The Woodshop Shed

Cross-cut sled with hold-downs

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


I made a small cross cut sled some ago, which was a huge improvement over the miter gauge, but increasingly I was finding it insufficient. Aside from capacity issues, the inability to hold things steady would drive me nuts. Sure, relatively thick stock could be clamped to the fence, but the amount of time I wasted trying to square up 1/2” stock that wouldn't quite stay still enough for a straight cut…This design came about from googling “cross cut sled with clamps”, which led me to this video on YouTube, which I mostly followed in the building. It has hold-downs in a T-track, a flip stop in another t-track on the fence, and measuring tapes for the flip stop. Compared to the video, I modified the back fence to make it a bit bigger and beefier while still allowing me to remove the hold-downs if I want, and added the handhold to the fence, which doubles as a nice way to hang it up.All built out of birch plywood, though part of the main fence and the base are cheap plywood from the big orange store that I later determined just has birch veneer and some other wood inside, while the rest is nicer baltic birch plywood that's all birch. Sled is 48” long, holds about 18” wide stock.Only thing I might change is to either paint the handhold in the middle, reattach it more centered, or both, as the opening is currently rather close to the blade on the left side. If I were to put my left hand all the way up to the divider and stuck my thumb out while cutting, it could get ugly. Not the most natural way to hold the thing, but better to make it idiot-proof.

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