My existing fence for my Sliding Conpound Mitre Saw leaves a lot to be desired. It is neither straight nor rigid, and the sliding stop does not lock very securely. Time for something better. This fantastic fence is built around a Swedish curtain track!

Supplies

One or two lengths of IKEA "Vidga" Curtain Track

1 self adhesive scale, running Right to Left

A male knob or Bristol lever, with a sliding nut

A small piece of acrylic (possible cut from an old CD case)

A few nuts and bolts and threaded rod for the axle

Toggle catch (if making the extension)

Step 1: Making the Fence

The heart of this is the curtain track from IKEA. "Vidga" costs £9 in the UK, $12 in the US and €10 in Europe. I bought two lengths to give me over 9ft or 2.7m of capacity, if I ever need to go beyond the1.2m or 4ft that I have permanently. The Vidga track has two t-sections in it. The wooden fence is going to fit in the smaller, lower, T-groove, and the sliding stop is going to slide in the larger, upper one.

The wooden fence needs to be straight and rigid, so I prepared a batch of thick veneers, 6 - 8mm thick from a 1930s interior door made from Douglas Fir. The workshop smelled fantastic! To make up the length, I used my box-joint jig to make longer lengths (I have YouTube film about the jig here ), then laminated them to make the two fence lengths. The lamination was straight, strong and rigid. Just what I wanted.

I routed a tongue along it to fit nicely in the smaller T-groove. The main section stops a few inches short of the LH end, while the extension sticks out by the same amount. That way, they mate together nicely to give me a longer fence.

The main piece is bolted to the aluminium casting of my saw through existing holes. Depending on your own machine, you might have to drill a couple of your own.

Step 2: Making the Flip Stop

The shape of the clamping block is fairly critical. The clamping knob needs to be pretty much at the front and low down, whilst the pivot axle needs to be at the back and high up out of the way. The stop needs to swing up and back without fouling on the Bristol lever, and the Bristol lever needs to be able to operate without fouling on the flip stop itself. A key routed into the underside rides in the T-slot and stops it all from twisting and getting jammed.

The side arms are held in place and the holes for the axle marked directly from the stop block. The flip stop is assembled with a short length of studding and some locking nuts. Once assembled, I can fit the bottom piece of the flip stop, so that it fits perfectly between the two sides. It should sit approximately 20mm or 3/4" above the bed of the saw.

The plywood I used was probably over 50 years old (recycled from a bookcase my Dad made - it's possible that it is older than I am) and was sound but rather scruffy, so I painted it all black to tart it up a bit.

The cursor is made from a thin piece of acrylic. I have a sheet of the stuff, but you could cannibalize a CD case to do the same job. It has a black line on the back face, made by scratching a line and rubbing a Sharpie into it. It must be mounted, using double-sided sticky tape, to the flip stop, ensuring that the line goes against the fence rather than towards the operator. In this way, errors from parallax are minimised.

Step 3: Calibrating the Flip-Stop

With the fence bolted in place and the scale stuck in place, lock the flip-stop so that the cursor reads Zero.

Attached the sacrificial stop in place with a couple of screws so that it just crosses the cut-line of the saw. Snip the end off, so now there is Zero distance between the blade and Stop, and the Stop also reads Zero.

If I make any adjustments to the saw itself, such as calibrating the 90 and 45 stops, or if I change the blade, I re-do the calibration. Remove the sacrificial stop, move it up a bit, set it to read Zero and snip it off. That way I know it is always true.

Step 4: The Extension

Whilst many people will be happy to have a capacity of just over 4ft, I've kitted mine out with an extension. The two halves are aligned with a loose tenon and held together with a toggle catch. The scale runs through uninterrupted. The extension hangs on the wall most of the time, but I have 9ft of capacity if I ever need it.

Step 5: Using the Flip Stop

It's easy to use. Simply slide the Flip-Stop to the desired dimension and lock it in place. It can be flipped up out of the way so I can cut a clean end on my workpiece, then dropped back into play to make the cut. You can see it all in detail on YouTube.

Enjoy!