Matchfit Sled for Grandpa's Saw

[glenn bradley]

I put up a thread about restoring Grandpa's old C-man saw here (https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?287527-113-27520-Revived&highlight=). My eventual plan for this saw has always been a crosscut machine of sorts. I whipped up this Matchfit sled to help me out now and to serve as the "hold all sorts of stuff all sorts of ways" jig for later.. All these fixtures would not be used at once but, wanted to show the general idea.

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[Frank Pratt]

If I had the room, I'd like to have a saw that was dedicated to just sled work. Are you going to incorporate infeed & outfeed extensions?

[glenn bradley]

No. It will be for smaller stock and perhaps some joinery jigs. The new shop will have plenty of room but still none to waste. Time will tell if this rig makes the cut . . . Oooo, sorry. No pun intended. :-)

[Jerry Bruette]

Glenn, I'm curious, how do you like that type of clamping system versus having T-track? If your sled is made from MDF do you feel that tightening the clamps would deform the dovetail slots.

I have T-tracks that are attached with screws and have pulled the screws out of the MDF from tightening the clamps. Or maybe I'm just a gorilla.��

[Eric Arnsdorff]

The design of the matchfit dovetails only puts the wood in compression when tightened.
The inserted t-track that is attached with screws is intended to do the same as long as the rails are above or even (or close to even) with the top surface. However, if the t-track is recessed below the surface then all of the clamping force is transmitted to the attachment screws. I would expect the routed t-slots would perform similarly to the matchfit design but I haven't tried it.

I do have a matchfit dovetailed sled and I've seen no indication of high stress or potential failure when clamping. Additionally, I like the ease of construction which only required dovetailed slots. But I think either should work similarly.

[glenn bradley]

I run both Matchfit and t-track and I have plenty of track. The Matchfits have the luxury of you being able to cut a dovetail into almost anything and use the clamp. Both work well and I have router bits to cut t-slots in material and have done so. I don’t know that having one precludes the other but if you wanted to standardize I would just pick one. I do try to standardize on the Rockler Universal t-track since it takes 1/4” and 5/16” hardware and I have both. Readymade aftermarket accessories are going to be t-track based.