Making Sawdust, Reducing Scrap Pile

jim crockett

Member
Messages
120
Location
Jay, Maine
What a frustrating day!

As I may have mentioned, I am in the beginning stages of making a 5"x7"x4" maple box to store the ashes of our dog who we had to have laid away a couple of weeks ago. The box will have edge miters with reinforcing keys.

Today, I decided to get my table saw all set up to cut true. Yeah, right!!! Spent a couple of hours this morning trying to adjust the miter gauge to be square to the blade/miter slot. First it would be off in one direction, I'd make another test cut, without any adjustment, and it would be correct, then with another cut - off in the other direction. There is a tiny bit of side-to-side slop, but I would guess it is less an 1/128". Just don't know - maybe I'm trying to be too precise. I have come to the conclusion that I definitely need an aftermarket miter gauge, but don't have the $$$ for it at this time. Finally got it close (as in just a smidgeon of light showing when I check it with a square). I'm sure it will be different the first time I test it tomorrow.

So then this afternoon I tried to set the 90 and 45 deg miter stops for a true 90/45 degrees. The 90 deg stop only took a couple of cuts. However the 45 deg. stop was another exercise in futility. Well, not quite but it sure seemed that way for a while. I must have cut 8 ft. of scraps (MDF, dimensional lumber) before I got it real close. Oh, for a digital angle gauge!!!

Anyone need a bucket of 1-3-inch scraps for the stove?

Just before I came back upstairs from the shop, I heard a "sprang" from the table saw. Hmmmm, bet it isn't cutting 45 deg. when I check it again tomorrow morning before I start cutting the edge miters on the box.

Anyway, another day in the life....

Jim
 
Jim sorry to hear about your woes. Was wondering what kind of a table saw you are having this much frustration with? Not that I have tried to do anything that requires the precision of a keyed miter joint, but my Dewalt 744 contractor saw is "fairly" accurate, despite it's lack of distinct controls for height and angle.

Carl
 
Jim sorry to hear about your woes. Was wondering what kind of a table saw you are having this much frustration with? Not that I have tried to do anything that requires the precision of a keyed miter joint, but my Dewalt 744 contractor saw is "fairly" accurate, despite it's lack of distinct controls for height and angle.

Carl

I have a Craftsman JobSite saw. It is really a nice saw, but wow, what a pain to setup. What I actually think is that it is not intended to the precision that I am attempting to achieve - on a jobsite a 45 deg angle will probably work anywhere between 44.5 and 45.5 and that wouldn't be too difficult to set. But I must say that the combination blade height/angle wheel, when attempting to set the angle, is not what I would call a precision adjustment. I could have accomplished what took me all day in about 5 minutes if I had one of those digital angle gauges. Sometimes being retired with limited resources is so frustrating - most of my retirement check goes to pay for fuel oil!!!

Jim
 
Jim, it's fairly simple to take the "Slop" out of your mitre guage, (if the slop is in the mitre slot/guide). Just take a pointed metal punch and a hammer and make dents in the "Side" of the guide rail about every two inches along one side. This will make little round raised spots along that side and tighten the rail in the slot.
 
Sometimes being retired with limited resources is so frustrating - most of my retirement check goes to pay for fuel oil!!!

Jim

Oh I feel your pain, its the same way with us 33 year old working folks too. They say in Boston the price of fuel oil is 4.10 a gallon. No matter, as a youngster with a baby, I am working on an invention to convert soiled diapers into burnable heatfor my house. I got plenty of them :rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Oh I feel your pain, its the same way with us 33 year old working folks too. They say in Boston the price of fuel oil is 4.10 a gallon. No matter, as a youngster with a baby, I am working on an invention to convert soiled diapers into burnable heatfor my house. I got plenty of them :rofl::rofl::rofl:

I got a delivery today in Central MA and it was 3.699, so I'm interested in this baby poo conversion device.
 
Jim...

What kind of saw are you using?

One thing you might think about is making a sled...one that rides in both miter slots. I'm sure there are many photos around the internet, but it's not difficult and very effective. Piece of mdf or birch ply with hardwood runners and a fence. This design is good for small pieces because you only run the sled far enough into the blade to make the cut...not all the way through (obviously, or you'd cut the sled in half). Using both slots helps it run true, and of course you're making the runners so you can make them as tight as you want. You will use this jig often.

If you want to stick with the original miter gauge you probably are going to have to modify it. One design that's out there has a couple of threaded holes on the side of the bar for set screws. You could do that if you have a drill press with a vise or some way to hold the bar while drilling. This design avoids doing anything to the slot itself. Just run the set screws out until they ride against the side of the slot. The aftermarket miter gauge that you buy will have some variation of this solution anyway.

Getting four mitered corners to fit nice and tight is tricky business, and doesn't really have room for slop. Make sure the miter slot is parallel to the blade, that the blade runs true (a slight amount of wobble can affect the profile of the cut), and that the opposite sides of the piece are the same length (a stop is required here). Problems with any of these will show up as gaps in the assembly.

Cheers.
 
router to the rescue???

they do make a locking mitre bit for the router table that would eliminate your adjustment troubles on the table saw.. just a thought
 
Interesting thought, Larry. That occurred to me, too, but of course assumes there's a router table available. Might be a reason to convince the boss that a router table is an absolute necessity. :)

Cheers.
 
Jim...

What kind of saw are you using?

One thing you might think about is making a sled...one that rides in both miter slots. I'm sure there are many photos around the internet, but it's not difficult and very effective. Piece of mdf or birch ply with hardwood runners and a fence. This design is good for small pieces because you only run the sled far enough into the blade to make the cut...not all the way through (obviously, or you'd cut the sled in half). Using both slots helps it run true, and of course you're making the runners so you can make them as tight as you want. You will use this jig often.

If you want to stick with the original miter gauge you probably are going to have to modify it. One design that's out there has a couple of threaded holes on the side of the bar for set screws. You could do that if you have a drill press with a vise or some way to hold the bar while drilling. This design avoids doing anything to the slot itself. Just run the set screws out until they ride against the side of the slot. The aftermarket miter gauge that you buy will have some variation of this solution anyway.

Getting four mitered corners to fit nice and tight is tricky business, and doesn't really have room for slop. Make sure the miter slot is parallel to the blade, that the blade runs true (a slight amount of wobble can affect the profile of the cut), and that the opposite sides of the piece are the same length (a stop is required here). Problems with any of these will show up as gaps in the assembly.

Cheers.

Great minds must think alike – I began constructing a dedicated 45 deg miter sled this afternoon with dual runners.

I have a Craftsman 21830 Job-Site Table Saw. Because of its design, my original throat plate is only 3/16” thick (there is a 7/16” piece of round bar stock running the length of the throat, and it doesn’t move as the blade goes up & down). I have been using 1/4” hardboard and still have to cut a 3/32” dado to clear this support. And, when my blade is cranked to 45 deg, it stands proud of the tabletop by about 3/8”. So there was no way I was going to be able to lower the insert over the blade.

My other thought was to use a piece of 1/2” stock atop the throat opening, tape the insert plate to that sacrificial stock, and raise the blade through both pieces; the only problem I foresaw with this was determining the offset for the insert due to the height above the tabletop.

I decided that if I was going to go to all of this effort to create a slot in a zci, I might just as well construct a sled. Also, my miter gauge is flaky, so this will solve both problems. I made it 12” x 24” because all I will use it for is box sides and that will be sufficiently large. Luckily, I had a piece of scrap maple long enough to make the runners which I cut this afternoon and sanded down this evening – they fit the slots real nice now. I’ll post a picture after I finish it – hopefully tomorrow.

Thanks, everyone. Appreciate all of the suggestions and discussion.

Jim
 
Making Sawdust, Reducing Scrap

they do make a locking mitre bit for the router table that would eliminate your adjustment troubles on the table saw.. just a thought

I'd love to have one of those bits but no $$$ for more router bits at this time! I do have a router table, a Craftsman with aluminum top and steel legs, that LOML picked up at a yard sale for me. Not great but it will do for now until I can build one or get a BenchDog ProTop Contractor - I love the looks and features of that table!

Jim
 
sled vrs router bit!!!

the sled will be amore useful itema s you progress threw the wood woorking road.. use nikis ideas for building one her eon the family forum its slick design and will be a good refernce point to use in your building of yours.
 
Making Sawdust, Reducing Scrap

I finished the Table Saw Bevel Cut Sled today and got box sides cut for a trial box made of pine. I'm planning to make a better, more permanent sled later now that I know how and see how well this one works and will take photos of that one as I build it. I used materials I had available to build this one - MDF base, maple runners, 2x4 for the front fence and a good piece of plywood that I found at the landfill for the back fence. I would rather have used a piece of hardwood for the back fence but didn't have any on hand. Setting the back fence perpendicular to the blade was a challenge - I checked Niki's post in the Jigs & Fixtures forum but couldn't do it the same way since the blade was set to 45 deg. vs 90 deg. Ended up running one blade of my steel square along the blade, careful to miss the teeth, and the other blade against the back fence. Seems to be pretty close.

After I finished the sled, I found this article on making a crosscut sleds on the web and thought some of you might be interested:

http://www.geotekds.com/sled/index.htm


Anyway, I am pretty pleased with the way the box turned out.

Here are some pics of the sled and the box, taped together.

Jim
 

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Nice job on that Jim. Feels good when those difficult joints fit together just the way they should. Good job on the sled too, and thanks for the photos and the link to the article.

I know what you mean about the fence alignment. I've had it in my mind that the next sled I build I'm going to try to fashion an adjustable fence...maybe with small pieces of t-track, although that requires sufficient thickness of the sled itself as well as a secondary rear support since the fence may not adequately perform that function. Still noodling on that one. If you come up with something I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers.
 
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