New Mitre Station (part 3 of 3) - Workshop Re-Model Episode 6

In part 3 I begin by making a new fence for the mitresaw.  Originally I was going to make one using wood, but while I was in my local DIY shop I stumbled upon some lengths of aluminium angle which were relatively inexpensive and it occurred to me that it would be worth using that instead as it is perfectly straight.  
 
I decided to fit this not only to the worktop of the mitrestation, but also to the saw itself to replace the existing mitre saw fence.  
 
I cut the aluminium to length with a hacksaw.  Then I marked up where to drill holes for the bolts very carefully using digital calipers.  I centre punched with an awl, applied oil and then drilled the holes with a 10mm drill bit.  The bolts were 8mm but I wanted to have some room for adjustments which would enable me to get the fence at a perfect 90 degree angle to the blade.
 
Next I fitted the fence to the mitre saw on one side and squared it up to the blade using a framing square.  I propped open the blade guard using a wedge of wood.  When it appeared that the fence was at 90 degrees to the blade, I secured the bolt on the other side and I could then do a test cut.
 
I swapped the blade out as I didn’t want to cut through aluminium with my new blade, and then I made the cut.
 
Next I made a test cut, flipped one of the pieces by 180 degrees and pushed both pieces up against the straight fence and there were no gaps inbetween the two pieces which told me that the cut was accurate at 90 degrees – I was surprised to get this right first time as it’s always taken me a few attempts in the past!
 
Then I secured the rest of the fence down to the worktop by drilling pilot holes, counter sinking, and adding screws.
 
I bought a metallic faced, adhesive measuring tapes by Kreg.  Rather than fitting it to the front of the fence I decided to mount a piece of wood to the back of the fence, and fit the measuring tape to the top of the piece of wood instead because I was worried that by applying it to the front it would affect the cutting accuracy.
 
I ripped a piece of wood to slightly below the height of the fence to leave space for the thickness of the measuring tape and attached it to the fence again with screws.  It was important to countersink the holes again so that the head of each screw was set back from the front of the fence so that it wouldn’t affect the accuracy of cuts.  I also had to cut away some material from the piece of wood for where the bolt heads were on the mitre saw using a forstner bit. 
 
To make sure that the measuring tape would stick effectively to the wood I applied some pva glue to seal the wood.  That worked well.
 
Next I started making a stop block.  I used a scrap of mahogany and a Stanley knife blade to make a measurement point marker.  The stop block was cut to an L shape at the tablesaw.  
 
I re-shaped the Stanley knife blade to the shape I wanted on the belt sander then I spray painted the tip of it black, and used epoxy to glue it to the stop block.
 
Then I could stick down the measuring tape to the piece of wood. I realised that I would need to offset the tape by the distance between the measuring pointer on the stop block which was just over 4mm.
 
I tested the accuracy of the stop block by setting it to 600mm and cutting a piece of wood, and then confirming with a tape measure that it measured exactly 600mm – and it did, so no further adjustments were necessary.
 
Next I fitted my dust collection hoses to both the saw and the belt sander mounted underneath the mitresaw cabinet.  I can then use the shop vac on either machine by swapping from hose to hose.
 
That is the mitre station complete.
 

 

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