Question for euro slider guys.....

[Mike Ruggeri]

After you got a euro sliding tablesaw, did you get rid of your tenoning jigs and old miter guages? Or did you rework the jigs/guages to work with the slider?

Thanks

Mike

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, to put it in perspective, here is what I went from.

A General 650 with a Jessem mitre gauge, some sleds etc. to a Hammer B3 winner.

The General had about 12" of crosscut capability with a mitre gauge, the Hammer has about 42".

The Jessem gauge had about 30" of adjustable length on the crosscut stop, I now have about 60".

That's for a bottom end, small slider (49" table on a Hammer B3 Winner).

It's hard to describe the comparison between a cabinet saw and a slider when cross cutting, they're not even in the same universe.

Last night I cut two 30" X 19 1/2" pieces from a 48" X 32" piece of 5/8" melamine.

The slider holds up the sheet, the scoring saw makes a flawless cut on the bottom, the cut process looked like this;

- set rip fence at 19 1/2", set cross cut stop at 30"

- put sheet on slider, straight line trim one of the 32" edges

- slide sheet over against the fence, rip to 19 1/2"

- place off cut on the bench, rotate ripped piece 90 degrees, trim one end square using the slider

- rotate piece 180 degrees, flip stop over, cut at 30"

That's it, a 19 1/2" X 30" piece cut perfectly square, no use of factory sheet good edges for references. Far faster, more precise and more convenient than a cabinet saw. Not to mention no balancing of sheet goods, the slider holds that up for you.

You'll notice no jigs required, and no mitre gauge on a cabinet saw gives you those capacities, accuracies and work piece support.

My mitre gauge and all the jigs went to the person who bought my old cabinet saw, as I had no use for them.

The tenon jig went years ago, since I could never come up with a guard that fit a tenon jig, I began cutting tenons on the shaper, which does have proper guards for that operation.

Oh yeah the shaper, got rid of the General shaper as well, since I now have a sliding table/tilting spindle shaper built into the sliding saw.

Like I said, not even in the same universe for cross cutting, same for ripping.

You can straight line rip, parallel rip using the slider, or the fence.

I suggest that you go the Felder web site and register, they won't pester you, and you can download a video where a desk is made using a combination machine CF741. It's a long video, over an hour, watch the entire video as it will be a true learning experience.

Regards, Rod.

[Frank Drew]

My experience is pretty much like Rod's -- the tooling I used on my Powermatic wasn't necessary once I got an Ulmia which gave me about 33" to the right of the blade for rip capacity and 54" in front of the blade for crosscutting with the sliding table carriage fully extended. I prefer cutting tenons with a dado setup and the work flat on the table so the sliding table was great for that, even for long stock like bed rails (I made a longer stop for the crosscutting fence.)

The Powermatic was a good saw, as far as it went, but the Ulmia was like a different creature entirely. Not cheap, though :eek:.

[Mike Ruggeri]

Thanks Rod. I appreciate your thoughts and understand about using the slider's table instead of using a cross-cut sled. I am still getting used to the change over to the slider from the cabinet saw. Where I am getting hung up on is should I part with my tenoning jig and aftermarket miter guage?

For example I could see modifying the runner on the tenoning jig so that I could fix the jig to my sliding table. You make a good point of using the shaper as this would be a pretty good method to cut tenons when used with the sliding table.

For my Woodhaven mitre guage, I could see changing the runner so I could fix it to my sliding table so I have another fence for smaller items or say set it at a dedicated angle like 45 degrees so all I have to do is pop the jig on to crosscut a smaller piece of wood at 45 degrees.

Sounds good in concept but what I am trying to decide is if I will really use these or if they will just collect dust. I am thinking the tenoning jig could maybe go but I might give the miter guage a shot for a dedicated angle.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

With little exception, I worked out new jigs better suited to the slider or eliminated some that were no longer necessary. Almost all my sleds/jigs for the cabinet saw were given to the new cabinet saw owner when she picked it up.