Her design is a long, relatively narrow main carcass with drawers on the ends, and an open center all sitting on toe-kick type box.
The outer dimensions of the main carcass are 96" long by 17" high by 16" deep. No problem right? Well, here's where it gets tricky from a Shopsmith perspective: she wants the outside corners of the carcass (where the top meets the sides and the sides meet the bottom) all to be mitered, which means cross cutting 45 degree bevels on both ends of the top and bottom -- each of which is 8 feet long by 16" wide!
For reasons discussed many times on the Forum, that's not happening on the Shopsmith's tilting table because the work piece will simply be too long and will hit the floor (I measured and the maximum length for a bevel cross cut is about 5 feet in length; after than it hits the floor.
I suppose I could bevel some strips on the Shopsmith and attach them via biscuits or dowels to the ends of the top and bottom (think faux bread board ends but with a bevel on the outside edge), but that would give the top a butt joint a couple of inches from the end and would seems to defeat her desire for a clean, uninterrupted top surface.
Now would be the ideal time to own a huuge radial arm saw but I don't have the room for one. The only other power saw I've got is a basic circular saw. I could bevel the ends with it but even with a homemade guide, I'm doubtful of getting the kind of accuracy and clean cut needed to make a really tight bevel joint. Maybe I can finagle a Festool track saw out of this project
!. If anybody sees an easy and inexpensive solution to building this project to my wife's challenging (for a Shopsmith) specifications, please let me know.
Oh yeah, she also want all four front edges of the carcass to be beveled inward. That's a long rip bevel and something I feel pretty comfortable doing on the Shopsmith with my outfeed table.
Al
