Table saw- major upgrade

[Bruce King]

I bought this Northstate saw used about 10 years ago and got tired of the small extension tables that I built a long time ago. I decided to make a major transformation since I was in between projects and needed a new fence anyway. I picked up a stack of birch plywood seconds for a good deal and got some melamine sheets and a roll of iron on edge banding. The table is three sections with lag bolts for adjustable feet into plywood beams underneath.

The old setup is pictured along with several pics of the finished table.
It has so much storage now my shop seems larger than 24x40 now. I am now in the cleanup stage to redo the whole shop.

I spent a lot of time setting up the incra fence and reading between the lines. I actually made some improvements to the way it slides and locks and have it setup for 60 3/4 max cuts. I like it once I got used to it. I can see where shorter people would not like it, you have to reach over to loosen the knobs when changing from one preset stop to the longer one.

One challange I did not think too much about was cutting all that sheet material on a saw that no longer had any tables on it. I had to use several roller stands and a lot of muscle to get all of the parts cut. Its basically stick built, one piece at a time to figure out how to fit around the fence rails etc. and to have height adjustments available on the whole thing. I was busy on other things so it took about 6 weeks to complete.

The inspiration for this all came from reading posts on here about table saw upgrades so thanks for the help guy's!

[Steve Griffin]

SWEET!!!

If you find yourself between projects in the future, please feel free to set my table saw up just like that!

-Steve

[Joe Shinall]

Wow! Very nice setup. I have a Unisaw on a mobile base and thought about building a drawer cabinet for the side like you have under yours. Now I see how many drawers I can really get in there and think that's the route I'll go.

Again, very nice setup!

[Clint Winterhalter]

Great Job!

[glenn bradley]

Very cool setup. Large panels? No problem.

[Jon Lanier]

Okay... it has already been said... but I can't think of any other word: SWEET!

[Rick Markham]

That's an amazing set up! Your table saw is nearly as large as my entire shop space! :eek: I am indeed green with envy :D

[John Grabowski]

You guys took the words right out of my mouth....SWEET SETUP!!

[Harold Burrell]

Wow! VERY nice!

[Tony Shea]

Well it came out great. Looks very functional and provides plenty of storage space. I also love seeing setups with the Incra Fence system, it just looks so sweet. That is going to be my next fence upgrade, what a great design Incra came up with on this one. Looks great Bruce.

[Kirk Simmons]

Very nice. I can't afford the space for the permanent outfeed tables that you have since my rig fits in the garage and has to be mobile, but I also have the 96" rails on my Incra and it's a truly wonderful thing.

However, I am curious what mods you made to the Incra?

[Terry Hatfield]

Great job!!! That surely is a MAJOR upgrade.

t

[Eric DeSilva]

I can see where shorter people would not like it...

Just curious... How tall are you? I notice you have your saw raised up on a couple of 4x4s... I'm trying to imagine what my saw would be like 7" taller, and I'm thinkin' I may qualify as a "shorter people."

I'm jealous of your set up. I started winding myself up to do something sort of like that for my Unisaw, and quickly realized that having the access door under the right extension meant I lost about half the space if I ever wanted to open the door again. I kind of lost some steam about recovering the space after that.

[Jerome Hanby]

If there were a way to track how many times this thread gets bookmarked, I bet the number would be ENORMOUS!

[Bruce Page]

Sweet!

I wish I had the room to do something like that!

[Joseph Tarantino]

very nicely done. wish i had that kind of room for a similar setup. have a great time working with it.

[Bruce King]

thanks for the compliments guys!

Once I realized how much room I had after moving lumber I decided to make a big table. I like to keep most all good size scrap pieces of wood and also have various wood from my bandmill. You can see part of it in one picture through the window, I'm surprised no one noticed it yet :)

Some answers to prev questions....

I am 6'5" so the 6x6's under the saw really help a lot.

The incra came with glide pads for the top of the rails but they did not supply anything to keep the outside edges from rubbing metal on metal when sliding the base unit from one set of stops to the other. I put plastic washers in there for better sliding. The lock down thumbscrew was also metal on metal so I added a washer on that so it won't grind everytime you lock the front of the fence.

The incra base has four lock down knobs and 4 set screws but you really only need to tighten two knobs once you have it against the desired set of stops. Then you only have to loosen those two to move it. I can cut up to 32 5/8 inches without moving the base unit over to the far right set of stops. The instructions say to set it up for less than that but I see no reason not to max it out as long as the whole mechanism is inside the incra screw clamp.

[Chris Padilla]

Incra rules...and so does your TS upgrade! Exemplary!!