Tom5151

Hello,

I am going to be making a number of cabinets in the next couple years. (Kitchen cabinets, some dressers and other miscellaneous furniture).

I would like to make a larger crosscut sled to cut case sides, doors, etc. I would like to make the one Jim Tolpin uses and describes in his book but the directions are a little sketchy.

I have 3 questions

1. Is it best to screw the fences in from the bottom of the sled base or down through the top of the fences?
2. For the life of me I cannot seem to comprehend how he is using the throat plate inserts he makes. How are they attached? Are they screw into the bottoms of the front and rear fences? Is the base cut in two pieces and the insert just fit between the two pieces and then the fence put over the whole thing and then screwed together? It’s probably pretty simple but I just don’t get it.
3. When you make the first kerf through the base with the saw blade, do you go all the way through the rear fence or do you start the kerf inside the rear fence and then proceed to just before the inside edge of the front fence?

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks for your help.

Tom

TomC

Tom,
I know this is not answering the questions you asked but I wanted to let you know the experience I had in building my first cabinets. I had it in my head that I needed a large cross cut sled to make my cabinets. I started building one and was not happy with it. I decided to see if I cut all parts including cutting the dados in the side without a sled. I did not have any problems making any of the cuts.
I used a straight edge and skill saw to break the 4x8 sheet of plywood down to a workable size and cut finished size on the TS.
Tom

rrich

I have to echo what Tom said.

I built cabinets using a Jet contractor saw with a 31" Incra fence. I also used a circular saw to break the melamine sheets down to reasonable sizes. My biggest problem was building the 48" high cabinets. For those parts the cuts were subtractive and took a bit more fussing to get them precise.

__________________
Use the right tool for the job.

Rich (Tilting right)
Huntington Beach, California
Remember that when we have the "BIG ONE" everything east of the Rockies falls into the ocean.

Tom5151

Thanks guys...

That is interesting to hear. I have 36 inch capacity to the right of my saw blade. I have the Ridgid TS3660. I'm probabaly okay with anything up to 35 inches or so but after that I'd be hard pressed.

What exactly did you not like about the sleds you made?

TomC

Tom,
I don't really remember what I messed up but I was going to need to buy additional wood for the sled and decided to see if I could make the cuts without it. I have about 54" crosscut capability.
You might want to go "eaglelakewoodworking.com". They have a vedio on how to make a super sled. I am planned on building it this winter.
Tom

Gerry KIERNAN

Tom you might want to look at http://woodworkstuff.net/ This is the site of Joe Lyddon. There are some good crosscut sled ideas here.

Gerry

TomC

Thanks Gerry,
That looks like a good site.
Tom

Jeremy E

Hey Tom.

I generally forego the sled as well, but every now and then I think I need one if I'm making a bunch of similar parts.

Here's a couple of pictures of the latest. I've never had much luck getting them to cut accurately despite going through the check list:

Miter slot parallel to blade? Check.
Sled runner parallel to edge? Check.
Fence on sled square to blade? Check.
No play with the runner in the slot? Check.
Test cut on scrap material? AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

This time around, I screwed down the fence of the sled (from the top) a degree or two shy of square, then added the "high-tech helically threaded microadjustment mechanism." Ok, it's a drywall screw. But a twist this way or that for each new length of panel that needed to be cut eliminated alot of frustration. Put that together with a screwed-down stop block, and it allowed me to make a big pile of side panels pretty quickly.