Miter Saw Station Upgrades

My NY shop wasn't perfect but over the 9 years I was there, I had enough time to get it outfitted to the point where it was very efficient.  My Boise shop is still a work in progress to that point.  One area that needed particular attention was the miter saw station.  I built a nice station in NY with a stationary saw position, 5' outfeed table, and a movable stop for repeatable cuts.  Unfortunately, I left that bench with the house when we moved.  The miter saw area in the new shop has been essentially temporary for the last 2 years (saw not secured to the table, no outfeed table, you get the picture...  Well, that all changed over this Christmas break.

I decided to follow a design I saw in Fine Woodworking magazine, where the saw sits in the middle and has infeed and outfeed tables on both sides.  Also on the agenda was a dust collection shroud in the back for a dedicated 4" run to my new Delta 50-760 dust collector.

The bench the saw currently sits on is only 5' wide, so that made designing of the infeed/outfeed tables a challenge.  I knew a portion of each would be cantilevered, and kept that in mind when choosing a size.  Each extension is 3' in length and hangs off the table ~18" as shown in the photo below.  I built them as hollow boxes out of plywood using rabbit joints.  Each box is designed to be removable with the top surface screwed down with no glue.  Removing the top allows access to 4 screws that attach each extension table to the underlying bench.  Having worked in enough shops and knowing that a woodworker will often change his mind about things, I thought it best to have a backup plan!

I added a custom stop to the fence by attaching 2 pieces of 36" t-track from Woodcraft to the top and fabricating a custom glide that straddles the top of the fence.  A plastic knob with an attached bolt connects to a sliding t-bolt that rides in the track.  I can now move the stop to any position on the fence in a matter of seconds for repeatable cuts. 

Below are photos of the completed station with the dust shroud installed.  It does a great job of collecting just about every dust particle that shoots out the back of the saw.  The shroud also allows a 4" hose connection which maximizes the suction velocity from the dust collector.  The installed fitting on the back of my Dewalt DW705 is 1-1/2", which is essentially worthless.  My miter station will now be one of the cleanest areas of the shop, instead of one of the dustiest.

I also took this opportunity to fix a nagging problem with the workbench drawers.  I accidentally built them too long for the frame, so they extended beyond the back by about an inch.  Normally, this isn't a big deal.  However, when there's dust flying out the back of a miter saw above, the drawers will tend to be filled with sawdust!  Yeah, it really sucks when you open the drawer to get a tool and have to go digging around to find it.  The fix was relatively simple and involved cutting the back off the drawer to the correct dimension and reattaching it.  I unfortunately had to cut off some half-blind dovetails but oh well.  It is only a shop cabinet after all.   Below are before and after photos of the drawers.

 Before

and after...

Now that this project is done, I can focus once again on making jewelry boxes for my last 2 nieces.  I'm WAY overdue on getting these done.  Happy New Year everyone.