My new shop made miter station

[Steve Reich]

I spent the Christmas holiday building a proper station and dust collection hood for my miter saw. I built it on top of an existing workbench that the previous owner of the house made years ago. I modeled the station after a design by Scott Bennett. The sliding doors work very nicely as I can adjust them based on the angle of the cut that I want to make. Inside the dust collection box, I installed a Big Gulp on the floor of the box and sloped the interior walls into the Big Gulp so that the dust slides into it. I covered the interior walls with tempered hard board and put a couple of coats of poly on them to make them nice and slick. I attached a piece of cut-off shop vac hose to the dust port on the miter saw and that hose goes directly into the Big Gulp, which helps to direct the dust properly. I finished the station by practicing resawing and veneer work with some leftover QS red oak that I used to cover up the marine grade plywood out of which I made the torsion box.

It works quite well. It's nice to finally have a stop system (I'm waiting for the ruler tape to arrive, which is the last thing that I need to add), and it's wonderful to be able to corral all the dust that the miter saw creates.

Well, vacation is now over. Back to work tomorrow.

[Greg Parrish]

Nice job! Looks good Steve.

[Dan Rude]

Looks Good, How are the doors used for dust collection? Do they slide or swing open? Currently I just use a box off the back of the saw, need something better. Dan

[Thomas Crawford]

That looks great, I've been working on my miter station design and I am definitely using this hood design.

[Steve Reich]

Hi Dan. They slide on a simple track. I can open them to accommodate the space for a miter cut and then close them as much as I can and still have space for the saw. The point is to try to create as narrow an opening as possible. The trick in making this is to conduct lots of tests so that you make your box and doors big enough to accommodate all possible cuts.

[Steve Reich]

Thanks, Thomas. Check out the Scott Bennett video that I linked. It gives a good overview of the concept. I just modified it from what he designed to fit my saw.

[Jim Andrew]

Is that a new miter saw? Have been looking at new 10" sliding saws, some appear to have much improved DC. How is yours?

[Greg R Bradley]

Is that a new miter saw? Have been looking at new 10" sliding saws, some appear to have much improved DC. How is yours?

That appears to be a Makita LS1213, which is about 12-15 years old. Very precise saw but terrible for dust collection.

[Steve Reich]

It's actually a Makita LS1013; it's a real dust sprayer, which has made this new station set up a real bonus.

[John Patric]

That appears to be a Makita LS1213, which is about 12-15 years old. Very precise saw but terrible for dust collection.

I have the LS1013 and remade the rubber dust collector shroud at the back of the blade to a larger rubber version and then stuck my CTL26e with the 36mm hose on it and that solved the dust collection issues for me.

[Greg R Bradley]

If you have any xx13 or xx14 series Makita and you can live with or fix the dust and distance from the wall issues, you should keep it. You aren’t going to find a more accurate slider.

[Jim Andrew]

Checked the model on my miter saw, it is a Makita LS1013L. Been rode hard and put away wet. If I am to keep it, going to have to replace the fence. Just thought maybe the newer models had improved dust collection. Still a good saw otherwise. Have a vac attached with 1 1/4" hose which gets some of the dust.

[Thomas Crawford]

Hey Steve -

How did you attach the hood to the base? I am thinking of doing something either attached the wall or maybe dowels into the base cabinet.

My cabinet design is the latest wood whisperer one with no fence.

Tommy

[Steve Reich]

Hi Tommy:

The base is a torsion box and then the hood box sits on top of the torsion box and it's simply secured in by pocket screws. I set it back from the edge of the torsion box by 3/4 inch on both sides and used a cleat to snug it up. I then covered the insides with 1/8 hardboard on top of some wedges so that the interior sloped to the Big Mouth. I'll go down into my shop tomorrow and take a picture of the inside and post it. That might not show the "under the hood" construction because the hardboard covers up all of the ugly pocket holes.

I, too, tried the WW's new no fence design---just the stop system. I like it so far . . . Sure beats my old system, which was no system (just balancing the wood on any scrap at hand).

[Jim Andrew]

I have the Kreg fence system, and have been using a shop vac with a switch to collect sawdust from the miter saw. Like your system much better. Thinking about making a shop improvement.