Fecn
Established Member
Since I'd heard people on this forum talking about SketchUp I did a bit of Googling and thought I'd give it a whirl. Inspired by a mixture of my general fear of the whirling blades of death, George_N's recent run-in with his own table saw (whilst making a crosscut sled), and a small-piece clamp I saw in an old copy of Shop Notes, I set about trying to work out a design for a safer crosscut sled.
Many of the replies on the forum concerning George's accident pointed out how easy it is to take tools for granted and make silly mistakes when you're tired or frustrated. Those are exactly the sort of mistakes I'm going to make sooner or later, so I tried to design this sled to keep me safe no matter how careless I become.
The whole sled is seated upon a set of telescopic sliding rails and runs level with the top of the saw, meaning that the maximum cut of the saw is still available. The rails I have came from a very large and heavy (75KG) rack-mount server, and telescope out to three times their length on ball bearings. I had a set of these lying around and amazingly, they turned out to be the same length as the bed on my table saw. I'm thinking of bolting these rails to the side of the saw parallel to the blade, and just below the surface of the table. (That way the rails can double up as a table extension, with the help of some fold down legs at the end)
A one-handed quick-release bar clamp rides up and down in the slots in the front fence and the rear clamp fence. The bar clamp keeps the workpiece, large or small pressted tightly agains the fence and doubles up as a hold-down for larger workpieces.
Once we've pushed the workpiece past the blade, we want to move it sideways out of the way of the blade before drawing it back. Because the fences are high, it would be fiddly to reach in for small workpieces, and fiddly means I'll probably end up not using the sled.
Hit the quick-release button on the one-handed clamp, and the drawback arm (which will have a foot made from that soft-rubber matting stuff) can be used to move the workpiece back a little.
Once the workpiece has been cut, you've got to get the offcut and any other debris away from the blade. The cutoff catcher will move any larger offcuts away. Although I haven't drawn it on the diagram, I plan to mount a compressed air nozzle to the front fence so that I can push a button for a blast of air to clear any smaller debris.
Here's one final shot from the front. The idea is that the handle on the bar clamp and the After-Guard act as handles to push the whole sled along the rails.
I did consider adding some more guards at the rear of the sled, but they'd intefere with the ability to change the blade angle.. or if they were angled at 45 degrees then they'd not be much use as guards.
Also not shown in this diagram is my idea to make the top-guard hinged so that it can fold-out over the top of the saw's own blade guard (should you find the need to remove that blade guard for some reason)
I just realised that the blade on table saws only slopes to one side, so the cutout through the fences for the guard to pass through is larger than it needs to be here, but I'm not going to change the images now when I've nearly finished writing this massive message.
So... that's my idea for a safer crosscut sled. Now I need all the experienced woodworkers on the forum to tell me what I've got wrong, why it's a bad idea, what regulations I'm breaking, and two dozen other ways to do it better.
If you've got an idea to make this safer and easier, let's hear it.
Thanks,
Fecn
Many of the replies on the forum concerning George's accident pointed out how easy it is to take tools for granted and make silly mistakes when you're tired or frustrated. Those are exactly the sort of mistakes I'm going to make sooner or later, so I tried to design this sled to keep me safe no matter how careless I become.
The whole sled is seated upon a set of telescopic sliding rails and runs level with the top of the saw, meaning that the maximum cut of the saw is still available. The rails I have came from a very large and heavy (75KG) rack-mount server, and telescope out to three times their length on ball bearings. I had a set of these lying around and amazingly, they turned out to be the same length as the bed on my table saw. I'm thinking of bolting these rails to the side of the saw parallel to the blade, and just below the surface of the table. (That way the rails can double up as a table extension, with the help of some fold down legs at the end)
A one-handed quick-release bar clamp rides up and down in the slots in the front fence and the rear clamp fence. The bar clamp keeps the workpiece, large or small pressted tightly agains the fence and doubles up as a hold-down for larger workpieces.
Once we've pushed the workpiece past the blade, we want to move it sideways out of the way of the blade before drawing it back. Because the fences are high, it would be fiddly to reach in for small workpieces, and fiddly means I'll probably end up not using the sled.
Hit the quick-release button on the one-handed clamp, and the drawback arm (which will have a foot made from that soft-rubber matting stuff) can be used to move the workpiece back a little.
Once the workpiece has been cut, you've got to get the offcut and any other debris away from the blade. The cutoff catcher will move any larger offcuts away. Although I haven't drawn it on the diagram, I plan to mount a compressed air nozzle to the front fence so that I can push a button for a blast of air to clear any smaller debris.
Here's one final shot from the front. The idea is that the handle on the bar clamp and the After-Guard act as handles to push the whole sled along the rails.
I did consider adding some more guards at the rear of the sled, but they'd intefere with the ability to change the blade angle.. or if they were angled at 45 degrees then they'd not be much use as guards.
Also not shown in this diagram is my idea to make the top-guard hinged so that it can fold-out over the top of the saw's own blade guard (should you find the need to remove that blade guard for some reason)
I just realised that the blade on table saws only slopes to one side, so the cutout through the fences for the guard to pass through is larger than it needs to be here, but I'm not going to change the images now when I've nearly finished writing this massive message.
So... that's my idea for a safer crosscut sled. Now I need all the experienced woodworkers on the forum to tell me what I've got wrong, why it's a bad idea, what regulations I'm breaking, and two dozen other ways to do it better.
If you've got an idea to make this safer and easier, let's hear it.
Thanks,
Fecn
