SCMS Zero Clearance Insert Plate

[John Ziebron]

Does anyone use one of the SCMS zero clearance insert plates from Infinity Tools (http://www.infinitytools.com/Zero-Clearance-Inserts-for-DeWalt-Miter-Saws/products/1982/)? If so, what is your experience with it.

[fRED mCnEILL]

Go to Fast Cap and buy their adhesive backed plastic zero clearance insets. A buck each. Just bought some and tried one and it works fantastic. Would also work fine for use with the throat plate on the table saw as well.

[Marty Schlosser]

I simply lay a piece of scrap plywood on the bed of my SCMS on those few occasions when I'm wanting a chip-free cut.

[Tom Ewell]

I use one on my primary saw not so much for tear out (helps some with that) but more for keeping the slivers of cut off from falling through the plate.

I've also have the Fastcap tape on my other two mitersaws pretty much for the same reason.

Can also use the kerf as a visual aid to line up cuts.

Once a bevel cut is made, the zero clearance aspect is pretty much gone unless one wants to swap out plates for bevels and miters.

The thing itself is pretty nice so if the perceived benefits warrant the purchase it should be worth it if you don't want to make your own or check out the alternatives like the tape.

[John Ziebron]

I like the idea of the FastCap strips, and the price is great at a buck apiece. I recently upgraded to the DeWalt DWS780 and just completed a permanent station for it. Everything is flat and true, including the 2 plastic throat pieces (this was not the case on my old DeWalt non-slider). In looking at information on the FastCap strips, including their website, I did not find a spec as to how thick they are. So I wrote them and the answer back was .025".

Now I don't want to sound too anal here but it seems to me that if one is trimming a board, and shorter is worse, that .025" will slightly affect the vertical angle of cut and it will not be 90 degrees. One of my thoughts is to carefully put my throat plate pieces through my drum sander to remove .025" and level things out again. I'm just wondering what others thoughts are on this or if anyone has somehow compensated for the thickness of the FastCap strips.

[Garth Almgren]

I like the idea of the FastCap strips, and the price is great at a buck apiece. I recently upgraded to the DeWalt DWS780 and just completed a permanent station for it. Everything is flat and true, including the 2 plastic throat pieces (this was not the case on my old DeWalt non-slider). In looking at information on the FastCap strips, including their website, I did not find a spec as to how thick they are. So I wrote them and the answer back was .025".

Now I don't want to sound too anal here but it seems to me that if one is trimming a board, and shorter is worse, that .025" will slightly affect the vertical angle of cut and it will not be 90 degrees. One of my thoughts is to carefully put my throat plate pieces through my drum sander to remove .025" and level things out again. I'm just wondering what others thoughts are on this or if anyone has somehow compensated for the thickness of the FastCap strips.
I don't think that most people would worry about how much the strip would affect angle of the cut - miter saws aren't exactly known for being that precise to begin with.
It couldn't hurt to reduce the thickness of your existing insert and add a FastCap strip, or you can stick down more of the (cheap!) strips to your table to shim up your workpiece as it sits.

[Ben Rivel]

I bought the one for the DWS780 12" slider and ended up returning it. It was a nice unit and fit perfectly but IMO its a poor design. The entire insert has to be removed every time you want to change the sacrificial insert. Which means all six of the screws have to be taken out. So every time you want to change the bevel angle of your cut you have to take all six screws out and then wrestle with getting the white sacrificial insert out of the insert. That an it was a pain sliding the sacrificial insert in and out. Seemed like it would be more trouble than it was worth to me so I returned it. I just use the saw stock now. But I have cut a lot of double sided melamine shelves with the saw and stock insert and a Forrest ChopMaster blade and get zero chip out top or bottom of the shelves with just the stock yellow plastic insert.