I'm Not Quite Sure But I Just Might Be A Genius

[Howard Rosenberg]

Hi all -

Here's a tip you might need sometime in the future.

I've got a 50-inch fence on my CS and can position the fence out a full and solid 49 inches.
Figure it should be "enough" - I mostly use sheet goods.

HAH!
Not last night.
Had to trim 4 1/2 inches off 18-inch wide boards to a arrive at a finished size of 51 1/2 inches.
Also, 18 inches is longer than my Incra mitre gauge's bar.

aaargghh!

I needed to keep going.
Thought for a moment and clamped a cleat onto a scrap and ran the cleat along the left edge of my saw.
Checked the board with my 12-inch square on each edge.
Ran it along the table's edge.

It worked!
Perfectly!
The cut was as square as I needed it to be.

Repeated it on my actual piece for the project and it just snapped in.

Hope you can use this too.

Howard

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

Leon Hernandez, who ran the wood hobby shop at Randolph AFB for many years musta been a genius, too...he showed me that in the early 80s. Never done it since, but it worked like a charm. :)

It's a good tip.

KC

[Carl Eyman]

Howard: why don't you repost this as a poll?

[Art Mulder]

Howard,
I'm sorry, but I just do not understand what you are describing.

I read that you have a board about 56" long, by 18" wide, and you need to crosscut it down to 51.5x18". Isn't that what a crosscut jig would be for?

What am I missing?

[Chris Padilla]

Howard,

I did something similar when I needed to cut a large angled piece out of sheet of ply...just used a straight 2x4 clamped to the ply at the correct angle/distance and ran it along the TS edge. Worked very well...the second time! :o

[Vaughn McMillan]

Cool trick, Howard. I couldn't quite figure out what you were describing until Chris explained his use of the same idea, but now I get it. There are times when that could be useful for some of the cuts I've had to do. I've got a crosscut sled, but trimming short pieces off of long boards is not always easy to do on the TS (and my miter saw is not a precision instrument ;) ). This method seems like it could help in those cases.

- Vaughn

[Howard Rosenberg]

Well, I guess ain't nuttin new under the sun....

Whew, talk about deflation (grin)!

Art - I don't have a sled but you brought up a good point - it might be time to look into one type or another.

Howard

[Dave Richards]

I think he clamped a board to the plywood he needed to cut such that when it ran along the edge of the table, it put his cut line in line with the blade. Essentially he was guiding the work with the fence clamped to the work and guiding on the edge of the saw instead of having the fence clamped to the saw.


Howard,
I'm sorry, but I just do not understand what you are describing.

I read that you have a board about 56" long, by 18" wide, and you need to crosscut it down to 51.5x18". Isn't that what a crosscut jig would be for?

What am I missing?

[bill walton]

well not exactly this one but one similar, clamped and squared to the underside of pieces too wide for my cc jig. I use it as a guide along the left side of my saw. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=16448

[Jerry Olexa]

You are BOTH genius's (NOT) !! Only joking Great idea