RAS Table

[David Warkentin]

Anybody have a good design for a Ras table they want to share? David

[Myk Rian]

Buy the Mr. Sawdust book. The best table is in it.
www.mrsawdust.com

[Frank McKinney]

+1 for Mr. Sawdust's book and table.

[David Warkentin]

Yes I have heard of that one. Thanks, David

[Erik Christensen]

I have used it for 6 months and am happy with the design. I am 6'2" and wanted a higher table than the stock metal legs offered so mine now sits at ~ 38" vs 32" factory. I also have built in dust collection shroud connected to my 6" DC pipe run & it gets ~95% of the dust with a 90 degree saw cut. I still have to make the door fronts before I consider this one done, but so far LOML has higher priority jobs in the queue (no complaints there as she has never said no to a tool request - behavior that should be diligently rewarded IMHO).

[Brian Darold]

Erik,

Have you encountered any issues with the saw offset to the right in relation to the table?

I mostly do 90 degree cuts so when I rebuild my RAS table, I was thinking of placing the saw to the right of the table as you did. However I've been wondering if I'll lose anything for the occasional angle cuts I have to make.

Brian

[Jeff Miller]

Works good for me



JEFF

[Erik Christensen]

jeff - nice RAS setup - I was not willing to dedicate an entire wall to mine but that sure looks like a nice production setup

Brian - I have had no issues with the saw being to the right on the table but my RAS is a turret model so the pivot point is over the fence vs at the back. I also used a suggestion from another post here and made my table with 2 - 3/4" mdf panels glued together with several steel reinforcement strips glued in saw kerfs on the inside of the panels - so far no measurable sag on the long side to the left.

[Joseph Tarantino]

nicely done, jeff. was your saw ever mobile? if yes, did you ever notice any differences in accuracy between the saw in a mobile configuration and the saw in a stationary (as you have it now) configuration?

[Louis Brandt]

Jeff,
I agree that it looks like a great setup. I'd like to have one that nice. Let me ask you this. If I'm seeing it correctly, it's a Craftsman RAS, and a lot of people say that the Craftsman models don't hold their settings well. I notice that you've got a 90 degree and a 45 degree kerf in the table. Does your saw hold its settings so well that you can switch from 90 to 45 and back, without having to realign the saw? A lot of people say that they only use their RAS for straight 90 crosscuts and never attempt to change the angle.

[Brian Darold]

...but my RAS is a turret model so the pivot point is over the fence vs at the back.

Thanks for pointing that out. I've never seen a turret model before so that detail completely escaped me.

Jeff - Nice bench! One of these days I'll have that much space in the shop...

I'm sold on my design now. I'm planning to offset the saw like Erik did (with similar table construction) but I'm also going to add drop-down wings to each side of the saw so that I can increase the width of my table when it's needed. I'll post pictures as soon as that project makes it up to the top of my list.