Shopsmith Forums

dusty wrote:I have often watched Norm use his sliding cross-cut table and wondered why Shopsmith didn't build theirs in a similar fashion. With Norm's, the cutoff point is matched to the blade. He made it long and then cut it off. Therefore the edge of the table equals the "cut line".
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Ref. your pic ...002, if one exchanges the "recovered" alum fence addition (which I don't have) with a simple piece of hard 1/4 x 1-1/2 x 30" wood, placed left 1-1/4 so to be cutoff when sled pushed past blade, one then has Norm's "cut line" built in to the sled. Cheap, replaceable, changeable.
When I put on the adhesive sandpaper strip to the face of the sled guide I took away my usage of double sided tape to hold the "cut line" piece on, so I moved it to the rear of that angle iron. Same difference.
It also takes out any possible problem with parallax. With workpiece on sled, up against the fence and slid too far left a bit, line up a square on the cut off line, scratch, mark, whatever, hold firmly to workpiece and slide the group right until the square's blade kisses the "cut line" piece, and you are perfectly aligned with the blade.
Once having done this a couply times and got familiar with the feel of it-- keeping everything together and aligned-- it becomes almost automatic, perfectly accurate and blazing fast. And once you first line up the square with that mark (doesn't have to be any more than a dot) you can do the rest blindfolded. (Note to liberals: I don't mean blindfolded "literally".)
'-)