The first step is building a tablesaw crosscut sled is selecting and cutting a plywood base. You can make them almost any size you want that works for your tablesaw and shop.īelow is a list of steps for building this tablesaw crosscut sled. The crosscut sled is 42 inches wide and 31 inches deep. If you’d like to download this model you can do it HERE for free. SketchUp is an excellent way to design projects in 3D so you can create plans and material lists. It’s built on a 1/2″ thick piece of Birch plywood along with some scrap pieces of 3/4″ MDO and 1/2″ MDF for the sacrificial front fence.Ībove is a picture of a SketchUp model that I made. The base and fence act as “zero clearance” guides allowing you to very accurately set the work-piece in position for the cut (the saw kerf in the base acts as a guide).Īs I mentioned earlier I used two different crosscut sled examples to develop mine. With the use of a stop block you can quickly mass produce precise crosscuts and repetitive work. The sled allows you to make near perfect 90 degree cuts.

Precision – Precision is the big advantage that the crosscut sled will provide.

The sled allows you to clamp the work piece down if needed when the piece is small, this allows you to keep those fingers at a safe distance! It also allows you to slide the material through the blade without actually sliding the material on the table (the material is sitting on the sled, the sled is the material which is sliding on the steel table). First and foremost it nearly eliminates any possibility of binding the material.

Safety – The tabelsaw crosscut sled improves safety in several ways.

The crosscut sled offers two huge advantages and those are safety and precision.

The answer is pretty simple and very obvious once you start using one. So if you’re new to woodworking you might wonder why you’d want to build a crosscut sled. Tablesaw Crosscut Sleds are Safer & More Precise You can see both of those examples at the following links: My crosscut sled is a combination of a design from American Woodworker magazine and one that Mark Spagnuolo from the Wood Whisperer made. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge two great resources for building a crosscut sled. I’ve included a bunch of photo and even a Sketchup Model that you can use.

I’ve got a really fun chess board project coming up and this will really help out. I’ve been putting this project off for such a long time and finally it made it to my priority list. A precision tablesaw crosscut sled is one of the best workshop jigs you can make for woodworking projects.

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