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A couple cross cut sleds
Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


A couple cross cut sledsThis project started from wanting a bigger cross cut sled in hopes of replacing my GIANT Dewalt sliding miter saw with a much simpler miter saw. So I watched some videos, read some articles, and settled on a modified design from Bourbon Moth Woodworking.Materials are baltic birch plywood, cheap Home Depot MDF, some T-track, and hold downs. Super simple but super handy to have around.First two images are of my big sled. Its 30” wide with 18” on the left and 12” on the right. The inside depth is 17-1/4 so I gained 3” on what my big sliding miter saw can do and this sled is WAAAAY more accurate.The second sled is a remake of my small sled that fits in a drawer. I only made it because I had enough pieces left over. I did not have quite enough MDF to do the fence and I wish I had. The fence is just ever so slightly crowned and had I used the MDF face I could have shimmed it.One thing I didn't see Bourbon Moth…seriously weird name…do with his design was add any sort of chamfer for saw dust. Since the fence sits behind the MDF bed I chamfered the MDF where it meets the fence. Its working out quite nicely. I used the big sled to make the small one and didnt get dust or chips interfering with cuts at all.
The forth image is of a material support runner I made from the last of the materials I had left over. It has a couple notches to accept 123 blocks. For long cuts set the fence an inch larger, drop in the block, and make your cut. It has a couple magnets that keep it firmly against the square tube of the rails.And what good is a cross cut sled if they aren't accurate? Well this is where that 1/2” MDF face came into play in those results. First up the small sled is averaging 0.003” to 0.005” out of square. So for wood working pretty much dead on as far as I'm concerned. However…If you can't read the image the caliper is reading 0.0005” out of square on the large sled. I seriously doubt that is accurate because that's a Husky caliper and I'm not that good but i got the same measurement twice. I used the 5 cut method to get the results for both sleds and all I can figure is I used a machinists straight edge to shim the MDF on the large sled to make sure it was bang on.The last thing I wanted to point out is my design leaves a bit of an ass on the sleds for a couple reasons. Most of the force you apply is on the fence and after time I assume that can effect accuracy. Also it makes a very nice SAFE place to put your hands.
That's all for this one. As always I probably way over thought this project but I had fun and made something super useful.



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