Miter saw station

[jself]

Loring - That is a great design. I have been enlisted to hang chair rail and crown molding in a house that my older sister just bought. One of these sure would be helpful in cutting molding. I may have to borrow your design.
Thank you!!!

[LCHIEN]

Loring - That is a great design. I have been enlisted to hang chair rail and crown molding in a house that my older sister just bought. One of these sure would be helpful in cutting molding. I may have to borrow your design.
Thank you!!!

Be my guest, its really simple and cheap to build. I just used scrap wood, and 2 sections of the T-track Rockler sells for $11/four foot with t-bolts and knobs.
You can simplify and build a single support/stop like the original, you definately don't have to make rollers like I did.

[Uncle Cracker]

Nice layout, Loring. I use my RAS for most of what I would need a CMS for, but I'd want a setup like that if I needed one. It looks like one could make a removable rig that could hang across a couple good horses, and take the whole thing on the road with no trouble at all.

[footprintsinconc]

real nice! i like the additions and mods. real slick!

[LCHIEN]

if i had to make any changes today, I'd go 1/2" dowels about 2" long for the rollers.
Quarter inch dowels were a little too small.

[9johnny5]

Suggestion?

Perhaps the use of cheap wood rolling pins in the place of rollers?

[LCHIEN]

I know this thread is 5 years old, but I have made the following improvement:
The PVC pipe rollers were the weak part - they worked fine with 1x4 and 1x2 but 2x4 was a strain and 4x4 was very hard on it - the 1/4" dowels and the wood in the center of the PVC was too soft (poor choice on my part).

Anyway, about 6 months ago I picked up some industrial used/surplus ball bearing conveyor rollers with this intention:

Click on the thumbnails for a full size pic. The first pic shows the roller, the second pic shows the roller assembly, and the third picture shows how i adjusted the elevation using a screw in the bottom of the slot. This works really well. I sort of need to capture the roller because right now it will fall out of the holder slot if turned upside down...

[chopnhack]

Good upgrade, little overkill no? It doesn't look like you have much room to drill and insert a wooden dowel to lock the roller in...perhaps a nail used as a pin coming in from the side?

Would a small block of wood with a "v" cut out and inserted into the top with the v face down over the square peg of the roller with another thin piece of wood stitched across the top work?

Since you have had your setup for several years now, how much do you use it and is it worth its footprint in your shop? Or do you normally stow it and retrieve when needed?

[Shep]

Just curious, but do you think a larger piece of pvc or dowell on your original design would have been beter? Of course, I think you industrial upgrade is better. Just wondering.

[Black wallnut]

Great upgrade Loring! looking through this thread is a trip down memorey lane, with all the members who seldem post here these days.

[LCHIEN]

Just curious, but do you think a larger piece of pvc or dowell on your original design would have been beter? Of course, I think you industrial upgrade is better. Just wondering.

Yeah, I made a couple of mistakes on teh PVC design - failed to take the load into account.

MY first mistake was, oh, i want to wedge this wood into the pipe, i should use something that will deform a bit so i used some softish cedar scraps i had laying around. That in turn made the holes drilled in the end easy to deform, when i rolled heavy pieces across them (I actually cut some 4x4's at several times), the wood inserts fell out and the dowels fell out. I ended up putting screws into the wedges thru the PVC but ultimately the dowels got loose and the when i pout heavy items on them the rollers wold come off.

A larger diameter would maybe have helped by allowing putting a larger dowel in the center of some harder wood.

The second issue was with the height adjustment - you had to drill the holes just right perfectly in the center of the roller wedge or it wobbles, and the perfect right height for the side support or the roller is too high or too low.

Finally the roller bearings are just nice, they do roll much better than my PVC with a wooden post in a wooden hole bearing. They're hard and have no give and no wear to speak of.

[LCHIEN]

Good upgrade, little overkill no? It doesn't look like you have much room to drill and insert a wooden dowel to lock the roller in...perhaps a nail used as a pin coming in from the side?

Would a small block of wood with a "v" cut out and inserted into the top with the v face down over the square peg of the roller with another thin piece of wood stitched across the top work?

Since you have had your setup for several years now, how much do you use it and is it worth its footprint in your shop? Or do you normally stow it and retrieve when needed?

Yeah, my original thought was a locking dowel or screw - for some reason i though the support should be lower than the roller so that the workpieces wouldn't contact them under normal use. I do want the lock to be snug, not let the roller move up and down once the height is adjusted, and finally, to allow later height adjustment and then retightening. I do have some ideas.

FInally in terms of long term utility
I use it all the time. I didn't want to make something as complex as some of the miter stations i have seen - basically i wanted long supports, flexible stops (multiple ones) and maybe some portability/storage. The ability to shift the saw left or right to place the supports where needed.

I also did not want side guides - some of the miter stations have long side guides which won't let you make a right angle cut in a piece of piece of wood with a warp. Sometimes I break those down. Also my fence moves in and out for wider 90° cross or narrower 45° miter cuts - that would mean making a long movable fence that permanently took up bench space.

I did want one that could rest on sawhorses or be clamped to a workmate (by the center stiffening member on the bottom)

So I have not really moved it much but I could easily if i had to take it to my son-in-laws house.

And its everything i wantit to be so yes, I'd say for my needs its perfect.