Making A Mini Table Saw Sled – Deluxe Version Homemade Machines & Jigs

When I made the original mini table saw sled, I basically just grabbed some scrap plywood and threw it together without much attention to detail, not realizing just how useful it would be. Since then, I’ve used it countless time and it’s become the go-to tool in my shop for making square cuts on small parts.

One shortcoming is the lack of a convenient stop block, and I’ve found that the sled could be made a bit longer. And with the upgrade to my latest homemade table saw, I thought it was a good time to make a new one.

Once again, much of the sled will be made from 1/2″ plywood, but I’m using high quality Baltic birch plywood this time. I cut a single strip to 32″ long and 2-1/2″ wide for the fence of the sled, then cut a 3/4″ x 3/16″ channel down the middle before cutting the strip in two pieces:

The channel is for the stop block.

I then cut one of those in two pieces to form a 1/4″ slot for the stop block bolt to fit through:

In hindsight, it would have been easier to glue the two fence layers together before cutting that opening for the bolt, but either way works.

Assembly starts with gluing and clamping the inner fence to the base, and then gluing and clamping the “finger saver” block to the middle. Making use of three of my power wedge bar clamps to hold the block in place until the glue fully sets:

After the glue dried, I glued on the outer fence parts, lining them up with the edges of the inner one.

The stop block bolt needs to have a piece of plywood added to keep it from turning in the slot, and I drilled a counterbore just a bit bigger than the head and used epoxy to fill the gaps around it and lock it in place:

The plywood block is sized to fit and slide freely in the slot between the inner and outer fence parts.

I made runners from solid maple to fit precisely in the miter slots, and squared the sled with my framing square up against the table saw fence. I put glue on the runners and used my small anvil to weigh it down until the that dried:

After the glued set, I added a single screw to each runner as insurance:

Here you can see the extra slot I cut in the inner fence (shown in the video below) to store the stop block when it’s not being used:

And the finished sled:

To take it a bit further, you could add a measuring tape to the top to make locating the stop block faster, and I may do that, but then that will also depend upon the thickness of the blade used in the saw. I often switch between blades of various kerf widths, and that will throw off the scale. Adding a movable pointer to the stop block would solve that, but then it starts to get a bit more complex than it really should be.

If you are interested in making one, here are the dimensions:

The build video: