Mobile Mitre Saw Station - Finished

[OPJ]

The plan, then, is to build something following the basic idea behind this. Key features for me are the space-saving flip-up support tables and also the ability to raise and lower the bed to suit several different machines (the morticer is the other one on my mind here).

With the aid of the sheet-cutting jigs I made on Monday, I was able to dimension the 18mm WBP/Exterior ply pretty swiftly with my circular saw.

My cabinet is going to be 800mm high x 700mm wide x 500mm deep.

And also a sheet of 19mm MDF for the shelf and one more for the adjustable part of the top. Yes, ply would've been better but, I never usually have any left-over when I need some for other things, so I'm trying to save what I can (I have too much MDF also!). :roll:

I lost patience with the extraction hose catching on the edge of the ply, so didn't bother...

With everything cut to size, it was time to start rebating. The back panel will sit over the sides while the top and base will be rebated to fit over the back and two sides. The door will go in flush - but that'll come much later.

The shelf will fit in a groove which should add strength and stability to the finished unit. Another reason I went for an MDF shelf is because it's 19mm thickness is a better fit in a 3/4" groove than the 17.5mm ply. I don't have to fart around with a smaller cutter.

Why is it that a sheet of plywood (2440x1220x18mm) will be thinner than a sheet of MDF (2400x1200x19mm) - ??? :shock:

These next grooves will be for the MDF "joists" (spanning the shorter, 500mm depth of the cabinet's top) which I generally find useful for extra rigidity.

Some kind of Housing Jig is next on my list! :wink:

I thought that the best way to get a position for the saw would be too position it on the top itself, and pretty much centre it while getting as close as parallel to the front edge as possible. I screwed it in place temporarily and it looks pretty good. Still need to work out where all the levelling bolts should go.

Oh, and also found this hiding away behind the right-hand fence on my saw! :shock: There's a spanner on one end and a phillips screwdriver on the other - why was there no mention of it in the manual?!? I've had this saw since November...

So, I have most of the work on the cabinet itself done but won't be able to go any further until the weekend now. Next I need to start thinking about adding a front rail to sit above the door, lipping the front edge of the MDF shelf (might also lip the MDF top all-round, come to think of it... :wink: ) and then I can hopefully look at assembly, before starting the door.

Once that's all done, only then will I consider how the supports will actually work. :?

 

[wizer]

Missed this somehow?

As you know, I have that saw and eagerly await detailed WIP pics.

The adjustable shelf had me scratching my head too.

 

[LarryS.]

Olly,

Now this thread brings back some recent memories ! For info when it came to levelling the saw on the shelf (so it matched the support and sides) I just built the shelf 5mm lower than I thought was required and then shimmed the unit up to fit flush. Turns out it was exactly 5mm short when built so I put a 5mm piece of hardboard underneath.

paul

 

[OPJ]

Thanks Paul. I'm still content to make the base adjustable so I can lift the saw out and replace it with my small morticer for repeat cuts using length stops - almost like a real mortcier! I plan to do some large doors at some point; this is when it would mainly come in handy.

I found another good tip the other day which involved clamping a long straight edge to the saw and then clamping each support table to the straight-edge, before securing them in place.

Haven't been able to get anything done today due to the weather (leaky roof) and I've also spent a good hour-or-so trying to explain why planing 40mm off the width of an iroko stable door to fit our frame isn't feesible! :roll: :wink: A friend was getting rid of it but, if we don't manage to sell it, I'm sure I can find a use for some of that timber...! :twisted:

 

[OPJ]

I've done a little bit more work on this today. Not as much as I would like to have been able to get done, but it should leave me almost ready to assemble the main cabinet in the morning.

I started by adding an oak lipping to the front edge of the MDF shelf. This was simply biscuit jointed, as you can see. I still somehow get it slightly wrong though... Not sure if the MDF has cupped or if I should've given my chipboard jig a clean off first, but the oak ended up higher at one end than it was on the other! :? :shock:

Next, I decided to tackle the three grooves on the inside face of the front rail, which will help house the MDF joists in place. This is the best approach I could think of and it's worked well for me before. I could do with a simple right-angle jig for this, or maybe one of those housing jigs I've seen others making recently.

I wasn't originally gonna use a piece of 100mm ply for the front rail, but a length of 16mm-thick chipboard, plastic-laminated with "oak" on each side. It's something I salvaged from a knackered old chest of drawers my mum was throwing out. I looked at the length again and decided it wasn't good enough; there was too much damage. I still intend to use it for the double-doors but I spent a long time hunting for another solution; even for a spare piece of oak I could plane up.

The material for the doors is only 13mm thick and they'll sit flush on to the front edges of the ply cabinet sides - not sure what hinges I'll need for this? Therefore, I had to notch-out the top front edge of each side panel to accept the 17.5mm thick WBP plywood rail; done on the bandsaw.

I also had to increase the rebate on the front-edge of the top panel from 16mm wide to 17.5mm.

The shelf should be dry in the morning, so I can clean that up and trim the lipping to length and then, think about putting it all together. I might started working on the two tables tomorrow, which are gonna be lipped with ash, probably... Still gonna need some paino hinges, castors, bolts and maybe some 12mm ply as well. I'm hoping to get most of this done by next weekend! :? :wink:

 

[OPJ]

Progress hasn't gone on as quickly as I would have liked this week. Although, it was my Birthday yesterday (23! ) so, I can't be expected to too much work, can I! :wink: I did manage to trim the shelf to size and also the two sides, where I hadn't allowed enough clearance for the 13mm-thick door.

First of all today, I got the cabinet screwed together with the aid of a few clamps along the way. Pilot holes were essential and I still intend to take it apart again to sand and seal this inside faces.

I basically started by fitting the shelf in to the back, then adding the two sides, then the base, front rail and the three MDF joists. When it came to fitting the rebated top though, I realised this wasn't going to work as the joists were sitting flush with the top-edge of the sides! Fortunately though, this is a mistake I have made twice before, and so I knew that five-minutes work with the router would make things better again!

I also found another use for my shorter sheet-cutting jig! :wink:

Once the cabinet was assembled, I decided that I couldn't be bothered to take it apart again, so I'll leave that 'til tomorrow. :roll: Instead, after cutting the Ash yesterday, I decided to get my jig and circular saw out again to cut the MDF components for the fold-up wings and all that. I'm only going with MDF instead of ply because I have enough of that spare in longer and wider lengths and I don't want to buy another sheet of ply just yet. It's going in to a rebated Ash frame, so, it should be fine.

Going back to yesterday, I tried mainly to use whatever offcuts I could find to get the necessary components for the rest of the build, which included this one board I bought among many other better-quality lengths from Interesting Timbers in October. I wouldn't even consider using this one on my mum's coffee table, whenever I get around to that!

In the end, I had to break in to some of my good stock in order to find what I needed and could use, so, tomorrow morning, I'll be planing this lot up! :twisted:

This shows that there's a surprising amount of timber required for this build, isn't there? I'm working on the assumption that I'll just about be able to get the support wings 1m long each, using 75mm wheels.

 

[OPJ]

I started (late) this morning by planing all the timber for the edging around the two winds, either side of the saw.

I was originally aiming for a finished size of 38x19mm, to take a 6x20mm rebate (FWW used 1/2"-thick timber with no rebates). But, I realised I trimmed 15mm of the MDF wings (all round) instead of 12mm or 13mm! :roll: I was fortunate enough to get a 22mm thick finish though, which should help keep the 400mm width overall.

Once I'd worked out where the rebates were going to go, it was time to drag out my router table. I had to use a flash in this photo as my lighting's so poor. I also realised that once this cabinet's built and the router table's stored inside, I'll be able to fit a lovely new bobbin sander in its old place! :wink:

This worked pretty well, although the 58mm outlet kept filling up with all the waste coming from the ash, which was cut in three passes.

I then temporarily mounted my saw to the assembled cabinet to cut the mitres - I find it to be a pretty comfortable height at 800mm+ the saw. With the extra 100mm from the riser and castors still to come, I think it'll work out quite nicely for me - I won't have to keep lurching down to see where the teeth come in contact with the timber.

When it came to edging the MDF riser, I decided it would be best to lip two opposite edges first. That way, I can clean them up flush before fitting the other two on the ends. This also means I only have to worry about two lengths sliding about as the clamps go on. :wink: The use of masking tape to hold them in place before you clamp it is also a little trick I picked up at college. You need plenty of glue here because the MDF can act like a sponge - although, I still probably put too much on! :roll: There's enough material to plane it flush on both sides.

When I came to make a start on the wings, I realised I only had enough clamps to do one at a time, which is a bit unfortunate. The saw does an excellent job at cutting the mitres and leaves a very good finish too.

I used PVA for these last parts. I did consider using Resinite (cascamite), as I thought it might be faster. But, they still recommend you should leave it for six hours, so I thought I may as well stick with PVA as I wouldn't be going back to it tonight.

I'm not gonna get this done in time for the weekend but, it's well on course for a finish in time for a trip to the Yandles show next week.

(Sorry for all the photo's, by the way. I've just been playing with my new tripod. )

 

[wizer]

The more pictures the better Olly. Still watching this with interest. Coming on nicely.

 

[Mcluma]

Its looking good, keep them pictures coming

 

[OPJ]

Got back from college last night and went straight out in to the workshop - which is why I just love the weather at this time of the year!

Within 45 minutes, I had the other two edgings for the MDF riser cut and mitred to length, cramped and glued in place.

And also, now I had enough spare cramps, I got the the two side pieces glued on to the other wing. These are mitred only at one end - and, to tell you the truth, the first wing should've been done the same!

I was still dead-chuffed that I managed to get all this done well within one hour's "overtime"! :wink: The only other thing I wished I'd done was to plane the first pair of lippings flush with the MDF first, which would make it much easier to plane the second pair. I've left myself with a bit of a challenege but, this one certainly isn't beyond me!

On to this evening, and after planning the edgings flush on the other two wings, I mitred and fitted one end and glued on a 19.5x6mm strip at the other, which I can only assume is there to aid the fixing of the piano hinge?

Planing the lippings flush though was a real pain. My plane was sharp and I still had bags of energy in me, but my workshop space is very badly organised when it comes to working with hand tools. The 2.5m long bench I inherited from the previous occupants is against the narrow, end of the garage, where I can barely use it for planing jobs like this. I tried using my trestles but there's not nearly enough stability there. I can't move the bench to lie against one of the longer walls right now because it's just too long. I do plan to make my own bench this summer though, which won't be anymore than 6ft...! :wink:

I'm again scratching my head over the leveling bolts and I might try using kitchen cabinet legs instead? They're dead cheap and adjustable. I've also still got to track down some continuous piano hinges and some cabinet hinges on which to hang the two doors on the the edges of the cabinet sides.

I managed to mitre one of the end pieces too short, so it looks like I'll be back on the planer again in the morning. This is only "workshop furniture", I know. And a couple of the other mitres aren't quite as tight as they could be.... But, I think a 3mm gap is a little too much!

 

[George_N]

Axminster have these heavy duty leveling feet. They would be much more robust than kitchen cabinet legs, which are made of fairly brittle plastic. At less than £6 for a set of four they look like pretty good value.

 

[OPJ]

Thanks for the idea George. I'll bear it in mind, but I've had another couple of reads through the Popular Woodworking article and it makes a lot of sense to me now.

I began (late, again!) this morning by planing and thicknessing a new length to be mitred on to the end of the other wing. While I was at the machine, I decided it would be beneficial to plane up a few other parts for later on, at the same time. Managed to resaw some stuff for a 13mm finish on the bandsaw (I never like doing this!) but because the grain was all over the place on one piece, as it left the thicknesser on the penultimate pass, this happened...

No worries though. I should be able to cut around that. But, it gives you an idea of why I'm using this particular batch of ash for this job and, not instead for a piece of finished furniture.

I then got the router table out again and cut the rebate for it, using the correct method with a straight cutter. If you look back earlier in this thread, you'll see I stood the timber up on edge and fed it with the face against the fence - which led to a considerable amount of breakout (which, my tutor seems to refer to as "splelching" - but, I'm sure there's only one 'l'...?)

After mitring and gluing it in place, I got interrupted by the football and also had to go and meet my eBay Buyer halfway, so he could receive my un-wanted dust extractor and give me the money - I did get an extra £10 too, which was very generous of him!

When I returned, I went back out to the 'shop and began planing down the lippings on the MDF riser. If a router created loads of lovely shavings like this and made the same, quiet 'swish' as a smoothing plane, I'd have gone for that option instead. :wink:

And the final photo for this evening shows how I went about drilling the holes for both the mounting of the saw and, most importantly, the positioning of the holes for the levelling bolts. It helps to drill these through both parts at the same time. And, according to the article, they need to be as close to the feet as possible, without causing interference.

I think mine were positioned roughly in line with the centre of the width of the feet (40mm) and about 25mm away. The holes are all 10mm, reamed out slightly for the M10 hex bolts I'll be using.

Now I have all the work done that's going to affect or damage any part of the inside, I can take it all apart tomorrow to sand and seal. Same can be done with the riser, while I clean up the wings, once the glue's cured.

 

[OPJ]

I haven't given an update for a few days now - to be honest, it's been pretty cold the last couple of days, so I haven't been up to much out there. So, here goes...

I spent most of Sunday sanding and and sealing all the inside faces of the cabinet with two coats of cellulose sanding sealer and Rutsins' brilliant MDF sealer, in preparation for the final assembly (with glue!) which went well.

Once the unit was assembled, I began cleaning up the two wings so that they could be treated in the same way, before I start working on the uprights (having a finished width of the wings also gives me something to work to).

This Veritas bevel-up smoothing plane is just the job. It came as a prize from Good Woodworking earlier this year and this is the first time I've actually used it. It planes like a dream! There's a lovely weight to this tool and the sole has a good, comfortable and convenient width to it. It was even terrifically sharp straight out of the box!

I managed to get to a point today where I was ready to bite the bullet and see how the rest of it starts to fit together. The current height of the saw's bed is almost 1100mm, which I find quite comfortable. It also means I don't have to stoop down as much to view where the saw is cutting (I'm about 6'1" plus).

First job was the fit the 4" rubber castors, which arrived from Toolstation at lunchtime. I always end up using small screws and massive washers with these things but, I think you're supposed to use M8 bolts...?

Okay, so here's the shot of the cabinet with the saw in place! :wink: You can also see how my router table fits just snuggly in to place.

I thought you might appreciate it if I went in to a little more detail with regards to the levelling screws, so here goes.

Although they specift 4-1/2" bolts in the .pdf file, I've found 100mm long M10's (fully-threaded) to be plenty long enough for this. I sunk the heads in to the base of the riser using Steve Maskery's spanner-sized-hole method. The same was also done on the other side for the bolts securing the saw itself to the riser.

One mistake I hadn't planned for then... When setting out the holes for the levelling bolts at the rear of the saw, I ended up fitting them too close to the inside face of the cabinet side, meaning I don't have enough clearance to turn a wing nut. Any ordinary six-sided nut will still fit fine though.

I haven't fitted these yet as I still intend to disassemble everything one last time, but there should be a washer, nylon lock nut and, for some reason, a wing nut on this end of the bolt. I might just ignore the whole wing nut idea - cannot see the point, personally.

In between the cabinet top and the riser then, we have one nylon lock nut with a washer to raise the height of the saw. Once raised in position, I guess you'd have to fiddle around with the non-lock nut and nut inside the cabinet to get it in to position.

I managed to work out from this that I want the uprights to extend 150mm above the top of the cabinet.

Next, I'm going to start working on the uprights, either side of the saw, which will support and hinge the support wings on either side. I've already got half the timber planed up, so I just need to cut some more MDF. I believe that this next part will be the trickiest of the build, having to get the two leaves totally parallel across the length of the saw and everything... The whole levelling-thing was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I'd still like to keep this open and available to be interchangeable with my small Fox morticer though, which may mean I have to remove those shorter bolts holding the saw in place, glue the lock nuts in from underneath and make an MDF sub-base for my morticer which will correspond with the holes in the riser... Hmmmmm.

I have got to finish painting some windows though, while the weather's quite good - I started this in January...! :? :wink: And then there's the Yandles show on Friday, maybe Saturday... But, I feel it's coming along very well and could be complete pretty soon!

 

[OPJ]

Progress, progress, progress then!

Picking up from where ever I was at the end of the last post, my next job was to start work on the two vertical uprights, which consist of 19mm MDF with Ash brackets, front and back edge. I found one piece of MDF (500x400mm) which was large enough to do half the job, but I still needed to biscuit and glue something up for the other.

With both panels trimmed to size, I could start work on the 70x13mm brackets, which are to rounded at one end...

...Roughed out on the bandsaw - I tried a brand-new 8tpi blade out for this and it left an absolutely superb finish. 1/2" wide was perhaps a little too wide for this radius though (approximately 120mm).

And then, these were cleaned up very well on my cheap-an'-'orrible Perform belt and disc sander - not the MDF sub-table, which makes a vast improvement over the old one. Still can't seem to sell the bloody thing on eBay though!! :x

These brackets are then biscuit-jointed to the edge of the MDF. The jig used here is dead simple to make and gives excellent results. Much better than holding the timber in a vice and trying to 'balance' the fence on top of the edge! :? Size 0 biscuits were the only size I could use here.

I decided it would be much easier to glue the horizontal ledger piece on across the top after these two have cured. The ledger is the component that will be hinged to the actual wing on either side - damn, still need to get some piano hinge(s)! :roll:

Before I got on with anything else, I decided to give Steve Maskery's dust extraction cowl an idea (thanks again for the membrane, Steve! ). I found it much easier to remove the.... black-thingy from the saw first, before attempting to glue it in place. Spray adhesive appears to work very well indeed and I have noticed a definite improvement in the effectiveness of my saw's extraction.

I cut mine about 160mm long for my 12" saw, where as Steve only has the 10" model, for which he cut his 135mm long. This means I still have enough left for one more "cowl", if anybody's interested?? (PM me. Or, Steve may still have some spare...)

My next task, I decided, was to cut out and shape one of these flip-out supports for the bracing which'll keep the wings in suspension. For some reason, they specified a Hardwood in the plans - I think plywood would be a better choice, personally, or else you're gonna end up with some seriously short grain in places.

After spending a few interesting hours at the Yandles show earlier today, I went out in to the workshop to fit the top ledger piece to both MDF uprights and glued and cramped it in place.

YES, I have indeed made a very obvious mistake here! But, I intend to try and turn this in to a feature of some sort - perhaps I'll take some scraps of American Black Walnut and hand plane them to fit, with the grain running the other way... That'll also hide the hideous end-grain too. Anyone got any other ideas?

What? Who said "Workshop Furniture" can't look nice??? :wink:

I've still got some cleaning up to do and I also need to get some more piano hinge(s). Apart from that and excluding all the swing-arm bracing I machined up earlier, the finish line is in plain sight!!

 

[DavidE]

Hi Olly,

Looking good - I'll be ineterested to see/hear how effective the dust-ex cowel is. I keep trying a few things on my saw - that looks interesting.

Cheers
David

 

[OPJ]

Thanks David. I must stress again that Steve Maskery deserves all the credit for this idea, although I haven't actually given it a proper test-run myself just yet. I can see Steve's thinking behind it; adding something to help catch the dust at source, directly behind the blade. Other people seem to try and box in the back-half of their saws and catch all the loose stuff...

I'll let you know how it goes when I get around to using it later on. Something else I've noticed though is that with my extractor (Record Power RSDE2-A) in place, you can't actually feel the suction from behind the blade, with or without Steve's dust cowl idea... :?

I'm basically sanding and sealing things at the moment, in preparation for hinging the wings in place - as soon as I can find a couple of piano hinges anywhere closer to home than B&Q, that is.

 

[OPJ]

Hi Olly,

Looking good - I'll be ineterested to see/hear how effective the dust-ex cowel is. I keep trying a few things on my saw - that looks interesting.

Cheers
David

In case you haven't already seen my message in another thread, I've had a play with the saw running today and this cowl appears to make a definite improvement on the efficiency or effectiveness of dust extraction here.

If I empty my extractor as well then, the airflow seems to increase also... :roll:

 

[DavidE]

Hi Olly,

Okay cool - I look forward to seeing a photo of it all together.

Hmm I know what you mean about the Dust-Ex I cleaned my filter tonight and it improved. Then I realised that one of the blast gates was sticking and the increased after sorting that was rather good too!

I do wish my dust extractor had blowback on the filters!

Cheers
David

 

[OPJ]

Haven't updated this threat in a while so I thought I'd better try and keep you up to full-speed on where I am right now, bearing in mind that I've lost a couple of days in the workshop this week, due to other things going on.

I started the week off by bodging a quick-fix to hide those big gaps that were showing in two of my mitres on one of the wings. I decided this wing will go on the right-hand side, where it's least likely to be used (and, therefore seen) but the end result made it look a lot tidier.

After giving everything a good going-over with some sandpaper once again, before I could thinking about oiling the ash and sealing the MDF, I decided to add a 1/4" round-over to all the top edges. 3/8" would have been too much, I only really want to lose the sharpness here.

I drilled plenty of countersunk holes in the uprights, carefully set-out to not interfere with any existing holes in the cabinet sides...

...And fixed one-half of the continuous/piano hinges to each of the wings'. I went to Toolstation in the end to pick these up - £16 for a pack of TEN at 1m long... How much do B&Q charge for a single .900mm length?? Almost £8!! For one bloody length! :roll: :?

I've had real trouble locating any screws that are small enough so that the heads will sink in flush with the surface of the hinge. The ones I've found suitable before came in a selection pack of many assorted sizes from Screwfix. But, for some strange reason, neither SF or Toolstation stock anything smaller than a no.6!

I've been using some tiny pozi-drive screws I have from a set I bought from Axminster a couple of years ago. They'll come in handy for cutting a thread, should I choose to replace them with brass screws, but this screws really are rubbish; the heads keep spinning off! :x

Anyone know where I can buy some tiny brass screws? I think they're no.2s...?

The trickiest part is gonna be attaching these to the uprights, using the long hinges. Before that though, I've be filling in some more gaps and make a feature out of it, using an odd-scrap of some lovely American Black Walnut - I knew it'd come in handy one day! :wink:

Which was later planed flush, before sanding and preparing the two uprights for sealing and oiling.

When it came to cutting the half-lap joints for the swing arms that'll support and brace the extension wings, I thought that since this was a project for my mitre saw, I may as well try to make as much use of it as possible. So, I set the depth-stop to just about half-thickness and, with a stop clamped to the other side of the saw, I cut the cross-grain housings and then the bare-faced tenons.

In all honesty, I don't think this is something I want to attempt ever again. Not unless I end up working on-site somewhere and I'm without the luxury of a router and a cross-grain housing jig. It just takes so long to do without a dado head and even then, although I had planned for it, I still had to spend time 'fettling' the fit using a chisel and shoulder plane.

I should also point out (although, I should've shown it in a photo) that you need to add some 'packers' to the fence of the saw when doing this operation, otherwise you end up with the housing being slightly thicker at the rear than at the front, because the blade doesn't retract all the way back, which a radial-arm saw would do. You could always flip the piece around, yes, but you're creating more work for yourself and, if the saw's not at 90º to the fence, it could go slightly wrong.

First thing today (well, after lunchtime, actually...), I planed up with 6mm thick ash to act as a lipping for the screws to bite in to on the flip-out supports.

The 75mm radii were cut on the bandsaw and finish on the disc sander, as you saw earlier with something else. And then, it was time to glue and cramp these together - and hang them out of harms way so I could add a second coat of oil to the other components. :wink:

I'm almost ready to start fixing the wings in place and getting them in to alignment with each other and the saw. If only I can find some smaller screws... Then, there's the door to think about.

 

[Slim]

Looking good Olly,

Isaac Lord will have the screws you are after.