Parallel Guide Bed for thin stock

[Mark]

Today I was attempting to make some replacement drawer fronts for my rotting kitchen cabinets. Too poor to gut the darn things so its really a duct tape job for now. I grabbed some scrap that was lying around and thought I'd use the parallel guides to make the fronts. Well, the classic problem came up due to the scrap being too thin to go under the rail and no way to clamp it using the outboard parallel extensions. Jerry Work suggest using another MFT which I don't have and you still have the issue of having your stock dangling in space. So I came up with this idea and borrowed Brice Burrel's totally excellent rendering of the parallel guides for this idea.

[attachimg=#]

The entire parallel guide rig is supported off of the table by some kind of supports indicated here by the dark blocks. The sacrificial bed is indicated by the brown colored slabs with grooves in them for clamps that could slide along them to clamp at any width stock. The "ties" could be shuffled to accomodate differring lenghts of stock and/or removed if not needed. The idea here is to be able to fully support the material being cut. I guess this could also span two MFT's allowing you to fully support the material being cut.

Lots of detail missing...

 

[Brice Burrell]

Mark, I like it, it will be interesting to see how the real world version plays out.  Keep us updated.

 

[Mark]

If I just look at what I was trying to do, a portable contractor saw would have gotten me better results in a fraction of the time. The guide rails and parallel guides work wonders for any kind of panel good that is wider than 85mm (~7.5") but loses to the table saw at less than that. I don't use these every day, so I just don't have a system down yet but I've always run into this problem and long for a small contractor saw.

Again, thanks for the excellent sketchup model. I hope you don't mind me using it. I'll try to "hobo" a prototype of this thing up and let you know how it works.

Mark

 

[Brice Burrell]

....Again, thanks for the excellent sketchup model. I hope you don't mind me using it....

Mark

I'm glad you used, that's why I uploaded the model to the 3D warehouse. [thumbs up] 

 

[John Stevens]

The guide rails and parallel guides work wonders for any kind of panel good that is wider than 85mm (~7.5") but loses to the table saw at less than that.

Yeah, as much as I try to live in denial of that fact, it's an inescapable conclusion.  OTOH, it's liberating to know that even the smallest benchtop table saw will handle all the ripping chores that can't be done with the plunge saw and guide rail.  Thanks for helping clarify a couple of ideas for changing my tools and methods of work.

Regards,

John