Homemade stop block

[Dave Anthony]

The other day I was cutting some 3/8" stock for some small boxes. I have a Jessem sliding table I use for crosscuts. The corners were to be 45 degree miters, and I found I got a clean cut with no tearout or left over material only if I cut with the mitered side down (right tilt saw). The diminsions were 6 1/2" by 4", so in order to get a clean grain match I needed to cut a miter, flip the stock keeping the same side down, cut 4", flip, cut the thinnest possible miter, flip, cut 6 1/2", flip, miter, flip, cut 4", etc. I was making multiple boxes which I wanted to be the same size to enable mixing & matching of lids. The problem was I only had one stop block. Looking at the stop block that came with the slide, it appeared that even if I had a second one it wouldn't help much, as they wouldn't be able to be set within 2 1/2" of each other. This is what I came up with. For some reason I'm inordinately happy with this, possibly because it was made entirely with stuff I already had. Typically I wind up going to the hardware store, buy the wrong thing & have to go back. It's solid, doesn't flex, rotates easily, & can be reversed for left or right hand operation. And yes, I did cut the fence, though that was when I was cutting miters in another dimension :).

[Lee Schierer]

Nice stop block. There are times I could use a second one on my Kreg crosscut guide.

I thought things that happened in another dimension stayed in that dimension. :D

[Mike Harvey]

Dave,

What a great money saving idea since I'm sure Kreg doesn't let these things go for free. Now tell the SO that you should be allowed to reinvest what you just saved yourself by making due with stuff you had.. <Grin>..

Mike

[Cory Hoehn]

Looks great. I've been wanting to do this for my router table fence. Did you use a t-nut to hold the bolt in place?

[Stephen Edwards]

Looks great. I've been wanting to do this for my router table fence. Did you use a t-nut to hold the bolt in place?

That's what I was wondering, too............

[Dave Anthony]

The pivot bolt screws into a 1/4" - 20 threaded insert. The 1st version had a screw for the arm pivot. This worked, but the bolt & insert is much better. I think the hold down bolt was an extra from a toilet repair kit. It was pretty long, I cut it down with a hacksaw. The commercial version uses an oversized nut. The tee bolt isn't quite large enough to prevent it from spinning, but it's not a problem - just pull up a bit on the wood block when tightening.

[John Thompson]

Clever idea Dave... although I build my own stop blocks mine are not flip stops and frankly just never thought of making them to flip so... I will probably take your lead and build a flip stop as soon as the current piece of furniture I have working is complete.

Again... clever thinking on your part.

[Stephen Edwards]

I agree with John, very clever idea for a flip stop block. It appears to be much more simple to make than other shop built versions that I've seen. Thanks for sharing a great idea with us.