Shopsmith Forums

So, shop warmed up to 10 degrees yesterday and I decided to get out of the house and finally build a crosscut sled. I rip cut two ash runners to fit miter slots, you got to love that adjustable saw arbor, I was able to sneak right up on my cuts so simply. I fixed the runners to a 24"x 26" base. Cut front and back fence's and got them glued up, will install later today. Couple of questions for everyone;
1. I just used screws to secure the runners, no glue, does anyone else attach this way? Did it cause you any issues?
2. I've measured the side play of the sled in the slots with a dial indicator, if I put side pressure on the sled I get a measured .001" to .002" of movement. Does anyone see this as an issue?

I glued and screwed my runners but I think you will be fine with just the screws if you used enough of them. I would suggest no less than four.

You'll not get much better side play than the .001" - .002" that you have. If you get closer, you are likely to experience binding. Parallelism of the two tracks is very important.

Now comes the real critical issue; mounting the fence so that it is perpendicular to the cut line. I used screws only here so that I could make some adjustments if necessary. I used two screws to start with. One being a pivot point and the other (with assistance of some clamps) to secure the fence in position.

newportcycle wrote:So, shop warmed up to 10 degrees yesterday and I decided to get out of the house and finally build a crosscut sled. I rip cut two ash runners to fit miter slots, you got to love that adjustable saw arbor, I was able to sneak right up on my cuts so simply. I fixed the runners to a 24"x 26" base. Cut front and back fence's and got them glued up, will install later today. Couple of questions for everyone;
1. I just used screws to secure the runners, no glue, does anyone else attach this way? Did it cause you any issues?
2. I've measured the side play of the sled in the slots with a dial indicator, if I put side pressure on the sled I get a measured .001" to .002" of movement. Does anyone see this as an issue?

I only used screws on mine and it works perfectly. I had to do some tweaking at first to get the fence aligned (as Dusty alludes to) but once there, it has worked perfectly for two years now.

I think you will be fine!

JMHO

This is a pretty good instructional for dialing in your fence if you need to..

https://wnwoodworkingschool.com/5-cuts- ... -cut-sled/

Thanks for the feedback. William Ng's video's were my inspiration to get this sled made. He also has a video for a box finger joint that will be my project after the cross cut sled is completed.