SawStop Industrial Cabinet Saw with an extra cast iron wing.

This is a continuation of Table Saw Enhancement – Attaching Sliding Crosscut Table Without Cutting Down the Rails.

Now that I’d removed my existing router table, I needed to relocate it to the right edge of my table saw. Since I use a miter slot on my router table and I wanted to avoid cutting notches in my front and rear fence rails, I decided to add an additional cast-iron extension wing to the right of my main saw table.

Installing an extra cast iron wing.

I had to remove the wooden extension table in order to attach the new cast-iron wing. As a result, I needed access to the bolts in the rear rail so I took off my outfeed table. This is giving me a good opportunity to clean some neglected areas of my saw as well.

Removed the outfeed table so I could access the rear bolts.

I then removed my wooden extension table.

I used some magnetic tool holders and attached them to the inside of the front and rear rails. These will help hold up the cast iron extension wing while I get it bolted to the table.

Magnetic tool holders help to support the new cast-iron wing.

I temporarily attached the new wing to the existing wing using three bolts along with washers and lock nuts. I was very careful to get the seam between the two cast iron wings nice and flush. There wasn’t anything holding the new wing to the front and rear rails yet. That was my next step. I marked the holes in the new wing on the inside of the rails using a silver Sharpie. Then I took this new wing back off.

Temporarily attaching the new wing to the existing wing.

I used a small drill bit (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/8″ in diameter) to drill a starter hole. You will want to take your time and use plenty of cutting oil when drilling through powder-coated steel.

Drilling the ~1/8" starter hole. — Drilling the ~1/8″ starter hole.

I then moved up to a step bit once the starter hole was drilled. I believe I drilled this to be 3/8″ in diameter. Again, take your time.

I added a countersink to the front of the hole once the hole was the correct diameter. The bolts that are used for attaching the cast-iron wing to the rails are countersunk allen bolts.

Adding a countersink to the front of the hole.

This took a long time to do. The steel on the SawStop rails is pretty tough stuff and I wanted to avoid having the powder-coating start to chip off.

Take your time with this so you don't chip the powder-coating. — Take your time with this so you don’t chip the powder-coating.

It took a while but finally the countersink was deep enough so the bolts didn’t stick out at all. This is important so they don’t interfere with moving the fence back and forth.

Took a while but I'm done. — Took a while but I’m done.

I loosely reattached the wing and started tightening up the bolts. The holes in the cast iron wing are over-sized and not threaded so I had a little bit of wiggle room to help with alignment.

I got the wing all tightened up and aligned properly.

The additional cast-iron has been nice to work on. Drilling through the powder-coating wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. I’ll most likely add one or two more cast-iron wings in the future. I know that there is a limit to how much I can add before the saw starts to tip when I try to move it but the sliding crosscut table may help offset the weight of all the cast iron.

If this has been helpful or if you have any questions that I failed to answer, please leave a comment below.

Up next, I’m adding a router table to the right end of my table saw extension table.

All done with two slabs cut to 5' and 2' in length.

Workbench: Part 5 – Cutting the benchtop to size

Tutorials, Woodworking

Trent DavisJanuary 22, 2017December 10, 2021One Comment

This is a continuation of Workbench: Part 4 – Gluing up the new top.

The top is all glued up so now I need to strengthen it by attaching 1/2″ plywood to the underside. I can then cut it down to the final size to prepare it for finishing.

Looking at the underside of the glued up benchtop.

There were a few spots of glue squeeze-out that I decided to remove so they don’t interfere with attaching the benchtop to the plywood. I just scraped them flat with a chisel.

Removing the glue squeeze-out with a chisel.

I am attaching two sheets of 1/2″ plywood cut to 2′ X 4′ pieces. I laid them out to see which would be the best placement for them. The benchtop so far is about 25″ deep so there will be a lip overhanging the plywood at both the front and back. My initial plan was to cut the front and back edges flat then attach a border, but that plan changed, as you’ll see in a moment.

Laying out the 1/2" plywood. — Laying out the 1/2″ plywood.

I am using Loctite PL 510 construction adhesive to attach the plywood to the benchtop.

LocTite PL 510 construction adhesive for attaching the plywood.

I ran a bead of the construction adhesive down the length of each strip of flooring. This is, of course, working on the underside of the benchtop. Then I placed the plywood sheets on top of that. I tried to get it relatively centered.

Attaching the plywood with the construction adhesive.

I clamped and cauled the plywood sheets to the benchtop and let it dry for 24 hours.

My original plan was to mill down some more of the flooring scraps and make a border along the front and back of the benchtop that was 1-1/4″ tall and 1/2″ deep. This was mostly to cover the plywood that is being attached to the underside of the benchtop. I started by cutting the tongue off the side of the flooring pieces.

Cutting the tongue off several pieces of flooring.

After that I cut off the groove on the opposite side.

Removing the groove from several pieces of flooring.

Then I trimmed the tongues and grooves off each of the ends.

Using the miter gauge to remove the tongues and grooves from the ends.

Finally I trimmed off the grooves along the bottom of the flooring pieces. I also ended up shaving a bit off the tops just to clean them up.

Cutting the grooves off the bottoms of the flooring pieces.

This left me with some nice oak stock to use for the front and rear trim.

Now this gives me some nice usable stock to work with.

The final width of each piece was a little over 1-7/8″ wide…

This leaves me with ~1-7/8" of material to work with. — This leaves me with ~1-7/8″ of material to work with.

…and 5/8″ thick.

This gives me some nice 5/8" stock. — This gives me some nice 5/8″ stock.

I removed the clamps and cauls and decided to get my wife’s opinion on the front and rear trim idea. I’m glad I did. She had the idea of just cutting the milled stock into strips and gluing them to the lip, therefore just covering the plywood and not the edges of the oak flooring.

The lip runs the whole length of the benchtop on both the front and back.

I cut some of the milled oak stock down to usuable pieces. I decided to just make them 5/8″ X 5/8″.

Cutting the oak stock into 5/8" X 5/8" strips. — Cutting the oak stock into 5/8″ X 5/8″ strips.

I was able to get enough strips by cutting down just 4 of the milled oak pieces. This leaves me with some more milled oak stock to use for other projects.

I laid out the pieces and applied a bead of Titebond 2 to the lip.

Applied a bead of Titebond 2 to the lip on the underside of the workbench.

I attached the oak strips and clamped them in place with small quick-release clamps.

Holding the strip in place with some small clamps.

The strips wanted to pull away from the plywood in a few spots so I used some larger clamps to apply lateral pressure. I don’t have a lot of clamps that are over 24″ so I had to get creative with some of them, but it all worked fine in the end.

Getting creative with some clamps that are just a bit too short.

After the glue dried I did the same thing for the back of the bench.

Applying some lateral pressure with some larger clamps.

There was some glue squeeze-out on the underside of the benchtop.

I used a random orbital sander on the entire surface of the underside and…

Sanding the bottom smooth to get rid of the glue squeeze-out.

…it looks a lot better now.

Now it was time to cut everything down to size. I took the glued up benchtop to my SawStop table saw so I could trim off one end.

Trimming off the edges of the benchtop at the SawStop table saw using my sliding crosscut table.

The ends of the workbench will be covered in metal. I’ll get to that in a future article. All I need now is for them to be flat.

I then trimmed off the opposite end.

Trimming off the opposite edge at the table saw.

It looks so much better now that I have trimmed off the excess on the ends.

I then trimmed the excess material off the front and the back.

Trimming the front edge at the table saw.

This was the look I was going for.

The benchtop was pretty unwieldy since it was so huge. As a result, the table saw left some burning on the edges.

The table saw caused a little burning on the edges.

The random orbital sander easily removed the burn marks.

The burning is easily removed with a random orbital sander.

The plan was to turn this into a 5′ long workbench with a 2′ long flip-down wing. I marked the benchtop at 5′.

Marking the benchtop at 5'. — Marking the benchtop at 5′.

I used my SawStop sliding crosscut table to cut the workbench at the 5′ mark.

Cutting the benchtop to length using the SawStop sliding crosscut table.

The sliding crosscut table makes it very easy to perform this type of cut.

Cutting it down at 5'. — Cutting it down at 5′.

It cut cleanly and didn’t really burn it except for where I stopped pushing the material so I could take the picture above. A little sanding and it disappeared.

The workbench is now cut to the final size and is ready to be finished.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I’d love to hear from you.

Back to Workbench: Part 4 – Gluing up the new top

Back to Workbench: Part 3 – Change of plans

Back to Workbench: Part 2 – Gluing up the top

Back to Workbench: Part 1 – Milling down some 2 x 4s

Workbench: Part 4 – Gluing up the new top

Tutorials, Woodworking

Trent DavisJanuary 12, 2017December 10, 20213 Comments

This is a continuation of Workbench: Part 3 – Change of plans.

Time to glue it all up.

My worbbench/outfeed/assembly table has a torsion box top so it makes a good surface for gluing something like this up. I have a 1/8″ thick piece of hardboard that serves as a sacrificial top but I would still prefer to avoid gluing the pieces to that if at all possible. To help with this, I taped down a layer of wax paper to the benchtop.

Then I laid out the pieces how they will be glued together.

I decided to do a little distressing before the glue-up. This could have waited till after but I was anxious to try out a technique I picked up. I made what I call a Smackem Stick. It is just a piece of wood with a handful of screws sticking through it. I used a cut off from another project. Ignore the groove running the length of the side. After I made this, I proceeded to beat the hell out of the boards. After the stain is applied, these should hopefully look like worm holes. since this is oak that I’m working with, these screws didn’t go too deep.

I wanted to try out the stain so I grabbed one of the sample boards that I did some experimenting on earlier and applied some Kona stain. I will go over this stain technique later when I do the entire table top.

I separated the first two rows to get them ready to glue together.

I used a spring clamp to stand the pieces with their grooves facing up.

I then ran a line of Titebond 2 in the groove.

I laid out the first row. I was careful to make the seams on the side of the boards that are facing the second row nice and flat.

I then attached the second row and clamped it together to dry. When I inserted each piece, I put a line of glue in the small groove in the right side, then I inserted the following piece into that, being sure to put glue in it’s groove as well, and so on until the last piece which I didn’t do this to since it’s the last piece in the row.

After letting the first two rows dry for at least an hour, I took the clamps off and put on the third row in the same way.

After the third row dried, I realized that it would be easier to clamp these if I cut off the tongue on the front row since I won’t be using that anyway.

This made for a nice flat surface to clamp to. I should have done this before gluing any of this together but it doesn’t hurt anything to have waited til now.

Then I clamped the fourth row on…

…and the fifth.

Once I got to the sixth row, my quick-release clamps would no longer reach so I switched to my bar and pipe clamps.

I attached the seventh row…

… and the eighth…

… and the ninth…

…and the tenth.

For the eleventh and final row I needed to get creative with my bar clamps since they aren’t quite long enough to reach.

In the end, it glued up okay. The pieces have some gaps in them on some of the edges. This is why they weren’t used on the floors, but for a project like this they add character.

The next step is cutting it down to a workable piece. We’re still planning out the legs and possible drawers. Also, I noticed that this piece has a slight bow to it from front to back. I’m not surprised at this, but it means that I may have to attack a backer board to the underside and make some sort of border to hide it. That should be in the next article.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I’d love to hear from you.

Back to Workbench: Part 3 – Change of plans.

Back to Workbench: Part 2 – Gluing up the top.

Back to Workbench Part 1 – Milling down some 2 x 4s.

Workbench: Part 3 – Change of plans

Tutorials, Woodworking

Trent DavisDecember 19, 2016January 12, 20173 Comments

This is a continuation of Workbench: Part 2 – Gluing up the top.

After gluing up half of the top, I repeated the process and got the other half glued up as well.

Both halves, ready to be glued together.

Once it was dry I joined them together with glue and biscuits just like I did for the individual boards.

After taking the clamps and cauls off I was left with a fairly warped but completely glued up benchtop.

At this point, the project wasn’t looking too promising. My goal was not only to make a benchtop but to see if it can be reasonably accomplished using common 2 X 4 material. Unfortunately, they are so dimensionally unstable that they do a lot of twisting and warping as they dry. Maybe if I had these sitting in my shop for a few seasons so they can thoroughly dry then the end result would have been better. Still, I was somewhat determined to make this work.

I started sanding it using a random orbital sander.

This was taking a long time so I switched to a belt sander. This want a lot faster but I was still unhappy with the results since there was so much warpage to this. I know I can eventually get it to work but I’ll have to remove so much material that it won’t be as sturdy as I want it.

It was at this time that my wife asked if I had any of the leftover wood from our newly installed hard-wood floors. She had the idea that I can just use that since it already has the tongue-and-groove in place, plus she likes the look of oak more than fir. Normally, I’m not a fan of oak but I had to agree that this would look better and be stronger even though the tabletop would be 3/4″ rather than 1″.

I decided to give it a shot. I gathered up the scrap wood flooring and started laying it out. I needed to get enough material to make a 7′ X 2′ section. The plan is to have a 5′ wide bench with a 2′ wide flip up extension.

I had to cut some mating grooves in a few of the pieces but I was able to get enough material. Once it was laid out, I attached a piece of blue painters tape to each piece so I could label them.

I labelled each piece with the row (number) and which order it is in from left to right (letter)

Now, this is where this gets interesting. One of the reasons my wife wanted me to use the oak flooring is because she wanted me to try to get “mill marks” on some of the boards. Normally, I’m not a fan of faux-finishes and antiquing techniques, but this was an interesting challenge.

I tried approximating it by hand with 24 grit sanding pads and the result wasn’t pretty (as I expected). The other technique I wanted to try was to put actual milling marks on the wood.

To accomplish this, I needed to get a blade that I could damage. Specifically, I needed a 10″ table saw blade without carbides. I knew I wasn’t going to find this in the store so I would have to look for a used blade. I started my search at Habit for Humanity ReStore. I couldn’t find anything there that was 10″ so I decided to try at a pawn shop. I eventually found an old Craftsman blade that had all of my requirements and was new in the box. To top it all off, after I told them why I was getting it, they knocked $6.00 of the price.

Found a cheap 10" blade with no carbides. — Found a cheap 10″ blade with no carbides.

As you can see, it's cheap but in decent shape. — As you can see, it’s cheap but in decent shape.

To add the mill marks I took one of the teeth and bent it towards what would be the right of the blade after it was installed on the saw.

Bending one of the teeth with a pair of vice grips.

Then I installed it on my saw and made a few test cuts. I then bent it a few more times until I found the right amount.

The blade installed. The bent tooth is marked with an arrow.

Here’s a test cut. I’m going to do a bit more distressing and see the final result after I stain this wood.

Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know if you’ve tried this technique or have any other ways of distressing wood that have worked for you.
Up next: Workbench: Part 4 – Gluing up the new top.

Back to Workbench: Part 2 – Gluing up the top.

Back to Workbench Part 1 – Milling down some 2 x 4s.

Workbench: Part 2 – Gluing up the top

Tutorials, Woodworking

Trent DavisDecember 15, 2016December 19, 20168 Comments

This is a continuation of Workbench Part 1 – Milling down some 2 x 4s.

We got another snow day so this gave me an opportunity to work some more on my wife’s workbench.

Now that the boards have all been milled down, it’s time to start gluing them together.

For this project, I knew I was going to need a few sets of cauls. If you are unfamiliar with a clamping caul, read on…

A clamping caul is simply a set of boards that are used to keep the top and bottom of a wide glue-up relatively flat. Their use will make sense at the end of this article. They are extremely easy to make. I made two sets for this glue up. I started with some 1 X 3 stock that I cut down to be a few inches longer than the width of the final glue up.

The benchtop I am making is going to be 24″ deep so I made my cauls about 28″ long. There’s no need to be exact, just make it a bit longer than the final glue up.

The boards have been cut to 28" long. — The boards have been cut to 28″ long.

After cutting four pieces that are 28″ long, I took them to my oscillating belt sander. This step is optional but I find it really helps. What you want to do is add a little bit of a slope at both ends of one side of each caul.

The end goal is a set of boards that have a gap between them at the ends. This is so when you attach them, the clamps will pull them together but it won’t bow up in the middle.

After I shaped them with the sander, I covered them in packing tape so the glue won’t stick to them.

Now, time to work on the actual benchtop. First I laid the milled boards out how they will be glued together.

I am going to be using biscuits to align everything so I put little pieces of painters tape on the edges of the boards where I was planning on putting the biscuits.

Afterward, I made marks where I should center the slot for the biscuits. The placement here isn’t critical.

Next I added some tape so I could number each board. The reason I’m doing this with tape rather than just writing directly on the boards is because these boards are douglas fir and are pretty soft. I didn’t want to make indentations from a pencil on them if I could avoid it.

The boards are all numbered and in order

Using the marks I had drawn, I used my biscuit joiner to make slots at all of the marks.

Lining up the biscuit joiner to cut the slot on the mark.

Biscuit slots cut into one of the edges.

Now it’s time to try gluing this all together. I decided to do this in sections, gluing up half at a time. Setting up a few pipe clamps, I arranged the boards up so I could glue up four of the eight boards.

The boards are arranged so that the glue can be applied.

I applied a liberal amount of glue to the edges of three of the boards, including some extra glue in the biscuit slots. Then I inserted a size 10 biscuit in each slot on the three boards with glue applied.

The biscuits are in place after the glue was applied to three of the edges.

Then I carefully rotated the second, third, and fourth board and inserted some glue in those biscuit slots. After that, I laid the boards out on the clamps so the biscuits inserted into the slots on the adjacent board and started to bring the clamps together. I didn’t really tighten them that much since I needed to nudge a few of the boards with a rubber mallet to get the marks on the tape to line up again.

I got them all aligned and started to tighten up the clamps.

The glued up pieces being aligned to the marks on the tape.

Now it’s time to attach the cauls. I started by sliding one of the cauls under the glued up boards. The side of the caul that I sanded the slope onto is facing up.

The bottom part of the caul set in place.

Then I set another caul on top of the glue up with the sloped edge facing down.

Then I clamped them together. The slopes on the edges allows the cauls to bend as they “give” a little bit but will direct most of that deformity to the edges of the cauls instead of raising up off the glue up in the middle.