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Miter Table Mockup - works better than expected
I decided to do a quick mock-up of my idea to make sure it was reasonably sound. The goal was to use the base from a spare SMT to create a miter table that:
1. Can be adjusted square to the blade
2. Can be installed and removed quickly
I am surprised at how well it works seeing as I used nothing but scraps and about an hour's time. Part of the challenge is finding material that is the right height. The height from the (inside) bottom of the bare SMT base to the saw table surface is just over 1". I found that filling the center of the SMT base with 1/2" ply brought it to the top of the base's side rails. Then, I found that my leftover 9/16" engineered bamboo floor brought it to just the right height.
The surface of the floor is nice and slick, which is good, but the material is a little bit springy. You can see I added a couple extra screws on the inside to try to control it. The flex happens along the inside edge which I extended out from the base to fill in the gap where the back SMT base rail hits the saw body. I'll need to do more testing, but I think in practice, the edge, which is just a hair proud of the saw table (by design) will flex down to meet it and then stop. Not quite ideal, but definitely usable as-is. When I am ready to finalize it, I will glue the flooring to the plywood and that should stiffen it up considerably.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that after assembly, it was within maybe a degree or two of square to the blade. Very easy to adjust to square using the SMT's Allen screw adjusters.
I plan to use this for a bit as is, then make a final version once I know what does and doesn't work.
Once again, just for clarity - I used a spare SMT - it was actually a broken one that I got for the price of shipping. I love the real SMT and will continue to use it most of the time. This just gives me more options.
I decided to do a quick mock-up of my idea to make sure it was reasonably sound. The goal was to use the base from a spare SMT to create a miter table that:
1. Can be adjusted square to the blade
2. Can be installed and removed quickly
I am surprised at how well it works seeing as I used nothing but scraps and about an hour's time. Part of the challenge is finding material that is the right height. The height from the (inside) bottom of the bare SMT base to the saw table surface is just over 1". I found that filling the center of the SMT base with 1/2" ply brought it to the top of the base's side rails. Then, I found that my leftover 9/16" engineered bamboo floor brought it to just the right height.
The surface of the floor is nice and slick, which is good, but the material is a little bit springy. You can see I added a couple extra screws on the inside to try to control it. The flex happens along the inside edge which I extended out from the base to fill in the gap where the back SMT base rail hits the saw body. I'll need to do more testing, but I think in practice, the edge, which is just a hair proud of the saw table (by design) will flex down to meet it and then stop. Not quite ideal, but definitely usable as-is. When I am ready to finalize it, I will glue the flooring to the plywood and that should stiffen it up considerably.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that after assembly, it was within maybe a degree or two of square to the blade. Very easy to adjust to square using the SMT's Allen screw adjusters.
I plan to use this for a bit as is, then make a final version once I know what does and doesn't work.
Once again, just for clarity - I used a spare SMT - it was actually a broken one that I got for the price of shipping. I love the real SMT and will continue to use it most of the time. This just gives me more options.
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