Newbie crosscut sled question

[Matt P]

I see some sleds with a fence at both the "front" and the "back".. why is this, and when would you use a front fence vs. a rear fence on the sled?

thanks in advance,
matt

[glenn bradley]

If there is no front fence or bridge, the base of the sled has no support once it is cut in half, eh? I have one design where the blade gets buried in the 'dummy' block prior to sawing the entire base in half but the front or leading edge is still sawn through. No bridge, things get a little flappy and your kerf will not remain consistent. ;-)

There are some designs that use only a back (away from the operator) fence but these generally pass by one side of the blade as opposed to straddling it. I don't care for this design but some folks prefer it.

[Gary Keedwell]

My Dubby sled has it's only fence on operator side of blade. Uses one miter slot. I think the sleds that have two fences use both miter slots. In other words one sled has one runner and one sled has two runners.
Gary

[Randal Stevenson]

Another reason for two fences, it allows a mounting point for a saw guard. Helps hold the sled together, and others some minor measure of protection.

[Jamie Baalmann]

I'm with glenn on this one... Make the front "support" ( not fence ) an arch or step down so the point where the blade passes through is tall and won't be cut and make sure and get a thick enough back fence to bury the blade in without cutting apart the sled and for safety reasons. You could go a completely different route make one for the left and one for the right and use another piece of ply same thickness clamped as a zero clearance.

[Danny Thompson]

I use only 1 fence on my 2' x 4' sled with 2 miter slots. I don't have a jointer, so I made the fence from 2 strips of 3/4" melamine laminated together--glued and screwed--to make a 1 1/2" thick fence.

Cuts perfectly square. It has really transformed the quality of my work.

The only effect of not having a fence on a leading edge that I can tell is that, as I lift it off or onto the table, the two sides don't stay in alignment. But once I set it on the table everything is flat and square. So, as far as I can tell, there is no negative effect on my cuts.

I have no blade guard on my sled.

[Rod Sheridan]

I have a homemade sled with a single runner that rides in the left mitre slot in the saw table.

The sled has a 3/4 inch high fence that ends at the blade.

On the right side of the blade, I have a piece of the sheet good that the sled is made from, with a runner in the mitre track, and a ledge that rests against the front edge of the table. This provides the second part of the sled to support the work, although it doesn't move.

I use an Excalibur overarm guard as a guard/dust hood.


For mitres, I use the Jessem mitre gauge.

Regards, Rod.

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Matt
I have a home made sled with the fence board on the (front) leading edge of the sled.
It is 90 degrees to the blade and used on the left side of the blade.
A piece of uhmw plastic rides in the left slot to guide the sled.
You push the board that needs cut, up against the fence board, thereby pushing the sled through the cut.
Daniel
ps, it has no rear fence (board).

[Danny Thompson]

I should also mention that the base of my sled is 1/2" MDF. If it were ply, especially 1/4" ply, then I would want a leading edge fence to keep the ply from twisting, thereby affecting the squareness of the cut.

Daniel,

How do you ensure your board you are cutting remains flush with your leading edge fence?

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

The sled is 18 x 24, with the fence across the 24 inch front side.
The sled and fence were both cut by the blade, so are exactly square to the blade.
You push the board, that is to be cut, against the fence, and push both through the cut. Of course the sled (fence and sled) are not cut, just the board. It is a reverse miter gage, only bigger.

[Orval Schroeder]

There is an article in popular woodworkings october 07 issue with a crosscut sled with the fence in the front. I made it and it works fine for me, I modified it some to fit my need. It has all the instructions to make it, check it out.

[Mike Vermeil]

It's been my experience that the type w/o a front fence are like the one David Marks uses on his show - where the blade slot doesn't reach the front edge. I keep meaning to make one, but haven't yet got around to it.

[Danny Thompson]

My slot goes all the way through the front, with no problems.

Daniel,

But how do you make sure you don't rotate the board during the cut? I mean, I sometimes find I need to clamp my work to the fence, to make sure it doesn't turn, especially when cutting large boards or long boards.

[Guy Germaine]

Here's mine. It's not really a fence across the front, but a piece to keep the front ends from flopping around, and make it stiffer.

[Randy Klein]

This is probably more semantics than anything else, but Norm seems to refer to the crosscut sled sans the front piece as a panel cutter and not a crosscut sled. He also has his miter runner extending substantially past his sled.

My guess is that this can be useful if the panel to be cut is wider than the sled. Without the front piece, the panel can over hang the sled, but with the longer runner, he can back up the sled farther from the blade before cutting.