Woodpecker 25.5” Miter Bars

[al ladd]

Some of these bars do have spring plungers rather than rigid adjusters. All spring dependent bars have advantages and disadvantages. WP maybe tipped the balance towards the advantages, but didn't eliminate the disadvantages.

I bought the WP bar to check it out, as I have miter bar ideas I'm looking to market, and looking for the most cost-effective solution for sleds I'm looking to market. I have to say i was mostly unimpressed with the WP bars' performance, though the engineering and fit and finish is impressive. The problem is at the beginning of a cut you have limited bar engagement, and I found I didn't have a reliable wobble-free glide until three of the springs were engaged (it's pathetic with only one). After three it's silky smooth and true. So if you want to cross cut maybe 18" wide or narrower on your 24" capable sled it works great. Then again so would carefully sized BB or plastic runners for about $1 or 3 each . The difficult thing to achieve with a sled runner is consistant travel with only a few inches of sled runner engaged. WP made this bar initially for their Miter gauge product (the one that doesn't rotate). I think it's overpriced and underperforming for a sled. With a sled you don't need steel's rigidity.

I've done some experimentation in shop-producing a bar with a similar mechanism. (I was working on these before I became aware of WP's version!). This video shows the idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_EPwn8GIhY
(Please try to ignore my obnoxious tone! Badly in need of media training...) My latest versions are machined integrally from BB on a CNC rather than laminated, though they can fairly quickly be made with a drill press and router table too. Once attached to a sled they work as well as WP's $70 bar, and can be made as long as you want.

With any spring dependent bar, there's an optimal amount of spring you want and an optimal fit, so the bar really should be a close fit without the springs. WP's claim that their bar will work well out of the box on all slots is simply bogus. The WP's bar works abysmally on my Dewalt job site saw with it's nearly .77" slots. I made a wider barred version of my wooden spring bar that works much better there.

I think their marketing is so slick they succeed at making buyers fall in love with their tools before they've even touched them, and then they look and feel so good in your hand it's hard for many people to notice they perform no better than a mediocre version of a similar tool. I paid all this money for this tool---i better love it!! At least that's my experience with this bar. I was ready to be convinced of the bar's superiority. I wasn't. To be fair, I read that one user who complained of sloppy performance was sent stronger springs that made it work better. One-size-fits-all simply doesn't make sense for a spring dependent miter bar.

[Derek Arita]

Not so. Bars which have an adjustable width which is rigid are an entirely different animal than a spring controlled width. With either style using two bars on a one piece sled is not the best plan to optimize accuracy.

Dan, I find that hard to believe and at this point, couldn’t disagree with you more. I have an excellent miter gage with a long, solid fence. I can only use it for ruff cuts. Convince me.

[Dan Cameron]

Dan, I find that hard to believe and at this point, couldn’t disagree with you more. I have an excellent miter gage with a long, solid fence. I can only use it for ruff cuts. Convince me.

Derek, are you aware that in your two WP configuration only one of the two non-spring edges rides along its nearby miter slot edge?

[Derek Arita]

Derek, are you aware that in your two WP configuration only one of the two non-spring edges rides along its nearby miter slot edge?

Dan, explain that to me, because it doesn’t make intuitive sense to me. Each bar has one side in full contact with one side of its slot while the sprung side is in contact with the other side of the slot. That means with two bars, I have two sides that are in full contact and two sprung sides that are in contact.

[Michael Burnside]

I don't get it either. One isn't a fixed point in space, they move relative to the sled, if they move at all. Not understanding in principle or in my own practical experience.

[Dan Cameron]

Dan, explain that to me, because it doesn’t make intuitive sense to me. Each bar has one side in full contact with one side of its slot while the sprung side is in contact with the other side of the slot. That means with two bars, I have two sides that are in full contact and two sprung sides that are in contact.

Derek, there's an analysis of the two miter bar configuration which all of the two-bar enthusiasts seem to miss.The two halves of a sled are usually tied together via the front and back fences to form a rigid one piece assembly. The miter bars (except one side of WP style bars) are likewise rigid and are rigidly attached. I

[Michael Burnside]

Dan, it doesn't matter. If they spread apart, one spring will compress to compensate. If they get closer together, the opposite will happen. They move relative to the overall sled. If you have more movement than the springs do, you're using the wrong material mate. Now if you're using two solid runners and your sled material moves appreciably, well then sure, you'll have to adjust the grub screws accordingly.

[Derek Arita]

Derek, there's an analysis of the two miter bar configuration which all of the two-bar enthusiasts seem to miss.The two halves of a sled are usually tied together via the front and back fences to form a rigid one piece assembly. The miter bars (except one side of WP style bars) are likewise rigid and are rigidly attached. I

Dan, please finish with your explanation. It seems you were cut off. Also, I’d love to read that analysis you referred to if you can provide a link or something.

[Derek Arita]

Al, this is precisely why I added the short wooden runners to the ends of the bars. With those added bars, I can accurately cut 24”+ wide sheets and it works perfectly without being effected by humidity.

[Dan Cameron]

Dan, please finish with your explanation. It seems you were cut off. Also, I’d love to read that analysis you referred to if you can provide a link or something.

Derek, there's an analysis of the two miter bar configuration which all of the two-bar enthusiasts seem to miss.The two halves of a sled are usually tied together via the front and back fences to form a rigid one piece assembly. The miter bars (except one side of WP style bars) are likewise rigid and are rigidly attached. It is virtually impossible to mount two bars to the sled such that the distance between the bars is EXACTLY the same as the distance between the miter slots and humidity/temperature variations will guarantee this aspect. So if the miter slot spacing is 10" and the miter bar spacing is 10.001 or 9.999, when one bar is in contact the other bar is .001 away from contact and you have one and only one edge involved in guiding the sled. This same logic applies for any type of miter bar.

[al ladd]

Derek, there's an analysis of the two miter bar configuration which all of the two-bar enthusiasts seem to miss.The two halves of a sled are usually tied together via the front and back fences to form a rigid one piece assembly. The miter bars (except one side of WP style bars) are likewise rigid and are rigidly attached. It is virtually impossible to mount two bars to the sled such that the distance between the bars is EXACTLY the same as the distance between the miter slots and humidity/temperature variations will guarantee this aspect. So if the miter slot spacing is 10" and the miter bar spacing is 10.001 or 9.999, when one bar is in contact the other bar is .001 away from contact and you have one and only one edge involved in guiding the sled. This same logic applies for any type of miter bar.

The fact that the only high quality commercial sleds offered are single bar sleds should dismiss the "one bar-two bar" controversy. Of course those sleds are all one side of the blade-only sleds. The real shibboleth here is that sleds should straddle the blade. For almost all purposes, it makes more sense to make the sled for one side of the blade only, and install a relatively small, immobile zero clearance platform on the other side to back the cut from tear-out and support the off-cut. One might argue if you're using your sled to cut 10 foot long boards in half it would be better in those cases to have a blade straddling platform, but even then all you really need is an few extra inches of front fence to push the off cut side past the blade. Think of sliding table saws. Do they have a platform straddling the blade? An excellent sled does its best to produce the functionality and motion of a slider.

The dual advantages are: one good runner can be much more easily set to perfection both in fit in the MG groove and position on the sled than two good runners (or 2 lousy runners--which might actually be easier to set "well" than 2 good runners), and the weight savings, allowing a simple immobile platform on the offcut side to substitute for up to half the weight of the usual back-breaking sled designs. Woodpeckers top of the line Autoscale sled at $500 weighs about 17 pounds. And that's using heavy solid phenolic for the platform and a custom heavy aluminum extrusion for the fence.

Derek, I think you got it right---make your sled a good 5" longer than the widest cross cut you want to cut. That's maybe my main gripe with the WP bar for a sled--it's not really long enough for the width many of us are after. Commercial sleds are shorter than ideal partly because of the economy of trying to get as many pieces from a 4x8 panel as possible, and the shipping cost and shipping breakage.

But there are years of magazine articles (and YT videos) depicting 2 runner blade straddling sleds to make most of us believe that's how they should be made.