Cutting
This category currently consists of topics posted to the old 32mm site. They were all written quite a few years ago.
Excalibur Sliding Table
Not being able to afford a sliding table saw I bought the Excalibur sliding table attachment. My review is mixed but I can say it has done wonders for productivity. I can crosscut 4x8 sheets and do all squaring, rough sizing and some final cutting of parts with it... more
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Crosscut Sled
I suppose a sled is a sled, and there is nothing special about this one, but I will explain briefly. It has a 3/4" Birch plywood base with trued up 2 x 4's front and back. The runners are carefully honed steel. This is probably not a good idea because of potential wear to the saw table slots (it looks like that is just what happened). I did get some UHMW strips but never tried them so I don't know how durable this material is in this application. I do have the impression (from making some jigs) that UHMW is slick as a facing material but not when it fits snugly in a table saw slot. Using something like hard eastern maple would be easier to size and should wear pretty well. I fastened each of my steel runners in steps with three screws into the plywood. Once all was accurate I used 2 1/2" screws on each end of the runners up through the plywood and into the 2x 4's. I could have probably simplified this by carefully cutting dados, maybe 3/16" deep, for the runners.
The sled has a capacity of approximately 27" which is, more often than not, an adequate and practical size. For long stuff I have a 3/4 strip with stops that fits on the end of the table extension (visible on the right edge of the photo). You can also see the slots in the rear extension table for the runners as they pass the back side of the saw. These are oversize to leave room for sawdust and to avoid any contact with the runners.
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