Crafty DIYers

[xoxoxoBruce]

I case you're off your rocker...

[xoxoxoBruce]

OK, this is for glatt.
My ancient Craftsman Table saw has cast iron wings on both sides so it's pretty big, but doesn't make cutting tricky shit any easier or safer.

It has guide groves for a miter gage on both sides of the blade, so I made two hardwood strips the width but not quite the depth of these grooves. The strips were attached to a piece of plywood so it would slide across the table. It turned out to be a lot of drag so I cut reliefs in the down side with a router, then with a little wax on the strips it would slide like butter.

On the top side I screwed a backstop perpendicular to and carefully squared with, the blade. The hardwood strips extended a couple feet past the plywood(which I recently broke) with a piece to tie them together, allowed the plywood to be pulled back past the blade, and make it more stable after it's cut almost all the way through.

This jerry-rig is a dream to work with, pieces can be clamped to the backstop or even screwed down to the plywood, or wedged for tricky angles. Anything it takes to keep my fingers away from the blade.

One habit I developed at Boeing, cutting aluminum extrusions on a 5 hp, direct drive, rolling table, pattern maker's saw, is keep the blade cranked all the way up. The safety people freaked, but It works well. The blade is trying to push the work down into the table instead of throwing it back at you. I always could see the blade and knew where it was. It's not coming to me, to get hurt I have to go to it, so I always want to know where it is. If I slip and hit the blade with a knuckle, it will most likely be on the side rather than the teeth, no harm, no foul. Your mileage may vary, it's a mental thing.