The Sled

The sled project is complete.  However before I explain what I did I must mention the media server project.  We have been able to wirelessly stream (view) videos on the media server around the house on our local network.  Yesterday I managed to complete the configuration for external access.  You might forgive me for feeling slightly smug when our youngest emailed to say he was walking around Manchester watching a high definition video on his phone being streamed from our server in Perth.  My brother in another Perth suburb wasn’t so fortunate.  His internet connection is so slow that the server couldn’t send his TV video data.  Australia really has “missed the boat” when it comes to a modern internet system.

OK, the sled.  The glue had set on the runners overnight and I turned the base over to add some screws to the runners.

 

The front fence was made from a scrap of 19mm plywood.  It doesn’t have to be square to the saw blade and is only required to stop the leading edge of the base flexing.  I needed to cut a chamfer on the base of the leading edge of the back fence.  I just tilted the saw blade to 45° and ran the timber through the saw.

you can see the chamfer on the top right corner.  This is actually the bottom edge and the timber will be rotated 180° when fitted.  The purpose of the chamfer is to avoid a build-up of sawdust at the bottom of the fence.

The next step was to screw one end of the fence to the base leaving the other end free (actually I just clamped it).  The sled was placed on the saw with the blade down.  Once the sled runners were in the grooves on the saw top I raised the saw blade so it came through the base.

The sled was then moved backwards and forwards cutting a line in the base of the sled. I left some uncut base at ether end.

This saw cut then because my reference line and using my large square I adjusted the angle of the back fence until it was exactly 90° to the saw cut.

All that was then required was to screw the back fence to the sled base  and complete the saw line.  

It’s possible to lose “situational awareness” when using power tools.  As I want to be able to continue to count to ten rather than eight I decided to make a safety extension for the rear fence using the offcut from the fence.

I used a jam jar lid to mark the curves and then cut them out with the jigsaw

The idea is this extension will prevent me from accidentally leaving my thumbs in line with the saw blade.

Back to the bed tomorrow