Ultimate Tablesaw Project

[Jerry McFalls]

Being unemployed in todays economy bites but I like to see the sunny side in everything so my sunny side is I have plenty of time now to work on improving my shop. I have projects I've been putting off for a long time now and finally I'm making headway. Here is one of my main projects I've been working on for way too long finally nearing completion. I still plan on building a cabinet under the router side of the saw later to house my router bit collection. I hope you find the following pictures useful but if not at least entertaining.

[Jerry McFalls]

More to come

[Jerry McFalls]

Loads of fun this

[Jerry McFalls]

Tool Storage. I made the long drawers 33" in length and made wooden full extension slides following an article I have. The accurides are 24" in length.

[jim hedgpeth]

I wish I had the room for a setup that big. I wouldn't even be able to stand in my shop with it, but I could oogle it from the doorway.

One question though, you don't like Dewalt tools do you?

[Jerry McFalls]

I'd say so but the main reason I have so many Dewalt tools is I used to work for the company and had deep discounts on all purchases.

[Jim O'Dell]

I think we have a new winner for the man with the most drills!!! How many do you have in those drawers Jerry??? Jim.

[Nathan Callender]

Wow - very cool. I've been looking for pictures like that for a tablesaw cabinet that's similar. One question - does the outfeed side break away, or is it one full cabinet? Well, maybe two questions. How did you mount the table saw in a way to get it perfectly flat with the table? Is it sitting on a lower cabinet with shims, or is it suspended in some other way?

Anyway, very cool project!

[Travis Teichmann]

Jerry,
You mentioned that you made full extension wood slides from an article you have...what is the article and is it still available? I am in the process of building a similar table saw cabinet (still designing in sketch-up) and have been thinking of the expense of slides. Your solution may be less expensive. BTW, great looking table. in pic #3 are you standing on the table or working barefoot in the shop?
Travis

[Jerry McFalls]

Jim,

I'm not sure how many there are exactly, doesn't matter though as long as I have enough to last me into my golden years without having to replace any.

Nathan,

The cabinet doesn't come apart. I have it mounted on adjustable legs I purchased from http://www.cabinetmaking.com/pages/hardware.htm and if you search the topic "accessories" no quotes you'll see them there. The cabinet is mounted directly to the tablesaw and side expansion wing with bolts. Here's a picture. Hopefully you see what I mean.

The top is one sheet of 3/4" MDF and one sheet of 1/2" MDF glued and screwed together and covered with Formica using contact cement.

Travis,

The article is Full Extension Wooden Slides in Fine Woodworking July/August 2000 by Christian Becksvoort. I think these slides wood work great on smaller lighter weight drawers. They work ok but even after waxing the rails they are more work to open and shut than I realized they would be, mainly because of all the tools I've loaded them down with.

Also I was standing on the tablesaw to get a better picture.

I must say I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the overhead blade guard. I followed and article by Gordon J. Sampson posted online at http://www.woodcentral.com/bparticles/blade_guard.pdf awhile back and as I was building it I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread until I wanted to use my tenoning jig. Then the love was lost... until I had a brainstorm and built the side sliding mechanism to move it out of the way and I have the added bonus feature of capturing dust at the router as well.

One major holdup on changing it was I didn't want to get in the path of my overhead projector. I used junk I had laying around and spent no cash at all in the redesign. All better now.

[Phil Thien]

The humorous thing is, as enormous as table/cabinet that you've built, it still isn't large enough to hold all those tools!

[Jerry McFalls]

Phil,

You're quite right, that's why I'm building a miter saw station similar in drawer space to Norm Abrams new one but completely different in a few ways that I feel are improvements. I will post pictures of it later. Stay tuned...

[johnny means]

Being unemployed in todays economy bites but I like to see the sunny side in everything .

they've actually coined a term for your employment status FUNEMPLOYMENT. Seems like your having a ball.

[Nathan Callender]

Jerry - thanks for the info on how you mounted the saw. The pictures help for sure.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

I was going to mention the overhead guard .

I also like the sleeve style router fence. I have been considering something like this. Is it annoying to have it tied to your table saw fence? I.e. are very, very slight adjustments easy enough?

Thanks!
Salem