Six Cutting-Edge Features of Our Rockler Crosscut Sled

A crosscut sled is the best way to improve upon the small, not-too-accurate miter gauge that came with your table saw. With a sled, the workpiece doesn't come in contact with the surface of the saw at all but instead rests on the sled's platform and is supported from the bottom as well as from behind. That makes it much easier to keep stock from slipping out of position while cutting. Along with that, most sleds are designed so they pass the blade at zero distance from the cutting surface of the teeth, giving you the "zero-clearance" support that helps reduce tearout along the bottom face of the workpiece. With the edge of the sled immediately next to the blade, it also makes it easier to position the stock—you just line up where you want the cut to begin with the edge of the sled and voila—the stock's in position!

While you could build a crosscut sled (similar to the one shown above) from scrap material, there's a drawback to this approach: shop-built sleds tend to be very limited in what they can do. It's a fairly simple undertaking to build a sled that will cut a single angle well, such as 90 degrees, but building a sled that sets up quickly and accurately to cut any angle you need is much more difficult. It also won't typically have provisions to fine-tune the fence, a platform to support offcuts or a means of adjusting the fit of the sled's miter bars in your saw's miter slots.

For these reasons and more, our product designers have engineered the Rockler Table Saw Crosscut Sled to combine the best and most important features in a user-friendly and affordable package. Here's a quick rundown of those attributes and why we believe this precision Crosscut Sled is an excellent value.

1. Slippery-smooth Phenolic Base Fits Many Saws

Short of perhaps aluminum or cast iron, nothing beats the performance and durability of phenolic for quality jig and sled bases. The 1/2"-thick phenolic base of our sled measures a generous 19'' wide x 21-1/2'' long—large enough to support long, heavy lumber or wide plywood panels for cutting. Phenolic is impervious to moisture, so the base won't swell or delaminate in a damp shop. It's dead flat and super smooth, for effortless sliding over your saw table. Notice that the base is predrilled with a series of mounting holes for the 3/8'' x 3/4'' steel miter bar that guides the sled. This way, our sled can fit a wide range of full-size table saws with a blade-to-miter-slot distance ranging from 3-3/8'' up to 6-7/8''.

We outfit the blade side of the sled with a replaceable MDF zero-clearance insert that you'll trim to fit your saw when setting up the sled for the first time. The cut edge of the insert makes it easy to know exactly where to line up your workpiece reference marks for cutting, and it ensures that wood fibers are supported right up to the blade teeth to minimize splintering. (We include a spare replacement insert with the sled for added convenience.)

2. Huge Protractor Scale for Accurate Angle Settings

Sometimes critical angle cuts require you to split hairs. It's particularly necessary when cutting tight miter joints for picture frames or the pieces for other multi-sided polygons. That's why the protractor scale of our miter sled is downright huge, with a crisp, easy-to-read display and a hairline cursor on the fence. The scale is delineated in half-degree graduations and allows for angle cuts up to 50°. Imagine trying to set the angle of your miter gauge fence to a partial degree…tough to do! But you'll have no problem adjusting and setting the fence of this sled with that amount of precision quickly and simply, whenever you need to.

3. Robust, Telescoping Fence with Micro-Adjust Flip Stop

Our sled's swiveling, extruded aluminum fence has an MDF fence facing that can be set to provide a sacrificial zero-clearance support for the back of the workpiece. It's easy to replace when necessary. A long overmolded knob locks the fence in position and provides sure grip for sliding or lifting the sled. You'll also appreciate the unique telescoping work platform with phenolic base that extends up to 38-1/4'', for supporting and crosscutting long stock.

The fence is also equipped with our popular Micro-Adjust Fence Flip Stop (#72734) that delivers precision and accuracy. It slides along a T-slot on top of the fence, locks in place securely and pivots up and out of the way when not needed.

4. No-Slop Miter Bar

While these might seem like small details, our steel miter bar is equipped with four miter bar tension blocks that are easy to adjust with an included hex key. They'll enable you to fine-tune the Crosscut Sled to fit the exact size of your saw table miter slots, eliminating any side-to-side play that could impact cutting accuracy.

5. Bit-Saver Hold-Down Clamp Goes Where Your Fingers Shouldn't

Whether you're cutting large boards or the tiniest glass retainer moldings, our Crosscut Sled comes with a Bit-Saver Hold-Down Clamp to secure them for cutting. Made of rugged ABS plastic with non-marring rubber tips, it slides in a slot to adjust to workpieces of many widths and tightens down with an easy-to-grip knob. This way, you can use both hands for pushing the sled while keeping them well clear of the blade.

6. Optional Drop-Off Platform for Splinter-free Cuts

Sure, the "drop" portion of a workpiece you cut free doesn't have far to fall from the sled. But those final fragments of wood at the back corner of your workpiece can still chip if the offcut isn't supported through the full cut. So, we offer an optional Drop-Off Platform for our sled that's an excellent enhancement for it. The phenolic Platform fits saws with blade-to-miter-slot clearances of between 3-3/8'' and 7-3/8''. It has the same replaceable MDF zero-clearance insert as the sled, to minimize splintering, and a spare insert is provided. The Drop-Off Platform's miter bar locks in place easily in the right slot of your saw table, so it won't shift out of position during cutting. And unique to our design is an integrated stop block that makes it easy to cut short pieces to the same length by registering off the right side of the blade. The stop block can be rotated to either of its edges, which expands its adjustment range. The block is easy to remove when clearing the path for longer offcuts.

A well-designed crosscut sled can greatly increase the cutting accuracy and efficiency of just about any table saw. And with our feature-rich Rockler Table Saw Crosscut Sled, you'll enjoy a new level of crosscutting ease and precision. We're confident you'll wonder how you ever got along without it!

Buy The Table Saw Cross Cut Sled