This small table saw sled
and I use a sled like this all the time
but I don't have one for this saw at the moment
and I thought I'd see how long does it actually take to make one of these
if I wasn't filming it so I'll just leave the cameras rolling
while I'm making it and I'll edit it afterwards
and we'll see how long it takes
I've got a clock right there.
I got most of my materials ready ahead of time
to try to make this build go a little bit quicker
And here's a piece of Baltic Birch that's just about the right size
so I just need to make one cut on it.
Two pieces of two by four will make the front and back fences
I just need to cut them to the right width.
I should add that I squared and straightened these
on a joint or before I started filming.
And now I need to cut them to length
and the length that I need is the same length
as the with the piece of Baltic birch plywood I'm using.
And now I'm actually cutting them to width.
I changed my mind before and didn't cut them.
And now to make the runner I normally make that sort of thing
out of exotic hardwood but I thought I'd try plywood this time
because I always ran into problems
with the wood getting a little bit wider
that the sled got too tight in the summer.
I figure with plywood I have much less of that problem.
The plywood I'm using here is actually
plywood that is maple layers throughout
I don't know where you could buy that sort of thing
I got this out of a piece of scrap from the garbage.
And I'm shaving this down making narrower and narrower cuts
until it fits in the slot just right.
Now the plywood is a little bit thicker than need it to be
so after having cut it to width I'm actually ripping it down
to the right thickness
And, now to attach that runner
the runner needs to be a little bit further from the edge
as it is from the slot to the blade
and I'm just clamping that on for now
now and measuring that distance
and then measuring slightly further on the wood itself
and with the two C-Clamps on there
I can go ahead and drill holes for screwing it on
Now normally I would be attaching this runner mostly with glue
but because I want this video to go fast
and I don't want to wait for it to dry I'm actually just screwing it on for now.
The drilling left a little bit of chip-out on the wood
so I'm chiseling that off before screwing it on there.
Just checking that the camera's still recording.
And now cutting the first edge and also flipping it over
and making a slight cut from either end
so that I know where the actual slot for the sled is gonna be.
With that first cut made I know that this edge
is exactly parallel to the runner
so I can use a big framing square
to make sure the fence is gonna be perpendicular to that
and I actually have great faith in framing squares
I've never had one that was out of square.
And now with a clamps removed I'm just checking for squareness again
and then without the clamps I can go ahead
and put the rest of the screws in.
And now I'm using pretty much the same procedure to get
the other fence on there nice and square as well.
And repetition is not that exciting
so I'm playing that back at 16 times speed.
And now cutting off the excess length of the runners.
Well, my plan has been foiled because this camera stops recording after
after 20 minutes and the one I'm holding
was supposed to go for 40 minutes but it stopped after 23 minutes
and I didn't check the cameras for a while.
So, I've actually gotten a lot further on this sled
and as is in the film what I've done since then is I cut the slot through here
and I took these things off again
because I forgot to plane the bevel into here
and I made this block here that goes right there.
And that it to protect me from getting my fingers cut
because I pushed it through the blade comes out here
and that block is gonna get glued on and if I'm gluing that on
I should also glue on the fence that it attaches to.
Glue bottle's plugged up? A drill unclogs it pretty quick.
And I'm gonna have to wait for glue to dry so I figured while I'm at it
I might as well glue on that runner now
so just unscrewing it putting some glue on there
Damn glue bottle.
spraying that out a bit so I don't get too much squeeze-out
and to put it back on I'm putting one of the screws in first
so I can just put it on the point of the screw so I don't end up
smearing it around as I place it.
And again since I have to wait for glue to dry anyways,
I might as well glue on the back fence as well.
I have a little bit of a glue squeeze-out that went into that
small bevel that I planed on the edges of those rails
I don't want glue in there because that needs to be a place for sawdust.
While the glue dried I looked at what I shot
and basically, this basic sled
took about a half an hour to build and after that
I just kind of got into finer details like beveling the edges,
There is one thing that is not part of a sled like this
that I really like which is to have some sort of stop
that prevents me from pushing the sled past the middle of the blade
and I already made some prototype of a little flip stop
that goes here like this.
So I'll make that again out of some nicer hardwood.
this shape is tricky to figure out. I just do a trial and error
which is why I made a prototype.
So, it will pivot on a nail
and it will catch like this.
but it also needs to
not catch on this little slot, here.
Now just marking where the hole needs to go.
And I always like to put a coat of varnish on my jigs
because that way they just look nicer and they don't get dirty so easily.
And I really don't have a need for painter's triangles either.
So even if you like big fancy table saw sleds
you should still make yourself a simple one like this
because it's not much work to make one.
only problem is at that point you'll hardly ever use a bigger sled
because it's just so handy to put aside
when you're not using it. And this is actually the fifth sled
I built like that.
This was the first one I made just for cutting some puzzle pieces
and I realized it was so handy I decided to make a video about making one like that
and that was this one at which point I decided I could use this one for dado's
And then I made this one for my homemade table saw.
I made this one this one for the wall table saw
And, now this one.