If you use your miter saw to do precision work, then you should consider adding some of these simple shot made upgrades to make yourself ice and more productive, hey guys and welcome to another episode of DP shop. Talk and today we're going to be taking a look at the additions and upgrades that I've made to my workshop. Miter saw now. As you can see, this is a Bosch 10 inch, axial glide miter saw, but what I'm going to show you can be applied to just about any miter saw now, if you do have, the specific saw make sure you check out the previous episode. If you haven't seen it already on the dust collection modifications that I made, they make a dramatic difference in the amount of dust that you're able to collect, with the saw keeping your workspace cleaner. So you can also download a free plan for the dust boot over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miter_saw My website at Dan Pattinson comm so put both of those links in the video description below if you're interested in checking of that now. What I want to cover today is the the MDF auxiliary fence place with zero clearance of the zero clearance insert for the table. As well as the sliding material support on either side with built in flip, stops for making repetitive cuts so we'll start with the most basic upgrade, and that is these zero clearance, auxiliary fence plates now there's two main advantages to having a zero clearance fence like this, The first one is that it gives full support to the back edge of your workpiece right up to the blade. So when the blade goes through and finishes the back of a cut, it reduces splintering or tear out and gives you a cleaner cut. The second advantage is, it makes it very quick and easy to align your workpiece to make the cut. So, rather than having your cut mark out here and bringing the blade down and trying to align a tooth to it, you can simply make your cut mark along the back edge of the work, and then you can quickly slide it along to whichever side of the The curve you want to cut on and then go ahead and make your cut, so it makes a very quick, easy and accurate to get to the alignment of your workpiece exactly where it needs to be so to make the sense place. I just use a piece of scrap half-inch MDF. Now my particular saw with this custom dust boot that I've made. I had to make a notch out of defense to allow the the dust boot to pass through so depending on the setup you have, you may not need that you might be able to keep your fence up higher. Now I made a small rabbit along the bottom edge of the fence, just to keep any built-up sawdust from throwing off my cut and then to attach them. I just simply screw them on from behind, with some 1/2 inch pan head screws and some washers. So with this saw and many others, you can loosen the lock knob on the back and slide the fences along and that's the part that the MDF is attached to so that moves along with it. So you do that when I need to make some miter cuts and don't want to cut into to the MDF and lose my zero clearance capability when I'm cutting at 90. So once I do that and I can swing my saw to pay 45 degrees and then when the blade comes through, it's not damaging my my fences. Now, if you are making a lot of cuts at say 45 degrees, then you could slap some sacrificial fence plates on here and have that zero clearance at 45. Most of the cuts I make are at 90. So when I do need to make an angle cut, I usually just back the fence faces off of it. So the second addition and upgrade that I made to the saw, is a zero clearance insert plate. Now I replaced the two-piece plastic insert plate that came with the saw with the single piece plywood insert plate. Now this played a zero clearance, so when, when the blade comes through it there's no space on either side of the blade. So the advantage with that is that it reduces splintering and chip out on the underside of your cuts and again gives full support right up to the blade the same as the fence. Does. It helps improve dust collection capability and it also keeps narrow offcuts from dropping down inside the saw, which we all know is really annoying. You got to try and dig them out and resist the pain so that avoids that from happening now. The other thing is: if you have a cut mark along the front edge of your workpiece, you can also align it to either side of the kerf the same as you can with the fence. Now I got the design and the build process from John Peters over on his YouTube channel, John Peters, Hertz and home. He did a video showing how to make an insert plate specifically for this Bosch saw. So I won't go into any more detail about this. Since John does an excellent job of showing how to build it in his video, so I'll put a link for his video and in the video description below, so you can check that out. So the final addition that I made to my miter saw setup are these sliding material supports with flip stops and I'll? Tell you how I made those in just a minute, so I don't really have enough space in my shop to have sort of a full-on dedicated miter saw station. So I simply screwed the saw down to the plywood top of my shop cabinets now. On the side note, my shop cabinets are still kind of work in progress. I still haven't had a chance to make drawers or doors or even a proper countertop for them, but I'll get there eventually. So with this set up, the sort of in feed outfeed space of the miter saw is my workbench on one side and then the rest of my countertop space on the other side. So it allows this space to sort of serve multiple purposes so again, rather than having a dedicated miter saw station. It lets me do multiple things in this space now the Bosch active live miter saw really lets me, make the most out of the space that I have, since it doesn't require that additional space behind the saw to the wall that a traditional saw with with slide And rails does so, I can put it very close to the wall and really make the most of that space, so the material support for super easy to build. I just used some scrap melamine that I had around the shop and just simply screwed them together. So I built them sort of like a bench hook with a cleat along the front edge so that registers to the front edge of my workbench or and for in this case for the other one the front edge of my countertop, and so it just lets. It slide long now the the height of them is different and the depth of them is different. Since my workbench and my countertop have two different heights and two different projections out from from the saw, but the construction of them is, if both the same so basically a bottom plate with that cleat and then-then just to two sides, with a top screwed on To the proper height to meet up with the table of the saw now at the end of them, I installed a flipped stop as for making repetitive cuts. So that's basically just a piece of half-inch Baltic birch. I spaced it off the side of the material support with a large washer and then attached it with a washer head screw and a smaller washer and that lifted to easily turn, but keeps it firmly in place. And I added a piece of Baltic birch. Inside of it had to put a longer screw through, so that's got more holding power. I found that with the particle board it just wasn't, it wasn't holding tight enough. The other thing you could do is use a small machine screw with with a nut and a washer on the inside as well. Either setup will work. So when I'm using the material supports, I don't usually bother clamping them down in place unless I'm using the slip stops since the the queek keeps it from pushing back at all. So I'm going to sort of position it where I want. If I just want some general support for my workpieces now, if I am using the flip, stop then I'll flip it up and then set the distance from the flip. Stop to my blade for whatever length I want to cut to and then simply take a clamp and clamp it down, and now I can make as many cuts they need to and they're all exactly the same length, [ Applause ]. So that's a look at the additions and modifications that I've made to my miter saw and what I found helpful in my own shop. So hopefully you can take some of these things and apply them to your own, say whether it's this specific model or any other model, and that you'll find those things helpful as well. Now, as I mentioned earlier, https://sawwiz.com/best-miter-saw-reviews/ if you do have the specific saw make sure you check out the previous episode on how to make the dust collection modifications which make a dramatic difference in the dust collection performance, and you can also download free templates for the dust boot Over on my website at Dan Pattinson comm, so I hope you found this video helpful if you have don't forget to Like share and hit that subscribe button and as always, make sure you leave your ideas, thoughts and questions down in the comments below. So thanks for watching and until next time, let's talk shop,
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