brown_hawk
04-24-2008, 09:56 PM
I have been looking for a miter sled for a while, and I finally decided on a JoinTech SmartMiter (www.jointech.com). One major factor was the price - it was on sale for less than $200, with another $25 for a hold down clamp. Another reason was the advertised “floating pivot point,” which allows the user to set a length on the fence, and that length stays constant, no matter what angle is used. Another point was that the sled was ShopSmith compatible out of the box. It has a + or - 50 degrees, with half degree stops. It does not have the incremental screw adjustment for between stops like the Incra 5000, but to me that was always a non player. (Yes, I know that somewhere down he line, I will have to eat these words.) A final factor was the web site, which had a video of how to set the sled up, and then how to use it. Like the Sawdust Sessions, one great selling tool.
When it arrived, and I took it out of the box, the first impression was weight. This thing was heavy. I mean that the sled was plastic an aluminum, and I wasn’t expecting the weight. So the first good point is that it has a hand hole for carrying and hanging. And the weight is a plus as well. Well on to the setup.
First thing was to insure that the table was square to the blade, and that the blade was perpendicular to the table. Both of these measurements were right on, the table being only .002 off the square. According to charlese, this is within the error of wood itself, and I agree. But I can get rather anal about that kind of thing. The next step was the extension table, which is necessary because of the size of the sled. That was not level with the main table, so I leveled that, and was ready to begin with the sled itself. Also, it needs to be the extension table, not a floating table, for two reasons. One is depth of cut. 1/2” sled thickness, plus the 1 1/2” cladding thickness needs a 2” blade height. A simple floating table over the headstock leaves barely 2”. The second reason is that the extension is locked, and the weight of the sled will no be able to pull down on the left side. A minor point, but this is a review, and I try to put in all that I learn.
First step is the miter bar, made of the same phenolic as the sled itself. There are allan screws that go into the side of the bar to snug it down to the miter slot, but I didn’t need these. Problem one was that I forgot to specify that the sled was for a SS, so I got the normal bar, which was maybe 1/64th too big for the slot. Since the bar was plastic, I simply used the table saw to shave the edge of the bar until it fit. My fault, and they were perfectly willing to send another bar off immediately, but it was not necessary. Then I took the included bolt and attached the handle, using a socket wrench to tighten it down.
The next step was attaching he bar to the bottom of the sled, with the included hardware. This is four screws and sliding nuts. One of the selling points is that the setup allows the sled to be moved from one saw to another, and the miter bar setup is the key to this flexibility. It goes into slots and slides to fit numerous slot to blade distances.
Of course, this brings the problem of aligning the sled to the blade. First I made sure that the quill was not extended, and was locked, and then that the table was snug against the headstock and locked. Then, with the bar screws holding the bar snug to the sled, I placed the sled on the table, and moved the sled over next to the blade. (For this setup, it is recommended that you use your widest kerf blade, which I did. Thinner kerfs don’t make that much difference.) Then I revolved the blade and found the one tooth that was the one that stuck out most on the left side.
I marked that tooth with a magic marker, and used it for the calibration. Then I took some shims from my dado blades, and used those to gap the end of the miter bar to that tooth at both the front and he back of the blade. (They use a dollar bill, but as I said, I’m anal.) Then I carefully slid the Smartmiter so that the first screw of the miter bar was free of the table. I tightened the screw, then did the same with the screw at the back. Then I went back with the shims and made sure that nothing had moved. Then, without removing the sled from the table, I repeated the tightening with the two inner screws.
(In the video, they lift the sled to tighten the screws, but I took that to be a video demo thing, and decided to do it the easy way by sliding the sled back and forth when the screws had been tightened enough to make losing the calibration unlikely. It worked.)
The next step is to take a wide piece of wood, run it through, and flip one of he pieces to see if there was any gap. (A wider piece makes any deviation much more noticeable.) When I did this, there was no gap, and my setup was done.
The next step was aligning the rulers in the top of the fence. They send a setup block with the sled for this, as well as excellent instructions. The plastic cursor is scribed both top and bottom to eliminate any possibility of parallax. The only thing I will mention about this is that the main fence ruler was about 1/4” too long, and I bumped it when I started to calibrate the extension fence. So I cut off 1/4”, and recalibrated. I will probably put a drop of rubber cement on each end to hold them in place. Not that it should be a problem, but I already told you, I’m anal about measurements.
One potential problem that I see is the angle piece that attaches to the flip stop, allowing a 45 degree angle cut to rest against it. This attaches to the flip stop with a screw. Nothing wrong with the design, just a little piece that could become lost. I am thinking that I might use velcro to attach it to the back of the fence, but that thought is still bouncing around in my mind.
One high point is that the sled comes with an angle cutting table printed on the board. This give the number of sides and the angle needed to get a polygon of that number of sides. It goes down to 20 sides with 9 degree cuts. This would allow for gluing up for lathe turning, or many other possibilities.
The next step is to cut something and see if all of this was worth the time and effort. Since I am having to build a new router table top to fit my router lift, I figured that the oak cladding for the top would be a good test of the length and angle characteristics of the sled.
The table top goes on the New Yankee Workshop router table, with a couple of changes. The table is deeper, as I wanted to be able to use my Incra Jig for repeatable cuts, and because I wanted to be able to use the table as a table. In a small shop, ANY space available for matching, sorting, etc. is handy. The other change is that I used 2 pieces of 3/4” MDF instead of 1/2 and 3/4. I just didn’t want to spend the money for a full sheet of each. Cheap, that’s me.
After cutting the oak to width, and making sure that the glued up MDF was square, I measured the table top dimensions. The SmartMiter ruler has TWO scales. The BLACK scale is used to measure the outside, or long side of a mitered piece. The RED scale is used to measure the inside, or short side of a mitered piece. (The site video explains this well.) Since I want to make sure that the inner side fits the side of the MDF, I used the red scales to measure and cut the oak cladding.
The first problem is that the cladding is 1 1/2” tall, and the stop lock only allows for wood 1 1/8” tall to go under it. Since none of the piecs are over 40”, and the arm goes to 48”, full extension takes care of the problem. For longer pieces, the extension can be removed,but I would probably do those on a miter saw.
The first cut on all four parts is simply to put a 45 degree angle on them, remembering that the piece is held vertically, and not horizontally.
The next step is to attach the 45 degree attachment to the stop block. Since the long part of the mitered board is away from the fence, this gives the mitered cut more support than just the end of the miter or somewhere on the edge of the miter. With the piece attached, set the stop block cursor to the proper length using the RED scale, which gives the inside measurement. And since I forgot to use the RED scale, the first piece came out short. That’s what I have extras around for.
Next problem was from not paying attention. One of the pieces was slightly warped, and should have been clamped to the fence. Since it was not, it came out a little long, and had to be recut using clamps. The long pieces done, and checked against the table, I put in the measurement for the short side on the RED scale, and cut the remaining two pieces.
Basicaly, the angle and the length were correct as far as I could measure. ANd since these were edge cuts, they were a little more demanding that might notmally be the case. Set up was finicky, but once done, things go well. This is a welcome addition to my shop, especially the right on inner length measurements.
Hawk
When it arrived, and I took it out of the box, the first impression was weight. This thing was heavy. I mean that the sled was plastic an aluminum, and I wasn’t expecting the weight. So the first good point is that it has a hand hole for carrying and hanging. And the weight is a plus as well. Well on to the setup.
First thing was to insure that the table was square to the blade, and that the blade was perpendicular to the table. Both of these measurements were right on, the table being only .002 off the square. According to charlese, this is within the error of wood itself, and I agree. But I can get rather anal about that kind of thing. The next step was the extension table, which is necessary because of the size of the sled. That was not level with the main table, so I leveled that, and was ready to begin with the sled itself. Also, it needs to be the extension table, not a floating table, for two reasons. One is depth of cut. 1/2” sled thickness, plus the 1 1/2” cladding thickness needs a 2” blade height. A simple floating table over the headstock leaves barely 2”. The second reason is that the extension is locked, and the weight of the sled will no be able to pull down on the left side. A minor point, but this is a review, and I try to put in all that I learn.
First step is the miter bar, made of the same phenolic as the sled itself. There are allan screws that go into the side of the bar to snug it down to the miter slot, but I didn’t need these. Problem one was that I forgot to specify that the sled was for a SS, so I got the normal bar, which was maybe 1/64th too big for the slot. Since the bar was plastic, I simply used the table saw to shave the edge of the bar until it fit. My fault, and they were perfectly willing to send another bar off immediately, but it was not necessary. Then I took the included bolt and attached the handle, using a socket wrench to tighten it down.
The next step was attaching he bar to the bottom of the sled, with the included hardware. This is four screws and sliding nuts. One of the selling points is that the setup allows the sled to be moved from one saw to another, and the miter bar setup is the key to this flexibility. It goes into slots and slides to fit numerous slot to blade distances.
Of course, this brings the problem of aligning the sled to the blade. First I made sure that the quill was not extended, and was locked, and then that the table was snug against the headstock and locked. Then, with the bar screws holding the bar snug to the sled, I placed the sled on the table, and moved the sled over next to the blade. (For this setup, it is recommended that you use your widest kerf blade, which I did. Thinner kerfs don’t make that much difference.) Then I revolved the blade and found the one tooth that was the one that stuck out most on the left side.
I marked that tooth with a magic marker, and used it for the calibration. Then I took some shims from my dado blades, and used those to gap the end of the miter bar to that tooth at both the front and he back of the blade. (They use a dollar bill, but as I said, I’m anal.) Then I carefully slid the Smartmiter so that the first screw of the miter bar was free of the table. I tightened the screw, then did the same with the screw at the back. Then I went back with the shims and made sure that nothing had moved. Then, without removing the sled from the table, I repeated the tightening with the two inner screws.
(In the video, they lift the sled to tighten the screws, but I took that to be a video demo thing, and decided to do it the easy way by sliding the sled back and forth when the screws had been tightened enough to make losing the calibration unlikely. It worked.)
The next step is to take a wide piece of wood, run it through, and flip one of he pieces to see if there was any gap. (A wider piece makes any deviation much more noticeable.) When I did this, there was no gap, and my setup was done.
The next step was aligning the rulers in the top of the fence. They send a setup block with the sled for this, as well as excellent instructions. The plastic cursor is scribed both top and bottom to eliminate any possibility of parallax. The only thing I will mention about this is that the main fence ruler was about 1/4” too long, and I bumped it when I started to calibrate the extension fence. So I cut off 1/4”, and recalibrated. I will probably put a drop of rubber cement on each end to hold them in place. Not that it should be a problem, but I already told you, I’m anal about measurements.
One potential problem that I see is the angle piece that attaches to the flip stop, allowing a 45 degree angle cut to rest against it. This attaches to the flip stop with a screw. Nothing wrong with the design, just a little piece that could become lost. I am thinking that I might use velcro to attach it to the back of the fence, but that thought is still bouncing around in my mind.
One high point is that the sled comes with an angle cutting table printed on the board. This give the number of sides and the angle needed to get a polygon of that number of sides. It goes down to 20 sides with 9 degree cuts. This would allow for gluing up for lathe turning, or many other possibilities.
The next step is to cut something and see if all of this was worth the time and effort. Since I am having to build a new router table top to fit my router lift, I figured that the oak cladding for the top would be a good test of the length and angle characteristics of the sled.
The table top goes on the New Yankee Workshop router table, with a couple of changes. The table is deeper, as I wanted to be able to use my Incra Jig for repeatable cuts, and because I wanted to be able to use the table as a table. In a small shop, ANY space available for matching, sorting, etc. is handy. The other change is that I used 2 pieces of 3/4” MDF instead of 1/2 and 3/4. I just didn’t want to spend the money for a full sheet of each. Cheap, that’s me.
After cutting the oak to width, and making sure that the glued up MDF was square, I measured the table top dimensions. The SmartMiter ruler has TWO scales. The BLACK scale is used to measure the outside, or long side of a mitered piece. The RED scale is used to measure the inside, or short side of a mitered piece. (The site video explains this well.) Since I want to make sure that the inner side fits the side of the MDF, I used the red scales to measure and cut the oak cladding.
The first problem is that the cladding is 1 1/2” tall, and the stop lock only allows for wood 1 1/8” tall to go under it. Since none of the piecs are over 40”, and the arm goes to 48”, full extension takes care of the problem. For longer pieces, the extension can be removed,but I would probably do those on a miter saw.
The first cut on all four parts is simply to put a 45 degree angle on them, remembering that the piece is held vertically, and not horizontally.
The next step is to attach the 45 degree attachment to the stop block. Since the long part of the mitered board is away from the fence, this gives the mitered cut more support than just the end of the miter or somewhere on the edge of the miter. With the piece attached, set the stop block cursor to the proper length using the RED scale, which gives the inside measurement. And since I forgot to use the RED scale, the first piece came out short. That’s what I have extras around for.
Next problem was from not paying attention. One of the pieces was slightly warped, and should have been clamped to the fence. Since it was not, it came out a little long, and had to be recut using clamps. The long pieces done, and checked against the table, I put in the measurement for the short side on the RED scale, and cut the remaining two pieces.
Basicaly, the angle and the length were correct as far as I could measure. ANd since these were edge cuts, they were a little more demanding that might notmally be the case. Set up was finicky, but once done, things go well. This is a welcome addition to my shop, especially the right on inner length measurements.
Hawk