Preparing for sliding table saw

[Kendall Scheier]

I am awaiting delivery of a new sliding table saw, due to the factory shutdown due to Covid I have to wait until September... so needless to say I have plenty of time to rearrange my garage workshop to prepare for my new toy, I mean tool.

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on things I should do to prepare besides make room? Any useful accessories that you can’t live without?

How about saw layout in the garage? Is it matter if the table slides out the door or perhaps towards the back wall? I’ve heard someone recommend placing the table at an angle supposedly to make more room but honestly am a little confused how that would help but maybe it’s just something that you get when you work with it...?

I’m holding off on placing my SCMS along the long wall because I have heard a few people comment on not using it anymore once the got their sliding saw. Agree? Disagree?

I appreciate the help and thank you ahead of time!

[Kevin Jenness]

The accessories I use most are clamps that engage the t-slot, ripping shoe and Fritz and Frans jig. An auxiliary miter gauge is also useful. All can be purchased except Fritz and Frans, which benefits from including flip stops and scales. If you decide to make any, you will need the saw on hand for the t slot dimensioins

Think about where you will store your outrigger table and fence when removed from the saw.

For layout, if you use a CAD program play with that, otherwise make a scale drawing of your floor space and shuffle card models of your tools around on it until you have a sensible setup. If you use sheet goods much, consider the move from sheet storage to loading the saw. A panel cart may make sense. The best investment I ever made in material handling was a Crazy Horse. I believe they are no longer made, but if you can find one get it.

I have a sliding miter saw against the wall behind and parallel to the slider, mostly for bucking lumber. If you use the slider for that task you will be flipping long pieces end for end a lot.

miter gauge.jpgcrazy horse .jpgpanel saw clamp.jpg

[Alan Lightstone]

What is a Crazy Horse??? And nice sign on the saw.

BTW, congrats on the slider. I bet you'll love it.

[Jim Becker]

Congrats on purchasing your slider! I hope you enjoy yours as much as I enjoy mine...I'd never go back to a cabinet saw if I have the choice.

To your specific question, take the specifications of the saw you purchased to calculate the best position for it in your shop, taking into account the throw of the slider wagon. For example, my particular saw (SCM/Minimax S315WS) has an 8'6" slider capacity and requires 19' end-to-end for the wagon. Make sure you can accommodate whatever the same dimension is for the specific machine you purchased to have full use of the machine. You ask about a door, but honestly, try to avoid having to open a door to use your tool fully, especially if you have conditioned space. The floor of your shop matters, too, relative to saw placement and orientation. If you have a flat/level floor, you can put it in any orientation that works for movement. If you have a sloped floor like I do (originally, the building was designed as a garage) then you really need to be either parallel to or perpendicular to the slope...angling makes things funky and very difficult to get the machine level...which you want to do with a slider.

If you have an outrigger for crosscutting sheets and long stock, make sure you can use it without banging into something. On a slider, the space to the left of the blade is more valuable than the space to the right of the blade so you can often tuck the right side up to the wall or another tool with no issue. The left side is the "business side" for material handling.

Read the threads here at SMC about "Fritz and Franz"...one of the most valuable things you can make for your slider to assist with narrow rips and parallel rips using the wagon. And understand that if you've been using a North American designed saw previously, you'll need to make some new habits for how you work...but it's worth it in the longer term.

[Kevin Jenness]

Alan, the Crazy Horse is the dolly shown in the second photo. It has a sticky rubber dome on top that allows for manipulating panels easily. Too bad the inventor stopped selling them.

[Frank Pratt]

Alan, the Crazy Horse is the dolly shown in the second photo. It has a sticky rubber dome on top that allows for manipulating panels easily. Too bad the inventor stopped selling them.

I seem to remember seeing the plans for sale somewhere. I think it's one of the best gizmos there is for handling sheet goods. But my shop isn't really big enough for one & I don't use a ton of sheet goods.

[Kendall Scheier]

Thanks for the advice Kevin, I appreciate the pictures too. The ripping shoe, Fritz and Frans and t-slot clamps are at the top of my list. I watched a YouTube video from Sam Blasco using the crazy horse, it seems like an innovative item. I’m glad that you enjoy yours. I think I’m leaning more towards a mobile panel cart where the top rotates... nothing is off the table however.

I’m thinking for now that I will likely keep the outrigger on all the time so I don’t have to worry about messing with square adjustments. I’ve heard some people say they have to fine tune it every time they put it back on and others say that it stays square; I don’t know if that comes down to the specific machines or their tolerance for precision maybe not being the same to everybody?

For the layout direction (sliding towards the garage door or towards the back wall) I see that having the back of the saw by the door would make it easy to unload material out of my truck directly into the saw, but on the other hand if I had the saw turned the other way I could move the saw closer to the door and open it to slide out of the door freeing up more floor space in the garage...? Is one going to be a bigger deal than the other or is it just a matter of personal preference? How about the outrigger consideration? Is it preferable to have that oriented in a certain way in the shop (closer to the door into the house or away...)? What does everybody think?

For what it’s worth I’m getting a minimax SC4E or SC4 elite. I haven’t found much on this forum or the general web on this saw specifically so if any other SC4 owners are out there it would be nice if there were any sc4 specific considerations I should know about.

[Kendall Scheier]

Thanks Jim, I have noticed that you always seem to give good and pertinent advice in your posts. Thanks for recommending not having to open the garage door, i place a lot of stock in the opinions of those like you who have used a slider for a long time. I have the length that I need for my machine, but was just trying to think of all the possibilities. I live in Arizona so it doesn’t really get too cold outside to open the door but the summer does get uncomfortable...

My concrete floor is pretty flat and consistent with a gentle slope going out the door as is typical.

I have seen a lot of people’s Fritz and Frans jigs, that will be the first thing I make.

I have been using a conventional Jet table saw for the past 10 years but I grew up using my dad’s industrial slider that he had in his furniture shop on our property. Boy was I spoiled. Now, many years later I’m finally able to upgrade and get back to what I was brought up with.

[Mike Kreinhop]

Congratulations on your new SC4E! I have the baby brother SC2C and I love it. In addition to all of the great suggestions above, I can also recommend buying the auxiliary work table to mount to the sliding table. The SCM part number is 5510409 and it fits on the SC2 and SC3. Here is the link to the German website for the table:

https://www.stuermer-maschinen.de/ma...aegen/5510409/

This makes a great support for large sheets of plywood, and I plan on using it to mount an Incra LS25 positioner so I can make ripping cuts from the slider. I have two of these tables, one for the positioner and one without. The positioner is still on order with a long lead time, but I hope to have it in a month or two. Sam Blasco has the same table and a positioner on his saw. Here is his video showing his positioner:



I have a cunning plan for the rip side of my saw and don't think I will use the standard rip fence in the future if the positioner works well.

[Kendall Scheier]

Thanks Mike, the extra table for material support and the rip fence is a great idea, I will be checking that out. I had previously checked out Sam’s table and maybe drooled a little... thanks for the url, that will help me a lot!

im glad you have enjoyed your SC2!

[Jim Becker]

Good choice for the tool! BTW, I use the smaller miter bar setup constantly for a lot of crosscutting solid stock that's about 4' and under long with the added benefit that it's behind the material pushing through the cut. If your machine doesn't come with it standard, talk to Sam about adding it along with the other suggestions. The SC4x is not hugely different from my S315WS in dimensions, BTW.

[Kendall Scheier]

Mike, I was considering the S315 for a bit but it is just a bit bigger than I think I would use, so I figured I could use the extra $1300 elsewhere.

Do you ever take off the outrigger on your saw?

[Mike Kreinhop]

Do you ever take off the outrigger on your saw?

I took the crosscut outrigger off three or four times, but never had a problem with alignment or crosscut angle when I put it back on. I keep it at the outfeed side of the slider, but tried it at the infeed side once. I prefer to leave it on the outfeed side because of my shop layout and tight space, but the €565 (about $635) miter bar setup that Jim discussed would be a good addition.

When I initially aligned the crosscut bar the way I wanted it, I made fine pencil alignment marks on the outrigger table where the crosscut bar touched it. The crosscut bar must be removed in order to take off the outrigger table. The only adjustment that could possibly change is the small adjustment bolt in the outrigger table that sets the angle of the crosscut bar with respect to the sliding table. After that, removing and installing the outrigger/crosscut bar did not change the angle settings. The first time I removed and installed the outrigger, I made the 5-cut check using a 1500x1500 sheet of 12mm plywood, and it was still accurate. I never bothered checking again after that when I removed and installed the outrigger.

Aside from the initial commissioning, the only time I had to make any adjustments to the crosscut bar was recently. I noticed that the slider was no longer coplanar to the cast iron table, likely due to settling in. I watched Mark McFarlane's video on his CU300 saw, since his saw was close enough to mine to accomplish what I wanted to do. When I leveled the slider and set the tracking height, I forgot about keeping track of the toe out and was a bit disappointed when I realized I did a great job on the slider level, but now had a toe out of about 3/16", which is way too much. About three hours later, I had everything perfect again and made new pencil alignment marks on the outrigger table. I am confident that if I removed and installed the outrigger now, the angle alignment of the crosscut bar would be perfect.

[Kendall Scheier]

Thanks Mike, that gives me a lot of confidence! I will also keep that link for future reference just in case I need it.

[Brian W Evans]

Good choice for the tool! BTW, I use the smaller miter bar setup constantly for a lot of crosscutting solid stock that's about 4' and under long with the added benefit that it's behind the material pushing through the cut. If your machine doesn't come with it standard, talk to Sam about adding it along with the other suggestions. The SC4x is not hugely different from my S315WS in dimensions, BTW.

I have a SC4E that I bought new a few years ago. It came with the miter bar. I leave my outrigger on all the time, so I don't use the miter bar much.

The fence for the outrigger has a stop on it to make sure the fence returns to the same distance from the blade when you put it back on. It also has a screw at the end of the outrigger that works very well to make the fence square to the sliding table. In short, you can take the outrigger off and not have to reset anything when putting it back on. I do not use the outrigger to cut anything other than 90 degrees - that's what the miter bar is for, or a track saw.

I also have the extra support table that definitely comes in handy when working with full sheets of plywood. I have found that I prefer to break sheets down with a track saw a little bit before cutting parts to size on the slider. This is not necessary but I don't like wrestling full sheets through my shop. In the video below, you can see that full sheets sag even with extra support. I find it difficult to ensure that everything is tight against the fences when this happens.

I kept my SCMS and I'm glad I did. I use it for cutting lumber to rough size, construction-type projects, quick cuts where I don't want to turn on the dust collection and the slider, etc.

One thing I bought that is very handy is a good set of metric T-handle hex wrenches. Many adjustments are done with hex wrenches.

Another thing I bought is this overarm dust collector from Grizzly. It works quite well and is less than half the price of the SCM version.

You can't really make any jigs until you get the saw and see where the slots are located, etc., but I definitely recommend the Fritz und Franz jig.

Watch Sam Blasco's video on the 3-cut method. I got my outrigger fence square enough, as far as I can tell, to cut square to within .001" over 4 feet using that method.

Also watch this video about handling sheet goods on a slider.

One weird thing that works REALLY well - there is a handle that screws on to the side of the slider, which you can position anywhere. When using the outrigger ahead of the cut (i.e. the fence forward of the wood), which is my preferred position, move the handle so you can push back against it with your butt to give you leverage to keep your workpiece tight against the fence. Don't laugh! You will do it all the time once you try it.

When you take delivery, make sure you have use of a pallet jack for a little while. You'll need it to level the saw. Do this before you put on the steel extension table to the right of the saw. Various thicknesses of plywood and even non-corrugated cardboard will make good shims. You said your garage has a gentle slope. This may or may not be a problem for you, but I didn't level my saw front to back when I first got it. The problem with this was that the table would always slide downhill if it had any momentum at all. I quickly got sick of trying to catch the table while holding on to my workpiece and had to find another pallet jack to borrow.

Last piece of advice: the manual says not to adjust the position of the nuts on the threaded rods that attach the fence guide bar to the saw. Follow that instruction, no matter what. It will take a LONG time to align your fence if you move those nuts. DAMHIKT.

Feel free to PM me if you have other questions.