Hello everyone... I've recently started woodworking, and I am building a crosscut sled this afternoon using the one in Tolpin's Table Saw Magic as a guideline. Toplin built his 62" long, and extending off the left side of the table. I am building one 48" wide by 30" deep so that I can crosscut cabinet casing panels.
I've already build the front fence, cut the rear fence, fabricated some oak rails, and cut the base to size. Now, I am trying to figure out where to position the rails on the base. I wanted to run my plan by some of the experts on here to make sure I'm not too far off the mark.
Most of the cabinets I will be building will be standard kitchen and general purpose cabinets. I believe that most of them will be 31 to 36 inches tall and 24 inches wide. My plan is to attach the rails to the sled in such a way that there will be approximately 14" of base to the left of the blade and about 34" to the right of the blade. The right side of my saw has 34" of table, so the sled will be supported all the way across. This will allow me to trim the ends of 36" tall panels square with 34" of the panel supported to the right of the cut. If I need to put a dado arcoss the center of a panel, 14 inches of panel on the left will be supported by the sled with about 4" hanging off. All 18" of the panel on the right will be supported. Would I be better off centering the base on the blade? This would leave a lot of panel unsupported when I trim an end, so I think my original plan is better.
Does this sound like it will work OK?
Thank you,
Michael