some projects are tougher than others...

[HowardH]

Sometimes projects go exactly as planned, or close enough and then there are ones like I'm building now.  My son got a pair of JBL monitors to go with his Christmas present, a Yamaha MOXF-8 keyboard.  Rather than they sit on the floor, I decided to build a pair of pedestal stands.  Man, did things go wrong from there.  I thought it would be best to create a pedestal from plywood, about 4" square and miter the corners so the plies wouldn't show.  Sounded good on paper.  However, I discovered with a right tilt saw (hammer K3) that in order to get the miters in the proper orientation after the first 45 miter, I had to flip the board around where the miter was laying flat on the table.  Turns out this creates another problem because the mitered edge slips under the fence since the fence sits up a mm or so off the table so it won't drag.  Turns out none of the pieces were exactly the same size.    grrrrrrr.  I dominoed them together and they are bit out of square so they are simply not acceptable.  There's also some thing wrong with the set up of the crosscut fence.  It must be just a shade off as I can't get it to measure out perfectly, or close to it, using the 5 cut system.  After working most of the day trying to get it right, I said forget it and I'm going to start over.  The bases turned out ok so I can use them.  I think I'm going to create a sub fence that will be clamped to the Hammer fence that will ride flat on the table so that should prevent the miters from submarining under the fence.  It's either that or just butt joint them using dominos since they will painted black.  Who knows, I'll sleep on it and maybe wake up with a creative idea to make it work!  Tell us about your project that went south right off the bat.  I'm sure everyone has a project that you can laugh about now but not at the time.

 

[Bohdan]

The right tilt saws are usually sliders and you're supposed to cut the mitres face up on the slider. This ensures that you don't scratch the face, enables you to see the cut and gives a perfect edge when crosscutting brittle veneers.

 

[junk731]

As Bohdan states your trying to use a sliding table saw like a cabinet instead of what its designed for. Get yourself a parallel fence either from Felder or from Brian at Lamb Tool Works. The only thing I use the fence for is a bump stop. I've traded posts with Brian on the first FOG for about 8 years now and finally got to have a drink with him at the Las Vegas show this year.
http://www.lambtoolworks.com/products.html

John

 

[HowardH]

Old habits die hard.  I hadn't even considered that.  I have some scrap ply I'll experiment on today. 

 

[MrGinCT]

I've used an "upside down" L add on to my fence to cut 45"s on my right tilt table saw.  What you do is build an "L" shaped fence with the bottom of the "L" being at least 2" long.  Turn  the "L" over so that the lower part of the "L" is above the table saw table and then you tilt the saw blade to 45 and slowly raise it up so that it cuts into the "L".  This way you never have to be concerned about any cut offs getting trapped between the fence and the blade and kicking like a rocket back at you.  You also never have to be concerned with any edge of a 45 getting under the edge of your fence and pulling the cut out of square.