Frank Pellow
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- Location
- Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
On a recent trip to the USA, I bought this as a gift for myself. (aside: with the US dollar sinking against most major currencies to the point where Canadian dollar now worth $1.07 US, I may be making several such purchases).
I opened, assembled, and played with it today and I am happy that I bought it.
What is it? It is table saw sled that accommodates a miter guage.
Here is a picture of the parts before I assembled them:
The assembly instructions are well written and well illustrated. It took me about 50 minutes from the time I opened the box till the time that I made the first cut.
After assemble, the main component is a sled that incorporates a miter guage of your choosing. There is a secondary component called a “drop panel”.
Here is a picture taken at the stage where I have assembled most of the parts and am using the table saw to cut a piece that is to become the drop panel off the sled:
It is possible assemble the Miter Express so that the sled is used to the left of the blade or to assemble it so that the sled is to the right of the blade. I chose to have it on the right of the blade where there is more table. The drop panel is inserted into the miter slot on the opposite side as shown in the picture below and locked into position with three set screws. It is slightly lower than the sled (lower by the width of some glide strips that are installed on the back of the sled).
I have two miter gauges for my table saw –the original General one and a JessEm Mite R Slide. Once I decided to opt for the sled on the right, I could not use the Mite R Slide (shown at the back of the picture below) because I have set it up to be used on the left of the blade. The miter slot in the sled does not have a T-slot retainer, so I had to remove that part from the bar on the General miter gauge. The miter guage can be placed anywhere within the slot in the sled and it is locked into place with 3 cam screws. It only takes about 10 seconds to insert the miter guage into the sled or to release it from the sled.
A handy Hold Down Clamp comes with the unit. In the picture below, I am sawing a piece of 1 foot by 8 foot by 1.25 inch pine which is held in place on the sled by the clamp (red) opposite the miter guage handle. I used a small piece of scrap cut off when creating the drop panel underneath the far right of the board being cross-cut.
I made half a dozen cross-cuts on three different boards and the cutting operation was smooth and stable on all the cuts.
In the picture below, I am about to make a cross cut on a piece of MDF that is just under two feet wide. You can see the Hold Down Clamp better in this picture.
In the picture below, I am about to make a 45 degree cut cross on a piece of MDF. Observe that this time I put the clamp in a different place.
Both the cuts shown above also worked well.
I only have two complaints (so far?). The first is that the T-slot retainers optionally attached to the miter bar that comes with the sled do not seem to fit as well as those on the bars of my two miter gauges, resulting in a bump when they leave the slot in the saw table on wide cuts. I might remove the retainers. The second is that the slot in the sled is not a t-slot, meaning that I had to remove a part from the bar on my miter gauge.
In the future, I expect to experiment with using the sled on the left side of the blade in order to be able to utilize my JessEm miter gauge. If I do, I will report in this thread about my experience in doing so. (I did this -see post #5 in this thread)
I opened, assembled, and played with it today and I am happy that I bought it.
What is it? It is table saw sled that accommodates a miter guage.
Here is a picture of the parts before I assembled them:
The assembly instructions are well written and well illustrated. It took me about 50 minutes from the time I opened the box till the time that I made the first cut.
After assemble, the main component is a sled that incorporates a miter guage of your choosing. There is a secondary component called a “drop panel”.
Here is a picture taken at the stage where I have assembled most of the parts and am using the table saw to cut a piece that is to become the drop panel off the sled:
It is possible assemble the Miter Express so that the sled is used to the left of the blade or to assemble it so that the sled is to the right of the blade. I chose to have it on the right of the blade where there is more table. The drop panel is inserted into the miter slot on the opposite side as shown in the picture below and locked into position with three set screws. It is slightly lower than the sled (lower by the width of some glide strips that are installed on the back of the sled).
I have two miter gauges for my table saw –the original General one and a JessEm Mite R Slide. Once I decided to opt for the sled on the right, I could not use the Mite R Slide (shown at the back of the picture below) because I have set it up to be used on the left of the blade. The miter slot in the sled does not have a T-slot retainer, so I had to remove that part from the bar on the General miter gauge. The miter guage can be placed anywhere within the slot in the sled and it is locked into place with 3 cam screws. It only takes about 10 seconds to insert the miter guage into the sled or to release it from the sled.
A handy Hold Down Clamp comes with the unit. In the picture below, I am sawing a piece of 1 foot by 8 foot by 1.25 inch pine which is held in place on the sled by the clamp (red) opposite the miter guage handle. I used a small piece of scrap cut off when creating the drop panel underneath the far right of the board being cross-cut.
I made half a dozen cross-cuts on three different boards and the cutting operation was smooth and stable on all the cuts.
In the picture below, I am about to make a cross cut on a piece of MDF that is just under two feet wide. You can see the Hold Down Clamp better in this picture.
In the picture below, I am about to make a 45 degree cut cross on a piece of MDF. Observe that this time I put the clamp in a different place.
Both the cuts shown above also worked well.
I only have two complaints (so far?). The first is that the T-slot retainers optionally attached to the miter bar that comes with the sled do not seem to fit as well as those on the bars of my two miter gauges, resulting in a bump when they leave the slot in the saw table on wide cuts. I might remove the retainers. The second is that the slot in the sled is not a t-slot, meaning that I had to remove a part from the bar on my miter gauge.
In the future, I expect to experiment with using the sled on the left side of the blade in order to be able to utilize my JessEm miter gauge. If I do, I will report in this thread about my experience in doing so. (I did this -see post #5 in this thread)
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