table saw

32 Articles

homemade table saw

Homemade Table Saw Starts With Circular Saw

May 31, 2015 by 28 Comments

How often do us tinkerers go out into our basement/garage shop and don’t have the correct tool for the job? Most would say it happens more often than they would prefer. One option would be to buy the tool, but it is always more fun to build what you need! [kadambi] was in need of a table saw and decided to build his own.

He’s using a circular saw as his starting point but this isn’t just any old circular saw. This one has a riving knife that prevents work piece kickback and human contact with the back of the spinning blade. The saw is mounted upside-down to a wooden table that is supported by a wooden box frame. The boxy frame has another function, it acts as a dust collector. A vacuum is ported into the box frame creating a low pressure condition and most of the sawdust is sucked into (and settles on) the bottom of the box. Only a small amount of dust makes its way into the vacuum, preventing otherwise inevitable filter clogs. Out front is an industrial on/off switch as well as a separate e-stop switch.

[kadambi] has done some test cuts and is happy with his saw’s performance. If you’re interested in more DIY table saws, check out this mini saw or feature-filled one.

An Improved Table Saw Fence With Threaded Rod

April 15, 2015 by 68 Comments

Back in the bad old days, table saw fences were terrible. You would have to measure the top and bottom of the fence before each cut, just to make sure the fence was square to the blade. In the 1970s, [Bill Biesemeyer] invented a better table saw fence, one that was always square, and included a measuring tape, right on the table saw.

[Jer] wanted an upgrade for his table saw and came up with what might be the next evolution of the table saw fence. It will always produce a square cut, but unlike the 1970s version, this fence has repeatability. If you rip a board to 1″, move the fence, come back to it after a month, and try to rip another board to 1″, those two boards will be exactly the same width.

The secret to this repeatability is a threaded rod. On the front of the fence is a big, beefy piece of threaded rod with 16 threads per inch. On the fence itself is two nuts, cut in half, welded to the guide, with a lever and cam to lock them in place.

When the lever is up and the nuts are disengaged from the threaded rod, the fence easily moves from one side of the table to the other. When the fence is locked down, it locks to the nearest 16th of an inch, and only the nearest 16th of an inch. While that may seem a little large for a relatively expensive tool, this is wood we’re talking about here. There’s not much reason to make the resolution of this fence any smaller; wait until the humidity changes and you’ll have a piece of wood that’s the desired dimension.

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Modern Tools From Old Table Saws

March 30, 2015 by 23 Comments

Somehow or another, the modern hackerspace isn’t centered around table saws, drill presses, band saws, lathes, or mills. The 3D printer and laser cutter are the tools of the future. No one has yet figured out how to build a 3D printer or laser cutter out of several hundred pounds of cast iron, so until then [Chad] will lead the charge modifying old table saws into these modern machine tools.

The build logs for the laser engraver and 3D printer are pic heavy and text lean, but there’s enough detail to make a few educated guesses. Both of these machines use Craftsman table saws from the early to mid 1950s for the chassis. Inside each chassis, the rails, belts, and shafts that make up a Cartesian bot are installed, and the electronics are tucked gently inside.

There’s a lot of creativity in this build; the electronics for the 3D printer are tucked away in the shell of the old motor. For the laser cutter, the focus adjustment is the same knob that used to lock the blade at an angle.

While this may look like a waste of two beautiful tools, keep in mind these are equivalent to contractor saws you can pick up at Home Depot for $500 today. They’re not professional cabinet saws, they just look really pretty. They’re still a solid piece of metal, though, and refurbishing the frames into useful tools is probably the best thing you could do with them.

Thanks [Frankie] for the tip.

solar cell saw

Automated Table Saw Cuts Photovoltaic Solar Cells

January 12, 2015 by 17 Comments

[sudarshan] is a solar hobbyist and needed a way to cut solar cells for his projects. He had previously created a rotary tool saw but manually feeding them through was sketchy at best. With just a slight wrong movement of his hand or flex in the work surface would cause the cell to break. These cells are extremely brittle and break easily. He needed a method of cutting these cells that was free from jitters and would cut in a straight line. He looked around his junk bin and found an odd solution… a scanner. Yes, the type you would scan photos in your computer with. The scanner had two critically important features, a flat surface and a carriage mechanism that moves perfectly parallel with that flat surface.

[sudarshan] made a solar cell cutting mini table saw with that scanner and made the cutting happen automatically. He mounted a motor with a diamond saw disk to the carriage, that is responsible for the cutting. The blade was positioned just high enough to poke through the plexiglass that replaced the original glass bed. A power switch turns on the cutting disk motor and an Arduino was used to move the carriage, including the cutting blade, back and forth. Two of the stock scanner buttons were reused and wired to the Arduino to keep the saw looking good.

The first few passes of the saw were done to cut a slot in the plexiglass. In order to cut a solar cell, the cell is taped to the bed with the desired cut location aligned with the slot in the plexiglass bed. Once everything is set, hit the ‘go’ button and the saw blade is slowly pushed through the cell, leaving a straight, clean cut.

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dremel base station

DIY Super Accessory For Your Dremel

December 29, 2014 by 50 Comments

Little jobs require little tools and you can’t get much more littler than a Dremel. For his tiny tasks, [sdudley] has built a Dremel-powered base station that features a table saw, drum sander and router table. Overall, it is about one cubic foot in size and is almost entirely made from ‘1 by’ dimensional lumber. The Dremel power plant was actually used to make the base, specifically slowly removing material at the clamping points that hold the rotary tool secure to the base. The Dremel is held in an upright position and pokes out through the center of the table for both the drum sander and router configurations. To use this as a table saw, the Dremel is mounted almost horizontally on the base. A Mini Saw attachment has to be purchased for the table saw configuration but it does a great job at holding a vertically spinning saw blade.

After the break there’s a nice video of this tool’s use and assembly (it’s even worth watching just for the musical accompaniment that takes you on a wild ride through several genres of music). For those who want to make one for themselves, [sdudley] has made his part templates and assembly guide available in PDF format on his Instructables page. If you’re looking for something a little larger, check out this circular saw converted to a table saw.

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Table Saw Kickback Video Ends Badly

October 23, 2013 by 85 Comments

Our comments section has been pretty busy lately with talk of table saws and safety, so we decided to feature this sobering video about table saw kickback. [Tom] is a popular YouTube woodworker. He decided to do a safety video by demonstrating table saw kickback. If you haven’t guessed, [Tom] is an idiot – and he’ll tell you that himself before the video is over. There are two hacks here. One is [Tom’s] careful analysis and preparation for demonstrating kickback (which should be fail of the week fodder). The other “hack” here is the one that came breathtakingly close to happening – [Tom’s] fingers.

Kickback is one of the most common table saw accidents. The type of kickback [Tom] was attempting to demonstrate is when a board turns and catches the blade past the axle. On a table saw kickback is extremely dangerous for two reasons. First, the piece of wood being cut becomes a missile launched right back at the saw operator. We’ve seen internal injuries caused by people being hit by pieces of wood like this. Second, the saw operator’s hand, which had just been pushing the wood, is now free to slid right into the blade. This is where a SawStop style system, while expensive, can save the day.

The average 10 inch table saw blade has an edge traveling at around 103 mph, or 166 kmh. As [Tom] demonstrates in his video, it’s just not possible for a person to react fast enough to avoid injury. Please, both personal users and hackerspaces, understand general safety with all the tools you’re using, and use proper safety equipment. As for [Tom], he’s learned his lesson, and is now using a SawStop Table.

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Circular Saw To Table Saw Conversion

October 19, 2013 by 90 Comments

Corded circular saws are a dime-a-dozen at any old thrift store, yet table saws are a bit more of a costly investment — have you ever wondered if you could just make one out of a circular saw? [Matthias Wandel] did, and he just so happens to be very good at woodworking! He makes a lot of great woodworking videos to share on YouTube, and in his latest blog post, he shows us a rather elaborate way to convert a plain old circular saw, into a functional table saw.

While the concept seems simple, unless you do a lot of woodworking, you’ll probably marvel at how easily making things comes to [Matthias] — we know we did. By the end of the video he has a fully functional table saw that can raise and lower in height, and cut at different angles.

If you’re interested in making one yourself, he does a very thorough job explaining the process in his video — check it out after the break!

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