A tablesaw sled for mitered boxes
Known for efficiency in his work, Mike Pekovich has built a few iterations of his sled for making mitered boxes. In this video, he shows the progression of sleds he built, and unveils the final version. Or is it?
Nov 09, 2020
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A mitered box is a simple thing to make, yet a lot can go wrong if you don’t take the time to set up properly. I’ve fine-tuned my approach over years of teaching, and I have an efficient and accurate way to go about it. At the heart is my miter sled. It secures the stock safely and has a pair of stops that allow me to cut all four sides of a rectangular box without changing the setup. Building it required just a handful of inexpensive hardware.
The sled doesn’t have to be very deep, but it should be wide enough to support the stock through the cut. I bolt the miter gauges to a T-track in the back of the fence instead of screwing them in place, which allows me to slide the fence sideways for a fresh zero-clearance cut after the kerf has been widened…
Comments
Why is the offcut side lower than the other? Why not just one level surface like a crosscut sled?
He explains in the video that the waste side drops down and away from the saw blade to assure no contact occurs when bringing the sled back after the cut.
Love the sled. Hadn't thought of a t track for the miter gauges. Could you please give me a name or source for the 2 miter gauges. They are a little different than most I see online. Really like the thin backs for attaching things
amazon has them, so does peachtree. search fulton
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Great sled, looking forward to adding it to my shop. Thanks Mike and FWW for the production of this.
Very nice, Mike. I like the idea of clamping the piece with the adjustable stop parallel to the fence.
Great sled. Can it be done with hardwood runners instead of double miter gauges?
It looks as though he uses dual miter gauges so he can take the sled to different table saws. If you're only using it on your own saw, I don't see why you couldn't just use hardwood miter gauge slots.
Runners would be your choice, but I like the idea that both of your hands are on the handles of the miter gauges and not anywhere around the blade area. Note that he does not have a “box” on the back like many sleds.
The miter gauges run about $55 each and can be used for other projects when the sled is not in use. They would also make it easy to adjust the back fence to ensure a “perfect” cut.
I am adapting a sled for making boxes in process to have everything except the dual miter gauges.
Mike nails it once again with this sled, great job.
PowerTec mitre gauges (Amazon) work perfectly with PowerTec track. This dual-mitre gauge idea is brilliant! This mitre gauge fits both my Bosch Contractor saw (photo) as well as my SawStop.
Don’t forget too that the dual miter guage/t-nut/track approach allows the entire sled to be re-indexed so that you can get a fresh zero cut line. Mike mentions this as one of the benefits and he is absolutely correct. I am planning to make this jig.
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