Tried using a table saw sled for crosscuts on a kitchen cabinet job yesterday

So I'm pretty new to cabinet building and I thought I'd be smart and use a table saw sled for my crosscuts instead of my miter saw. I figured it would give me cleaner edges and more consistent lengths. But man, the sled was binding up on the rails after about 10 cuts because I didn't wax the surface first. Ended up with a few pieces that were like 1/16th off from each other. One cabinet door ended up crooked because of it. I had to re-cut three panels and wasted maybe 30 minutes of time. What do you guys use for long crosscuts on cabinets - a miter saw with a stop block or a sled with some kind of lubrication?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowan5935d ago

Stop overthinking this one. A properly set up miter saw with a good stop block is way faster and just as accurate for cabinet work. I've been building cabinets for about 6 years now and I tried the sled route once. It was a mess. The sled is great for small stuff or weird angles, but for long crosscuts on cabinet parts you're fighting the sled's weight and the friction on the rails the whole time. Put a fresh blade on your miter saw, clamp a stop block to your fence, and you'll get dead on cuts every time without having to wax anything or fight with binding. It saves you that 30 minutes of rework and lets you just keep moving through your pile of parts.

terry_walker4d ago

My Delta 12 inch miter saw has a .001 inch runout on the blade flange, and I checked it with a dial indicator last month. That tiny wobble puts more error on a 24 inch cabinet side than anything a sled ever does. Nobody talks about that. You can zero out your fence and stop block all day, but if the arbor or flange is off even a hair, the miter saw is the weak link. Sleds ride on the table, and the table is flat. That's the thing that gets ignored in these miter saw vs sled arguments. Have you ever put a dial indicator on your saw's arbor?