8/4 maple crosscut?

[alex grams]

I am building my workbench top, and it is going to be about 1.75" thick and 27" wide. I need to cut the ends of the top glue-up to square them up for the end boards. How the heck do you make this cut and do it smooth/square?

The best way I could come up with was to use a skillsaw with a bar guide to flush the end, then if it is a little off, either handplane the end-grain even/smooth or do it with a beltsander.

Thoughts?

[Chris Friesen]

You've hit on what I did, although I suggest cutting it in two passes.

[Tony De Masi]

I agree with Chris. Two passes with that technique will do the trick.

Tony

[Tom Hargrove]

I cut the ends of my new benchtop on Saturday. Step one was to cross cut each end slightly oversized using a Skilsaw and a straightedge. I then readjusted the straightedge and cut the ends to final dimension with a brand new straight router bit - which gave me an excuse to buy a 1/2" x 2" straight bit. It came out glass smooth.

If you use the router, make sure you place a sacrificial block at the end of the cut to eliminate tear out. You can clamp the block, or temporarily glue it in place with hot glue.

[Wayne Riley]

Here's another idea. Crosscut just a little longer than your final lenth (~ 1/8" on each end) with your circ. saw. Clamp an edge guide and use a router with a straight bit to trim to final length, taking about half of the thickness of your top. Final step is then to use a bearing guided flush trim bit from the other side to take off the final pass, using the routed edge from step 2 to guide the bearing (this would require a bottom bearing FT bit). Recommend 1/2" shank bits, and perhaps a backer board clamped to the side of the top where the bit will exit the slab.

I have used this technique for a thick slab and it works well. Having said that, I don't see anything wrong with the 2-pass crosscut with the circ. saw either. Just another idea.

[Danny Thompson]

What Tom said. I recently cut a 12/4 mahogany table top using Tom's technique with the 3" straight router bit and, in place of an edge guide, a dado jig--a simplified version of this:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=39208&d=1148401418

[Peter Quinn]

I throw it on the slider at work and WHAMO, ten seconds later I'm looking at a glass smooth cut perfectly square. Question is how do you joint that first edge perfectly straight after glue up? Just call it straight enough and move on? Anyway, I think you should at this point probably buy a slider!:cool:

In the home shop I do the skill saw/router thing. Takes a few minutes longer, produces the same quality of cut, costs about $10,000 less on any single top. Either that or a super BA cross cut sled for the TS.