Miter saw station considerations
Greetings to everyone!
I'm in the process of planning a miter saw workstation so that I can have some easy repeatability with cuts utilizing a fence and stop system instead of relying on the less than desirable "tape measure each piece and shave off a little as needed approach."
Anyway, I have some base kitchen cabinets I'd like to use on either side of the the saw, that I plan to top with smooth solid core doors (they make excellent workbench tops). These cabinets will be hung via french cleat, as the floor of my shop (originally a hog barn with drastically convex floor) is not level. The station will be located on a the back wall of the shop, which is around 25' wide. The saw will sit between these sets of cabinets (which are 60" wide, but extensions could be made relatively easy) on a lowered platform so that the table of the saw is even with the top of the counters/doors on the cabinets. What I can't get my head around is how much length I should have on either side of the saw, and how best to orient all this stuff on the wall so that I won't be limited in the lenths of boards I could crosscut, or the length of off cuts I could make for furniture parts. I just don't want to miss something in my planning that will limit what I can do later. Finally, what are some options for fence/stop systems? There are several threads related to miter saw stations, but I didn't see anything that addressed the layout/design question I have. Thanks in advance for your help!
Here's the logic I'm using...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jason mowery
...The station will be located on a the back wall of the shop, which is around 25' wide. The saw will sit between these sets of cabinets (which are 60" wide,
Wow.. What I wouldn't do to have a 25' foot wall to set up my MS on...:(
I thought through the same sort of questions for my upcoming MS table project, although I only have at most 12'- 13' to work with. I've decided that the important questions to answer are:
- how long is the longest board that I might need to set a stop and cut? This will drive the length of the longest side of the fence. (Technically, you don't need table under the fence towards the outer end if you have enough table to safely support your work.)
- how long is the longest offcut you might work with? You don't need to fully support that with table. Substract a foot or so from that (again making sure work is safely supported) and that is probably sufficient for your other side.
I've decided that I will most likely work with 12' lumber and shorter. (Anything longer than that, I would have to have delivered and also have help to get down in the basement.) Since I'm right handed, in almost all cases, I will hold my finished work down on the left of the saw and the offcuts will come off the right. The worst case is going to be a 6' offcut given the lumber I work with. I'd like to have 4' of table under that for safety. So, I'm thinking a 3' table + ~1' of table on the saw itself, that should support a 6' board safely.
On the left, I suppose it's possible that I might need to cut an inch off that 12 footer for some massive project, but not very likely. I want to be able to set a 8' stop to cut rails for bed frames/doors/cabinets/workbenches/etc. So, what I'm zeroing in on is 8' to the left (with some thinking yet to do about an extendable fence to drop the actual table support down to ~6'), 3' to the right, about 2' for the saw table itself, for a total closing in on 13'... which means I need to clean the standing lumber out that corner and find another place for it...;)
FWIW, I'm thinking about using the Biesmeyer table/fence system as others have mentioned.
Hope this helps!
Brian