Out with the old
So with the new saw, I needed to update a few of the jigs I had. The first one I needed was a new crosscut sled. I couldn’t reuse the old sled for a few reasons, which I will describe in a bit. Now I can use standard accessories on the table saw. Yeah! The only downside was that I’d have to rebuild my current sled, which was a blessing in disguise.
Mistakes Made
So the first mistake I made was buying that old table saw. Sorta. But back to the sled. The sled I built was square and ran smoothly, but because of the wobble in the blade the slot had widened up so that it was hard to tell where to line up the piece I was cutting. The old saw had 5/8 inch rails, bad. The new saw has 3/4 inch rail, good. Additionally I made the mistake of testing a miter cut on the sled, and the wedge cut out of it made the alignment issue even worse. I posted a picture on my instagram, it’s bad.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CJrI5obpi5D/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
A Clean Start
Starting over was nice. Clean wood, all new, freshly cut, and not a hodgepodge of scaps I had in the garage. I just started using nice plywood for a lot of my jigs and I love it. I used Sande Plywood, as Lowes didn’t have Baltic birch at the time. It’s nice a nice low void ply with a smooth finish.
I also low using High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) for my rails…
Why so popular? Here’s why:
- It’s lightweight yet super-strong. That’s why an HDPE milk jug that weighs 2 ounces can carry a gallon of milk. And why many carmakers use HDPE fuel tanks—lighter weight car parts can help increase fuel efficiency.
- It’s impact resistant. Drop the toy truck down the stairs and it bounces.
- It’s long lasting and weather resistant, so that plastic lumber deck in the backyard can entertain generations of families.
- It resists mold, mildew, rotting, and insects, so it’s great for underground pipes used to deliver water.
- And it’s easily molded into nearly any shape, providing one of the primary benefits of most plastics: malleability.
Its a plastic so you need a sharp blade to cut it. Preferably a specific blade for plastic. My new table saw has an amazing stock blade so I tried it and it was almost perfect. I did need to plane the edges to the correct dimension but that was pretty easy.
They turned out great:
HDPE makes great rails because they slide well, and they’re super durable. This was a cutting board in a former life.
The Finished Sled
I won’t go into details on how I made this, there are a ton of videos out on youtube. Video 2 is great because Mr. Ng describes how to verify its square… (Video 1, Video 2, Video 3)
Basically I ripped four 4″ strips of 3/4 ply for the front and back, laminating them together. I cut the slide to the width of the table saw, but the depth was based on my storage space. A little shallower than I wanted, but it fits under my saw in the workbench. I also added a thumb-no-go-block, so I would remember to keep my fingers away from the blade… small detail but worth it.
Here is the finished sled:
