Rockler 45° Miter Sled: Someone's Not Cutting Corners!

✅ SHOP NOTES: Well, that didn't work out quite as expected! How would you go about making this jig work, of you were in my shoes? Is it even worth it? I'm currently editing this in the ATL Delta SkyClub, so obviously I wasn't able to put any of my fixes into action.

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[rockler]

Thanks for the feedback. We've passed this along to our product development team.

[henrysara]

Using some blue tape help to remove the slot size difference. My worked perfectly after that.

[jamespowell]

I wouldn't damage the Rockler product to try to make it work on the Shopsmith. I'd return it for a refund and be done with it. If you're going to the trouble of trying to fix it, spend time making your own-modeled after the Shopsmith miter pro. Or like others suggest-save $ and buy the "real McCoy!"...jim

[thebeggarswoodshop]

Boy that rain didn't want you to say that its bad for the shopsmith. Really messed up the audio when I didn't listen with headphones. Can you sent that rain here to california?

[MrMarkpeggy]

Well bless your heart Scott. Please be safe and have a great trip! 👍

[drumaganger]

Have fun in Puerto Rico. I was there several times in the Navy. If you have time, try to put in a Bacardi Rum Factory tour.

[markhendrickson]

How is it that Shopsmith's miter slot varies from what seems to be the standard size in others?

[markb]

Have fun in Puerto Rico…..the shining ⭐️⭐️. Ps….i know you said that it was raining there….but your audio gets very distorted not too far into the video.

[terrya]

Some time back you talked about the Bitner nuts on one of your videos i have made several of both 1/4 20 and 5/16 18 and get them confused and invariably pick up the wrong ones i fixed this by running a bolt through the. nut filling the cavity with colored epoxy to quickly identify the size. The only down side is the epoxy threads are really tight

[woodshopnerdery]

Also could you move the table e nought to the right to "cheat" it in between the blade and slot?

[tzavitz]

By the time you spend money building a second table top with DIY components it seems just easier to buy the Shopsmith version

[BunkyC]

It might be worth the $22 to some folks to use the Rockler Miter Sled to set your Shopsmith miter gauge to an exact 45⁰ like you could with the $94 MiterSet from Shopsmith.

[woodshopnerdery]

Perhaps rough cut with the miter gauge then use the Rockler sled withe the disc sander?

[sassafrasvalley]

I’m not sure that I want to lose the 3/4” cutting height from a sled. I make a lot of complex moldings & shadow box frames. Instead, I’ll stick with my old Craftsman miter jig.

[jamesbrunk]

Reverse it and have the point aiming away from blade? Probably have to add aux fence too. Is it worth the effort in the long run? $22 vs. $133 for each new. Well tuned miter gauge looking pretty good right about now.

[frankenberry]

My first thought was "Ah, a zero clearance miter sled". While the auxiliary table would work if I'm going to make one anyway I may as well use some wood and make the fence as well.

Shaving/sanding the bottom of the bar is the way I would fix it.

The way I would do this entire thing is as an add on to my saw sled. The main advantage is that my fingers can be nice and far away from the blade. Pencils, hold downs, scraps of wood are all my friends, cutters aren't.

[timbo]

I’d remove the built-in ‘miter bar’ and attach a Shopsmith miter bar (or a wood bar) to those two slots beside the molded miter bar. That would solve both problems - move the sled back from the blade and allow it to fit into the existing Shopsmith miter slots. Heck, if the wood miter bar were just a shade narrower (to pay homage to Jim McCann), you could create that extra slop to allow you to slide the workpiece away from the blade as the Shopsmith miter pro would.

[sandysmeltzer]

Another shortcoming of the Rockler model is that it doesn't have the long (24") rail with the builtin stop system that the SS model has, which is huge in making cuts of identical length. Add to that the versatility of the SS model to be able to create an extension fence, and you have great reasons to stick with SS, even at the higher price point. It would have been even better if SS had created a mounting point on that long fence so it could be used as a fence for the cast iron bandsaw table. Perhaps a clever person could make that modification. Best of all worlds! Blessings, Glen