Adjustable Miter Slot Accessory Table
This is a miter slot accessory table that I came up with for the Ryobi BT3X table saws. I had a space between the main table and the router accessory table because I always leave a little router mounted on it. I needed this table to fill that gap and be flush and removeable too. Ryobi sells an after market miter slot table. It has 2 slots in it and is intended to be installed on the left side of the main table. I don't think there are any adjustments that can be done to them except for shimming.
miterslot. Miterslot
I used 2 pieces of Fir glued up. It should stay flat because it was pretty straight grained wood. Plywood or MDF would work just as well for this. The actual space on my saw was just a hair over 1 1/2". I chose to plane to 1 7/16" to allow for more adjustment. I cut the miter slot out after the fact. I really just needed to fill the gap. but decided that a miter slot may become useful at some point. The UHMW that I had on hand was only 3/8" thick. 1/2" or 5/8" stock would have been better. I chose to use it anyway. If I found a real need for the miter slot, I think that I would buy an aluminum slot or t-track like Rockler sells and install it. For limited use, though, this will do the job. The outer 4 holes receive t-nuts on the bottom of the miter slot table. These are for adjusting the height and leveling. The inner 4 holes are drilled through this miter slot table and through the miter table base. (see below) The miter table base then receives 4 t-nuts on the bottom side.
Once I had the table bolted down and level, the next step was to rout the slot to accept the UHMW. I used the Rip fence to guide my router and made a 1 1/2" x 3/8" dado in the table. Care should be taken when you get to the ends of the table when routing. You could damage something on the saw itself. You will see what I mean when you are setting up to rout.
I then used contact cement and lamenated the UHMW into this slot. I held it firmly in place with some brass screws along the very edge. Then I set up again to rout a 3/4" x 3/8" dado in the UHMW. Both of these tables just have a few coats of wax as a finish. This keeps them clean and slick.
This is the hardware needed to build this:
You will notice that there is also another piece of wood under the miter slot table. I installed this because it gives a solid base in which to mount and adjust the table. I bolted mine in, but you could just as easily stick a business card magnet to this and it would hold it in place. The right panel of the saw would help hold it and when you have the mounting screws adjusted, they would hold this secure. To install this base, you must remove the right metal panel on the saw.
Care should be used when removing this panel. The screw below the electrical outlet on the right is just for the mounting of 2 grounding wires to the panel. Not the panel to the saw. You should only remove 6 screws.
This should be done periodically to blow out the motor and check the motor brushes. This base should sit just under the lip of the main table. If you make it much wider than 6", you run the risk of interfering with the raising of the motor and saw blade.
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