your crosscut sled is way too big

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I have seen 100+ videos on making a crosscut sled and yet I found this one entertaining and informative. It was almost life changing. OK, that is overstating a bit but this was very well done with great justification on every decision you made and I am impressed. Keep up the great work.

Crosscut sled size is directly correlated to the woodworker’s ego. Naturally, I have a massive crosscut sled.

I like the humour you inject in your videos. Makes them so entertaining! I also like how you show mistakes that always happen while woodworking - lessons are learned from recovering from them. Thanks!

I like your videos Scott. You have just the right amount of upbeat personality and subtle humor. I especially like your trademark "BYE" at the end. It would be nice if you made videos a little more often though.

I have several sleds, but the one I use the most is marginally larger than the one you have here; kept the forward fence in order to help with longevity - manoeuvering it and manhandling it when it's not on the saw risks damage if it's only held together by the back fence. I broke my first sled this way. Anyhoo, RE the T-Tracks, I use mine all the time when I am cutting weird shapes; I put one on the top of my fence as well as the face of the fence, and I use them a lot. I then made my own hold-downs laminating scrap pieces of exotic woods (Purpleheart, Ipe, and Bloodwood) which are super strong, but also look fancy, and making my own knobs out of other scraps. Finally, my mitre slot slide was also home-made - and I only put ONE on the sled. On previous sleds, the very slight shrinkage or expansion of the sled itself was what was causing it to stick. It turns out, you only really need one anyway. Choosing naturally slippery woods (Bloodwood is probably my favourite because it feels so smooth even without wax) will make an excellent mitre slide - I found aluminum to be just a little "scratchy" in the slot.

8:32 Here's a way to ensure a perfect 90° fence without any drama: 1. Clamp the fence to the base as close to 90° as possible. 2. Drill holes through the base into the fence on the right and left side. Drive screws in both holes. 3. Unclamp the fence and remove the left screw completely. 4. Rotate the fence out of the way temporarily and enlarge the left hole in the base so the fence can be adjusted forward and back a few mm. 5. Reinstall the left screw and tighten the fence at what appears to be 90° and make a test cut. If it's not a perfect 90°, loosen the left screw a few turns and rotate the fence forward or back as necessary and retighten. Test again. 6. When it's square, drill a second hole on the left side to make it impossible for the fence to go out of alignment.

I agree that a full front fence is completely unnecessary. BUT some type of front fence does add a ton of structural rigidity to the sled when the sled is NOT on the table . This is important because when you pick up the fence with one hand the two halves of the base, which are only connected together with the rear fence, will try to rotate (droop) about the cut line. To keep the two halves from drooping a counteracting torque has to be generated in the rear fence. Torque is force times distance. The distance between the two forces is often referred to as structural depth. So the smaller the distance (in this case the distance between the two sides of the rear fence) the larger the forces. Conversely the greater the distance, the smaller the forces required to generate the same torque. You did make the rear fence thicker and added the block on the back, which does add structural depth which reduces the forces in the rear fence. But adding a front fence makes the entire depth of the sled the structural depth. But there is no reason to make the front fence as wide as the rear fence since its only purpose is to add structural depth. So something on the order of your quick fix little temporary front fence is really all that is needed to make the sled very rigid. Of course you would probably want to make it a little prettier. But it really would need to be much wider than what you had. Or you could just be very careful and always pick up the sled with two hands, one on each side of the cut line so that both halves of the base are supported until you get the sled on the tablesaw and the runners in the miter slots can resist any forces trying to cause the two halves of the base from rotating (which is another reason you don't want any slop in the runners since it is forces on the sides of the runners against the miter slots that provide the necessary torque to hold the base in exact alignment. And since the distance between the slots is very large, those side-to-side forces are quite small. Plus some people like to put a piece of plexiglass above the blade between the tops of the front and rear fence to stop any chips that might be thrown upwards by the blade, as might happen if you are shaving off a very thin sliver, and the sliver rotates into the back of the blade when it is cut free and bits of it are flung upwards. Safety glass will keep you from losing an eye if that happened, but they won't keep your face from being hit by wood shrapnel. A short front fence would also allow such a shield to be added.

Maybe I can help you regarding those heavy things: I think I saw one in a museum once. They're called halteres, and they were used in ancient Olympic games as a performance-enhancer for jumping competitions, essentially a portable reaction mass. (Not to be confused with the halteres that house flies use to sense pitch, yaw, and roll.) Hope this helps!

Good video Scott, I'm torn between one jig that does everything (using add-ons) and multiple jigs that each do one thing really well. In a small shop, storage space is a challenge. It is great to have a small, lightweight sled that meets most of our needs, we are likely to use it. It can be a real PITA to to get out and set up a big heavy complex rig for just a few cuts. Each woodworker has unique requirements, but when woodworkers like yourself show the thought process behind your decisions, it makes it easier for us to design a solution that suits our needs. Great pace, good length of video, nice touch of humour: not over done. For something that is highly relevant to what I am working on, I can easily sit through an hour or more, albeit I may have to break it into a few sessions. Otherwise, I find 12 to 15 minutes optimal. That's all IMO. Other peoples' MMV. Best wishes from a remote part of the Land Down Under. What I would give for a bit scrap cherry, walnut or Baltic birch ply!

Scott, I built this sled from the plans. It turned out great but there were a couple of issues. The Veritas T track with space for a measuring tape is exactly 1.5" wide. The thickness 2 layers of Canadian birch 3/4" plywood for the fence is about 1/8" less than 1.5 inches. If the T track is installed flush with the front face (face towards the saw blade) of the fence then the T track hangs over the back face of the fence. A 1/8" thick plywood shim is required between the safety guard for the blade passing through the fence and the fence. Cutting a dado in the safety guard does not work because the safety guard would interfere with the stop block. ( I cannot afford Baltic birch. It is almost $200 / sheet on Vancouver Island.) The Veritas large stop block has a quality issue. The 2 lugs that project down into the T track slot either side of the bolt are less than 3/8" wide so the stop block rocks back and forth about 1/32" on the vertical axis. When I shimmed the width of the lugs with a couple of layers of paper the stop block was prevented from moving. Did you have similar experiences? I am going to try to find something more durable than paper for the shim. I will keep you posted. In order to be able to read the tape measure off the side of the flip part of the stop block I installed the T track with the slot on the back face and the tape measure closest to the saw blade. This means that the stop block on the aluminum angle has to built L shaped like the stop block for the larger panel sled (which I am building next). I used CA glue to attach a 1" long piece of angle to the end of the longer angle so this short piece would overlap on the tape measure and I could read the tape measure easier.

Good to know those heavy things have another use, I use them as decorations in the corner of my room. Great vid Scott!

I can tell you are an up and comer. Tell you Photog she’s doing a great job with the video, audio and lighting.

Thanks for covering premade miter tracks! Every video I see on sled jigs uses wooden tracks but knowing me it’d be the thing that keeps me from finishing a sled to use in the first place

Great design. Great video. I love that you added your corrected mistakes. It's just part of the process.

I usually don't use my miter Guage because it's garbage, but when I did, prior to building my miter sled, I never had the work piece slide around. I simply held the work piece.

I built the Nick Ferry sled. I do love it. I’m not thrilled with the miter bars I used. They end up needing adjusting more often that I’d like. I’ve also widened the kerf by using different blades. It’s heavy and awkward. But I still love it. It would be nice to have a smaller one like this.

Thank you, this was really clear and helpful. Some of the other videos I watched had so much irrelevant detail, i was getting really confused. You explained exactly what you were doing and exactly why you were doing it. You offered alternatives, but never too much. Seriously, thank you so much.

👍 The stop extension idea was worth the watch Thank You 👍

thanks for the idea on the stop block extension. I have a smaller table saw and struggle with this exact need all the time!