Ts setup without miter guage

[Charlie North]

Hi all

I bought a Delta 34-440 TS that came with no miter guage.

I intend to build a double runner cross cut jig.

The plan is to measure the distance from the miter slot to a marked tooth on the blade near the back of the saw with a dial caliper, rotate the marked tooth to the front and measure again to make sure that the blade is parallel to the miter and then build the sled.

Is this a reasonable approach?

BTW, this is my first TS. I didn't make up any of the above. I'm just asking if I am correctly interpreting what I've read in other posts and am applying it correctly to cover the lack of miter guage issue?

[Chris Padilla]

Check out this thread: Super Sled by John Nixon

Your method to check blade parallelism to the miter slots is right on.

[Eric Roberge]

Are you just making a sled that will ride in one miter slot? Or are you building, in essence, two sleds, left and right?
You definitely want to make sure that you have the blade parallel to the miter slots first. You can accomplish this with a good adjustable square and then do what you said by marking one tooth, check the front and rotate to the back and check again. (or your DCal) Your sled can then be built oversize (past the blade) Now just run it through the blade giving you a zero clearance cut on your sled. Any boards being cut on the sled will have support right up to the blade.


Not sure if this helps or not

[Charlie North]

Thanks Chris; I assume you wanted me to see the awesome Super Sled . (The link is to making a tenon jig for the SS.)

BTW, I can't watch youtube because I only have dialup.

I plan on using both meter slots for one sled Eric. While something like the SS would be awesome someday, I want to make something like the one in the "Mastering Your Table Saw" DVD. (I estimate about 30" wide and 15" deep.)

I think this size would be light and much used. I like the idea of having an acrylic guard built into the sled. I'll save bigger, fancier sleds for later.

I did buy 12' of 3/8" x 3/4" 6061 aluminum for use as runners rather than hardwood used on the DVD.

[Chris Padilla]

Charlie, the link is worth whatever you got out of it! But, yeah, the Super Sled was pretty cool and if you have a chance to see the videos on YouTube, do it.