# Home made Table Saw for Pen Making



## leehljp

I was asked to post a picture (by Avbill here) of my home made table saw made with a circular saw. 

I am less than 48 hours away from a trip to the States, so if there are questions, - there may be a delay in answering, but I will answer. If questions are technical concerning measurements or for more detail pictures, I won't be able to post them for a month. I am not a designer or a CAD program user. I don't even draw things out on paper but visualize them in my mind with basic measurements noted in memory - which is beginning to wane a tad. 

THE CIRCULAR TABLE SAW AND SLED:
Below are pictures of a table top table saw that I made for working with pen blanks. It is larger than I originally intended by being 22"L X 18"W on the sled and 19 1/2"L by 16"W for the table base. This is the second hobby tablesaw that I made. 

The first one still works but is small with the sled being 10 1/2"W and 14" L. Just a bit too small for trimming large pieces down to good blank size.

SAFETY:
I DO NEED HELP in designing a series of hold down jigs. Nothing I come up with works consistently without warping the sled. So far, I am so scared of it that I do a couple of dry runs and make up a custom hold down or push type of stick for most cuts. I keep my hands away. I just don't like the blade whirling so close to my hand or fingers but can't visualize a blade cover that will work with the sled without hindering its basic operation.

THE TABLE SAW BASE:
The Table has a 1/4 inch aluminum base on which the 7" Makita saw was mounted.  The aluminum base is 12" square. I routed the wood 3/4" base plywood to accept the Aluminum.  With the Base sides, I had to cutout a section to allow for the end of the saw to fit. I knew that I would have to do that because of the saw's physical size.

The blade is a 1.3mm kerf carbide tipped blade. I do have a 1mm 5" blade in case I want smaller kerfs.

ALIGNMENT CORRECTIONS: For the base, I measured and measured and measured from many different angles to make sure that the saw was square. Basically, I over sized the screw holes for the saw in the aluminum, and after it was mounted on the table, tightened one screw fairly tight and the rest lightly snug.  Measured and aligned, and tightened. Once the blade was perfectly aligned to the sides, I put Lock Tite on screws and bolts.

On TOP of the table, you will see some strips. These are nylon type of strips that Japanese use on floors in doorwells for sliding doors. I placed these to allow space for sawdust AND make sliding easy and smooth. Works VERY well and smooth.

































I made a Quick OFF Switch and it works well, almost too well. The slightest touch and it is OFF.







SLED: 
For the Sled, I started with some miniature rollers recessed into the outboard sides of the sled. Each roller is mounted with one screw. Where the other screw should be, I drilled a hole all the way trough and placed a spacer inside the hole. On the outside, I screwed in Allen screws. This allows me to adjust tightness/tension and even align the sled to a partial degree.

The sled base is made from 3/8" plywood to give it stiffness. The sides and End pieces also give it stiffness. 

In the 3/8 ply, I grooved two parallel 7/32" deep channels to accept aluminum channels  and glued them in. The aluminum channels (glued in) keeps it stiff and allows just enough channel 1/8" to put runners for other jigs and alignments.

This sled with the glides on the table and tension rollers on the side slides VERY smoothly as well as tightly without hints of side play.

One reason for the large size of the sled is for cutting down boards without having to use my large table saw, which has become a "table" . Although it is a little larger than I thought it would be (the TS base is just the right size) it does allow much flexibility in precision cutting of many wood for many purposes.















SLED ADJUSTMENT ALIGNMENT PICTS



















JIG SLEDS:

I have two Jig sleds shown. 

The first one is a redundant sled or sorts, but there are times when it just seems beneficial to use the smaller sled to cut blanks from inside the big sled. This allows me to: 1. cut without the blade being exposed outside of the big sled when it is pushed all the way to the back, or  2. cut without having to add a spacer block in front of the back of the sled.








The second sled is a sled that allows me to cut with precision and miniscule measurements. I have not been able to use it to its potential because of the dangers of kickback and inability to devise a good hold down system. I am still working on this. I have used sacrificial hold down pieces that work OK, but not the best.

However, it really does allow me to trim and square up blanks to be SQUARE! This is the jig I used to make my PenStripe pen as shown here I have a small "V" jig into which I place a squared blank. With the adjuster shown here, it will cut the blank into an 8 sided blank with precision. (But It takes me a while to get the hold downs just right.)

The precision adjuster is my own version of a Quick Release and adjustment mechanism. The QR was not hard to make and I have made a few over the years. The difficult part was keeping everything in alignment and allowing it to slide without being too tight, or having too much "play" which would defeat it's purpose.

By adjusting the blade height of the saw, I made the groves for the pen in the link above.








The adjustment is done with a 6 mm rod that has a knob on the end (barely visible above). The large round headed bolt pulls upward and allows the rod to move freely for quick adjustment. Final and fine adjustment are easy to make.













Comments and or suggestions?


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## Ozzy

That's pretty cool. I've got an extra saw and now I have an idea of what to do with it.


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## Kaspar

Or you could just get one of these.  

j/k

That is very inventive and cool.


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## GBusardo

Real nifty Hank!!!  I am impressed    Have you thought of putting some kind of blade guard on it?


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## txbatons

My comment..... d**n! 

That's great workmanship!


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## tipusnr

Great work! Can you get those slide strips or an equivalent stateside?


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## leehljp

> _Originally posted by GBusardo_
> 
> Real nifty Hank!!!  I am impressed    Have you thought of putting some kind of blade guard on it?



I have thought about a blade guard but cannot figure a way to make one work with a sled. If it is built on the sled, it doesn't move with the blade; if it stays in relation to the blade, it doesn't work when the blade retracts/goes into the end boards.

I am open to ideas. 

If I lock down the main sled and use the top sleds, I run into the same thing.


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## leehljp

> _Originally posted by tipusnr_
> 
> Great work! Can you get those slide strips or an equivalent stateside?



The closest thing I have seen to these Stateside is slicky tape like UHMW tape such as Lee Valley has as is shown here:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=32182&cat=1,110,43466


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## avbill

Thank you Hank for posting, home made table saw made with a circular saw.  

Bill DAniels 
 []


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## sbell111

> _Originally posted by leehljp_I have thought about a blade guard but cannot figure a way to make one work with a sled. If it is built on the sled, it doesn't move with the blade; if it stays in relation to the blade, it doesn't work when the blade retracts/goes into the end boards.
> 
> I am open to ideas.
> 
> If I lock down the main sled and use the top sleds, I run into the same thing.


Have you considered an 'overhead-armed' guard paired with a slightly shorter sled?


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## GBusardo

[/quote]Have you considered an 'overhead-armed' guard paired with a slightly shorter sled?
[/quote]

I thought the same thing. I hesitated to bring it up for fear of jinxing you!!!  Its a great idea, but that blade looks like it wants to jump out and grab you. If you cannot think of something, at least wear a whole face shield!


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## leehljp

I thought of a clear plastic bar of some that hinges at the back and rests on the front of the sled. At least it would cover the blade from the top and from accidental side movements of the hand. This seem like what I need to do.

Thanks for the comments everyone.


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## DurocShark

I know I haven't been around in a while, but I just came in to comment on this. 

WOW!

That's awesome!


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