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Smaller workshops are always looking for space saving ideas and projects, and this project, no matter how large your workshop is, can benefit a variety of storage constraints. Many modestly outfitted workshops these day either have a sliding mitre saw in them. These a great, handy saws, but all of the stands that are available for them are designed around the idea that the saw and stand need to be portable. If you are a carpenter, that may be true, but if you are a woodworker you may seldom if ever, have a need to move your saw. Of course the problem with all metal stands for these saws is when they are set up, they take up a lot of room with little useable storage underneath unless it is wood, which is still hard to get at.

I recently upgraded my compressor to one of the quieter models, and I love the compressor, but it's always in the way sitting on the floor of the workshop. I thought that if I could build a nice stand for my mitre saw and use the space underneath the saw to store my compressor I could solve 2 problems.

Like many woodworkers, I HATE throwing out wood, even small chunks, and my neighbors know this so a couple of years ago when one of them did a basement reno, they gave me a number of very good sheets of 1/4"  plywood that could easily be used for backing on cabinets and so on. But I had other ideas for it ...

It didn't take long to come up with a design for both storing and making a very useful sliding mitre stand.

It would need to have a larger drawer near the bottom that would incorporate a full extension drawer slide.

 

It would need to have wheels so that it could be moved around the shop if needed. How much work you spend on installing the wheels will depend how how much you think you will need to move the cabinet and how much work you want to go to. In my case I created wheels that dropped down by means of a hand crank. I was quite a bit of work and I wasn't totally happy with the end result, but it will have to do for now.


Some other components that would be useful would be some sort of an outrigger that would help support longer boards when cutting on the sliding mitre. I happened to have some roller balls on hand, but tubular rollers would work equally well.

rollerroller balls

Another  piece of hardware you may need is a square piece of 1" aluminum or steel tubing that you can mount the rollers to and that will slide underneath the mitre table and make the outriggers adjustable.

The actual assembly of the stand is very straight forward, the only thing to keep in mind is that it needs to be well built and rugged because it is going to take a lot of wear and tear over the years. I glued my plywood to carcass and that made it very strong and rigid, which the stand will need to be when I place 10 foot long, 8 inch wide and 2 inch thick rough cut Garry Oak boards on it.

Since this is a sliding mitre saw, and I do need to have it portable from time to time, I decided that rather than use nuts and bolts to fasten it to the to, I would use T-Nuts. I love these things. They are handy when you don't want to be fiddling around with nuts and washers, such as this case. The T-Nuts are mounted underneath and stay there permanently and I can undo the saw by undoing the bolts from the top - quick and easy, just how I like it (by the way, the picture shows bolt going through the nut, it's not included)
T Nuts

 This was a great project. It helps keep me more organized by keeping all my compressor pinners and nails and other air parts all in one place, in the upper drawer and with the compressor below, I can easily slide it out and use it where it is, or lift if off and carry it around. Either way it's convenient and easily accessible, and the sliding mitre saw has a much sturdier stand now with adjustable outriggers ... even better than it was before.

Copyright - Colin Knecht
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