtube.com/user/DikHarrison#p/u/4/3LgyejS7A5I

By supporting the saw ( trapping ) you have no problems with accuracy.
15 minutes to make a homemade jig that in your case is much better than
any saw guide.
Some times, few pieces of straight 1x4s can do the job better than any tool. Another thought is to use two long aluminum L shaped strips to trap the saw.

Here is a thought: I_(saw)_I
This method is even better than the one in the video for beveling cuts.
good luck.

[Bob Luciano]

Not to derail the tool portion of this but did you consider using PVC material to enclose the 4x4s. Adds your width and doesn't rot in the elements

[Neal Clayton]

but it traps moisture that gets behind it rotting something else.

unless you wanna build the whole house out of pvc...

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I second the buy a left tilt Sawstop contractors saw to do the cuts. A true tool junkie would already have one, and the back up that you didn't remember existed.:D

BTW where do you keep all the tools? Did you have to build a shed?

[Rick Potter]

A lot of well thought out suggestions here. Thank you to all of them.

Well, the old guy just went with what he is familiar with, and used dad's old sears table saw. I spent a bit of time messing with the original fence to make sure it was set up straight and true, then just ripped those suckers one after another, till the motor got a bit warm. It did the job accurately and quickly.

The pieces are already installed. We used bisquits and PL construction adhesive, shimmed out the 4x4 posts with OSB. and trued up everything. The posts are now exactly 6x6 and we made flat arches between them, routing a rabbet at the bottom of them to use masonite as the bottom of the arch.

Came out looking like we did it on purpose.


Rick Potter
PS: This work was done on my shop porch.
PPS: Dad's saw earned a spot in the shop. I will put one of those Beismeier fences on it, and keep a dado blade in it.