Build Log: Improved Miter Saw Station (Mk III)

At the last place I lived, I finally built (or perhaps, rebuilt) a miter saw station (read about that here). For me, it was a pretty big achievement at the time and I learned quite a bit building it (namely, that I hate working with drawer slides), I decided that when moving to the new shop, I would take all the little things I’ve learned and make another one. The old one would be repurposed as a wall cabinet bay and work surface.

The new miter saw station would be an opportunity to address all the shortcomings with the previous iteration, not only in the design flaws but also my techniques for putting it together.

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Quick Links

• Where we started

• Goals

• Step 1 - Repurposing the previous miter station

• Step 2 - Making a pre-leveled base

• Step 3 - Cabinet carcasses

• Step 4 - Cabinet top

• Step 5 - Miter saw leveling platform

• Step 6 - Dust containment box

• Step 7 - Dust collection

• Step 8 - Integrated hold-down

• Step 9 - Drawers

• Step 10 - Fence

• Step 11 - Small touches

• Milestone

• Mix-ups, surprises and lessons learned

• Appendix - What’s all there

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Where we started

My miter saw station, from the previous shop

At the last shop, one of my big projects was finally building a miter saw station and while I was fairly proud of it, as the one who built it, there were a few things that just bothered me about it. Hopefully having learned a thing or two in the interim, I was hoping to tackle these flaws with a rebuild. At a glance:

• Drawers

  • With the previous design, I made the shelves specifically sized for specific things; this was very cool and I thought it was neat that everything was sized for the thing I was trying to store in it. However, the mismatched drawer sizing bothered me aesthetically but more importantly, as I eventually changed things around, I found that repurposing drawers didn’t work out as well

  • This was my first real project really working with drawer slides and I had a heck of a hard time leveling the drawers and making them coplanar with each other

• The previous shop had a lot of slope in the floor

  • I had to add an additional (read: unplanned for) 1.5” of leveling to the cabinets at the end of the garage. With the rebuild, I would learn from this and spend a bit of time up front to pre-level the base as to not have to think about this

  • This also meant that there would be gaps (and uneven ones at that) between the cabinet bodies as the individual cabinets tilted at slightly different angles

• Dust collection

  • The dust collection box I built, while very cool, was clumsy, in particular with the bump out box on the left of the shroud. I eventually ditched the zero clearance back fence as well

  • The cabinets were open from the back so dust would always blow into them from behind (especially since the wall wasn’t plumb/straight/flat)

  • I thought it was clever to have a very easy to hit power switch for the vac (and it is) — it would certainly be a lot more convenient if this was automated

  • I had initially hooked up the vac to a massive 24-in collection port which all but wiped out the suction force

• I have a fence support on both sides but there were problems

  • I didn’t route a big enough dust groove so dust ended up collecting and it would bind the stops

  • Making the L-bracket for the fence from wood also meant that it wasn’t truly flat nor at a right angle

  • I totally didn’t spend enough time setting up the fences to be collinear

• The saw was nigh impossible to level out — there’s only so much you can do with shims and it’s super tedious to play the shim game. And if you ever take the saw out to work somewhere else? You get to re-shim it all over again

• The depth of the countertop (front to back) changed quite a bit due to the wall not being straight — but that meat that the cabinets on the left were a little short

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Goals and objectives

While I had a lot of ‘complaints’ with the previous build, they mostly boil down to three overarching goals:

1. Improve dust management, both with the miter saw enclosure but also for the individual cabinets

2. Improve the reliability and precision of the station

3. Make the station more ‘nicer’ as a whole

So with my previous miter station, I build the cabinets out to fit very specific things, in a very specific way - this meant that each cabinet was sized uniquely to fit the stuff I wanted to put in it. Of course, I didn’t think I was ever going to need to change things up too much, so that felt like a cool idea at the time, but the down side is that aesthetically, all of the different sized drawers gives the cabinets a bit of a confused look. To fix that (and to make construction easier!), I’m totally standardizing my drawers this time around.

I was going to follow the same rough template:

• a bunch of cabinet carcasses

• some plywood on top as a work surface

• a box of some sort to enclose the miter saw itself and contain the dust

• a fence with stop blocks

The two major improvements would be having a pre-leveled sub-base that would act as the toe-kick and spending a bit more time with the dust-box to make it more rigid and dust-tight.

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Step 1: Repurposing the previous miter station

While I had complaints about the old setup, it wasn’t bad so I didn’t want to trash it (or even take it apart to rebuild). The best alternative was to make them into a single back of cabinets with a light top on it. And I lucked out: the wall I was hoping to put this by perfectly fit all five cabinets! Building the leveled base for this also gave me a bit of practice in making the tapered supports for the sub-base.

Packing up the older miter saw station

I put each station on a dolly and strapped it down. This made it so much easier to move around

Moving day!

Truthfully, they sat in this bin for the better part of a month while we got the garage in shape.

Starting with a 2x12

I happened to have an extra 2x12 leftover from my bed build so the plan was to rip this down into a pair of 2x4s and also cut out some wedges

Getting a feel for the slope of the garage

Using the track saw to rip down the 2x12

This happened to be a 12’ board as well, so I had to shuffle the tracksaw along midway through the cut

Cutting to length

Would be nice to have some kind of a … station.. for a miter saw… to make this easier.

I'll need to level it front-to-back as well

Cutting tapers

Using the tracksaw to cut rip-tapers along the length of a 2x4 is a great use for a track saw.

Testing out the tapers

Nailing an endcap

So I had an objective of wanted to reduce dust, bugs etc. from collecting. Nothing is impenetrable, but this should help a bit. We’ll see in a few years

Hockey puck feet

I wanted to make this platform able to support anything I happened to put on it. By adding feet to the cross braces, I can transfer weight to the ground more effectively.

Feet installed, upside down

By using bolts, we can spin the feet to be the perfect height

Sizing out a top

This is actually the top for the old miter saw station

Trimming off the excess

Finishing the base

Raiding the scrap parts to finish off the base

Sealing up the cabinets

I actually had the hardboard panels on the previous station but they were only tacked in place with 2 screws. Now I am doing a bit of a better job sealing them up.

Loading them onto the platform

Finishing off the top

Some more scraps, here I glued and pocket-screwed the extra piece onto the top to make it a single continuous top.

All done

The bank of cabinets doesn’t go all the way to the wall: I’ve left some room there to slide some taller/awkward things there.

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Step 2: Making a pre-leveled base

Making the pre-leveled base was a really nice warmup exercise: it was easy to make and now with a leveled base, anything I put on top of it, should be reasonably leveled. Also, the leveled base could be my toe-kick so that’s one less consideration I have to think about when making my miter saw station. Knocking out the second base was a lot easier since I already had an idea of the amount of taper I would need.

Empty slate

The only thing I had to work around here was to make sure that the miter saw platform ended up somewhat close to the power outlets I had laid out for it

Cutting the tapers from a 2x4

Here I cut tapers for both the front and back rail from the same 2x4 (referencing the opposite sides). I buddied up some additional 2x4s to provide material support

Glue and screw

Checking that the taper is alright

Adding cross braces

This will give the entire base a bit more structure and rigidity

Hockey puck feet

Mounting the feet

Note that as we go down towards the door that I need thicker material as a buffer.

Putting a top on the base

I also put end caps on there as well to minimize the chance for dust and bugs

Why the full length-taper? Why the hockey-puck feet?

Yes, I probably could have just use a single bolt (or similar) to jack up one end of the 2x4 and that 2x4 could likely support any structure that I would realistically place atop of it. But by having a full length taper, the entirety of the 2x4 is supported allowing for a lot of weight to be transferred to the ground. The addition of the hockey puck foot-pads in the middle just give the platform another contact point with the ground.

This was easy enough to build and didn’t cost me much more in materials or time/complexity (made simpler with a track-saw) so I went with the ‘build it once’ approach. By making this base [mostly] pre-leveled and super-sturdy, I never have to worry down the road if I decide to swap this miter station out for something else.

I did not end up anchoring the base to the floor or the wall or anything. I’m planning on relying on the sheer mass of the combined structure to keep it from shifting too much. Of course, if there is a problem, I could always secure the [not-built-yet] cabinets to the wall.

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Step 3 - Cabinet carcasses

This was [supposed to be] straightforward: make a bunch of straight cuts and put a box together! After a bit of drama, everything is back on track: now with cabinets one the left and right of the miter saw.

Everything starts with ply

Although we were in the midst of lumber pricing hell, I managed to get a really good deal on 3/4 tongue and groove. And for this project, I just trimmed the sides to square if out.

Track-saw to trim out the sides

I trimmed the female edge first, measuring in and once I got that side clean, I measured across to the male edge (rather than measuring in, from the male side). This reduces any chance of tapering if there is damage on the male end (which feels more likely)

Super clean edges

I’m still blown away about how clean these cuts are, every time.

Cabinet carcass sides

I broke down a couple sheets into all the side pieces I would need

Tragedy

So I made a mistake: I measured twice, cut once sure — but I happened to write the wrong numbers down when planning so my cabinets weren’t nearly deep enough. I agonized about whether to recut the panels but decided that I could just stub out the remaining depth without too much loss. Here, I’m gang cutting the extra material needed to pad out the sides

Tragedy

Since I’m edge joining a long length of plywood, I opted to use biscuits to try and keep them coplaner.

Pocket holes for edge joining ply

With biscuits for alignment, I opted to use pocket holes for to help edge join the side panel

Glued and screwd

Here, biscuits with the help of face-clamps, kept the sides [mostly] aligned while I pocket hole screwed everything together.

Crisis averted

Here the cabinet sides are flipped right side up, you can see the missing depth that I needed to add.

Sanding hell

Now that we’re back on track, the next task was to sand everything although now I needed to pay particular attention to the plywood seam. I sanded to 220grit.

Smooth seam

With careful alignment, sanding and luck of the gods, the seam between the panels is almost nonexistent

Trimming to actual depth

Now that the sides are fixed and sanded, now I cut everything down to the current width (front to back)

Pocket holes for the stretchers

Here I’m batch drilling out the pocket holes for the stretchers spanning the cabinets — all my cabinets would be the same width.

Went with three pocket holes

Normally I would have gone with two but having the third hole [a] makes it easier to assemble as you can clamp using one hole to hold it together and secure using the other two and also [b] in case you have hole blow-out, you have an ‘extra’ chance

Putting the carcass together

This is a view from the back: bottom stretcher (laying flat) will be used to secure the cabinet to the preleveled subbase. The other stretcher (vertical) is just here to ensure the cabinet doesn’t taper as I clamp it up.

Overpriced clamps

Kreg majes some really pricy specialty clamps and while they aren’t cheap, they make assembling joints like this much less stressful

The back stretcher

This is the top stretcher that goes at the back of the cabinet. Normally I would have shunted this way to the edge, but since I have two “different” pieces of plywood, I opted to move the stretcher forward a bit to give that joint a bit more support.

One carcass done

Copy-Paste

If it was only this easy!

Rough placement

Here i am placing the left side carcasses and getting them aligned. You can also see that the front bottom stretcher isn’t deep enough for me to use to secure to the sub-base (whoops)

Adding secure-pads

I could have used pocket holes in the rear bottom stretcher but I didn’t like that because it would require the wall to be plumb and for the cabinet to truly line up vertically with the rear edge of the sub-base. By adding pads to secure the cabinet from the back, I have a surface to level out the dust guards (more on that in a second)

Now to sort out the right side

On the left side, the cabineds are screwed together (so no more unsightly gaps between cabinets) and you can see the pads at the back/bottom for me to screw down into the sub-base. On the right side, I’m playing around with the height needed to keep the top ultimately coplanar.

Sub-base

Since this is just a single cabinet, the sub base will just be uh… a box.

Test fitting

Here I’m playing around with how much toshim

Getting down on the ground

Since the right sub-base is so much smaller, I went with just basic shims rather than trying to cut a custom taper

1/4 Shim

Flipped over and just secured it to the base.

Dressed up the subbase

Initial pass of stain

I was originally just going to cover the “exterior” surfaces with stain

Dust sealing

Here I cut out some hardboard to seal the back side of the cabinets from dust/bug intrusion. It’s not perfect (just duct-taped in place)

Dust sealing

And on the front bottom, I just attached a filler piece of hardboard and used some duct tape to reduce the dust gaps.

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Step 4 - Cabinet top

Thankfully, this step was very low-stress: cut a rectangle.

Breaking down sheets

The tracksaw makes this so pleasant

Test fitting

I left an inch overhang in case I ever want to use clamps to secure something, I at least have that to grab onto.

Standardized color

Adding a taper

For the right hand cabinet, i found that the cabinet was ever so slightly tilted. But the base (and by proxy, the cabinet) was flush up against the wall so it wasn’t bad placement. My guess is the wall just wasn’t coplanar. Adding a very small taper allowed the cabinet top to be 90-degrees to the wall.

And done

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Step 5 - Miter saw levelling platform

This is probably the coolest bit of this new station: I wanted to make use of bolts to level out the miter saw platform. This way, no matter what I put on the platform, it was already pre-leveled — and making minute adjustments would be super easy. I hit my hardware store up for 1/2” bolts and 7/16” washers (can use 1/2” washers too, these were just a snugger fit).

1/2" x 8" Bolts

I went with the biggest bolts I could find at the hardware store (and could easily drill holes for!). Go for the longest bolts you can find!

Scrap 2x8

I raided my scraps bin for some material and settled on this piece of solid wood I’ve been kicking around for years. Ripping this in half would still leave me quite a bit of meat for my fixed base.

Milled up

After ripping, I cleaned up the pieces so they would both be consistent.

Offcuts of plywood

These are some of the leftover cuts from the tongue and groove I’ve been using. I ripped them down to size. I have four pieces because I plan on laminating the plywood together

Figuring out roughly where to place this

Here I used a laser so that I would have a consistent reference for both the left and right side

Rough placement

Here you can see how the laser comes in handy

Deep reach clamp

I don’t pull this out often, but when I do….

Fixed portion secured

You can see that i staggered the screws so that they hit both pieces of the laminated plywood. This concludes the fixed reference component of the base.

Cutting down some laminated plywood

I had this kicking around from another project I dismantled after moving to this house. These pieces will now be the left-right stretcher that will be leveled using the bolts.

Test placement

It’s a snug fit. In hindsight, I guess it doesn’t have to be such a snug fit left-to-right. Note that the back stretch is not placed at the extreme back — I actually have it placed right at the limit of the “original” piece of plywood making up the cabinet — just before the seam.

Marking out where my hole will go

5/8 Brad-point Bit

Having a drill press would be super handy for this…

DIY bushing

I ended up making a bushing using a scrap of 2x4 to try and keep the hole drilled as straight as possible

Clean hole

Pretty unnerving, drilling this

First set of nuts

The job of the first set of nuts is just to hold the bolt in place — to keep it from falling to the ground.

Second set of nuts

This is where the magic happens: with the second set of nuts. This second set of nuts can thread up and down along the length of the bolt to any height we want. By using a washer and two nuts back to back, we can create a ‘platform’ at whatever desired height we want.

Testing

Here I have a piece of 2x4 and plywood which represents the base that I attach the saw to. And I have a small scrap of plywood representing the height of the miter saw deck. By adjusting the height of the second set of nuts, we can move the plywood stretcher up and down, moving the whole assembly up and down.

Now testing with the real deal

Broke down another project for the base

Marking the adjustable base

Both the center line and where I plan on running bolts

Laminating the base attachments

I didn’t have as much leeway with the nuts and bolts as I wanted, so i ran the wood through the planer to reduce the height a bit. Now that it’s thinner, I laminated the solid and ply-wood together

Cut to depth

I’m always shocked at just how clean these cuts are

Placing the platform

Placing it all together

More precarious drilling

Here, I just want to go through the mounting platform and the adjustable base

Test mounting

Here the blocks are there to set how far back the saw is placed.

All mounted!

A look underneath

There’s still room for some adjustability, the saw can be removed without affecting the level-ness of the mount.

The overall leveling mechanism can be a bit of an overwhelming mess of nuts, bolts and crisscrossing wood. I find that looking at it as a cross sectional diagram helps.

Working from bottom to top we have:

• Green: these are fixed to the side cabinets. The first set of nuts and washers keep the bolt from falling down. The bolt continues up running through…

• Yellow: this is the adjustable height platform. The nuts and bolts determine the height of this platform.

• Blue: this is a detachable platform that we mount the saw to. We run bolts from this into the adjustable platform, to tie everything together

The end goal is that the deck of the miters saw is level with the top of the cabinets (red dashed line)

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Step 6 - Dust containment box

Miter saws generate a ridiculous amount of dust and they toss it everywhere — even with dust collection. Short of cutting outside and having a substantial breeze blow all the airborne dust away, you’re not going to be dust-free. So while I planned on having some form of dust collection, the bigger goal was to contain all the crap that the dust collection wouldn’t be able to pick up. I went with a containment box for the last station as well but there were a few flaws with it:

1. It was a bit too shallow (front to back)

2. I built it assuming the wall was plumb (my mistake), and since the wall wasn’t plumb, there was a substantial gap for dust to fall down at the back

3. It wasn’t very sturdy

This time around, I planned to use bolts and star knobs to increase the rigidity (as opposed to having magnets) — I don’t often take the box apart anyways so this won’t be a big inconvenience.

Gap at the back

I sized the platform so that there would be a gap at the back to run power cords.

Need to notch

For the sides, I will want to cut a notch out so the box can still sit flush against the wall

First, marking it out

Then blocking it out

And cutting with a router

Nice, rounded cuts

And a nice fit

Notching out the sides

I needed to notch the sides so that, if i wanted to, I could remove/extend the plates on the miter saw

Cut with a router

Near perfectly fitted cutouts

Snug fit

Making L-brackets

I wanted to be able to attach the dust box to the miter saw platform and easily pop it on and off if needed

Cutting into two

I cut the previous L-bracket in half to make two equally sized brackets

Test placement

The extra with helps with allowing the box sides to [mostly] stand on their own which was a super frustrating thing to try and juggle on the original miter saw box

Running a captive bolt

So this was fun to drill precise lined up holes. The idea is that the bolt will be captive to the platform and the side panel will just fit over top of it

Extending the back notch

So a super tight notch is fine when the pieces are individually placed in place. But when the entire box is assembled, I needed a bit more room to pivot. Here I’m making a tapered cut

Tapered fit

Here you can see that the entire box can just tilt into place.

Captive nut with wingnut

Now, to remove the box, I just have to remove the wingnut and tilt the entire box assembly out

Working on the top

These are the sides of the box, and I’m adding a top plate to give the end box a bit more rigidity up top

Top plate in place

Here you can see the bracing: I’m planning on running bolts through to solidly connect the top plate to left/right sides

Positive stop

I added a stop to the top plate that would hit the sides and keep it from banging into the wall

Actually attached

I wanted this box to be stiff, so I actually ran bolts/machine-screws through the top bracing I made earlier

Adding a back strip to the top plate

This will give me something to butt up against the wall and also gives me a surface to lean my interior dust panels against (that isn’t the wall)

Cardboard templating

To make custom fitted template for my saw, I used some card board and a knife to first make a mock up

Left plate

This is the easier of the two - less knobby things to work around

Right side

Definitely more complicated cut out

Almost there

Panels

For the face panels, I used shelving from a previous project that was dismantled

Left panel

First, tracing everything out

Adding blocking

The blocks loosely follow the traced out lines; and I can follow this with a template bit

Adding a stop plate on the top

This was just an L-bracket — it gives me something to lean the front face plates against

Laying everything out

I’m going to run bolts through, to secure the face plate to the top plate

Temporarily screwing

I ran a screw on one of the bolt locations — I’m going to drill it out anyways. Makes for an excellent ‘clamp’

First bolt down

Both bolt holes done

Although now I’m going to want to trim that overhang of the backer…

Captive bolts

Here we can see the bolts are held captive by threaded inserts. This allows me to just guide the plates on, lining them up with the bolts

Side stud

To keep the front plate from flapping, I also added another captive bolt on the side plate

Switched out for star knobs

Also removed that bit of overhang

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Step 7 - Dust collection

For the last miter station, I had the vacuum hooked up to the dust box with the hope that all the dust would settle in one area and the vac would just suck it up. Of course, vacuums don’t move nearly enough air (by at least one order of magnitude, if not two) so that didn’t work so well. This time around, I opted to hook the vac up to the miter saw directly — the vac would collect whatever it could at the source and I would rely on the dust box to contain the rest for regular cleaning. One big change was that I would use a cyclone pre-separator in the mix to hopefully extend the bag-emptying/filter-cleaning interval.

Hooked up to the saw

I bought the hose adapter for my saw and clamped everything into place. There is enough slack in the dust hose that the connection can swivel/extend

Side panels

I added plywood L-feet so that they would stand better on their own and this would allow me a way to secure it to the platform.

Fully braced top

It’s not very pretty but the top plate has positive stops . I’m really building this out to be rigid.

Deflection sheets

Using offcuts of hardboard, I wanted to make a removable “back wall” to really enclose the box and keep dust from flying out the back/side/bottom

Dust chute

Here, I’m leaning some hardboard against the wall. The idea is that dust will hit this surface and fall down rather than get blown out the back

Cutout for the power outlet

Can use flaps made from duct tape to give it a bit better (but flexible) coverage)

Just enough gap to run the power cords

Having the hardboard deflectors allows me to run the cords down the back side without worrying too much about dust spilling everywhere.

Hooked up to automated dust controller

I picked up a two-circuit dust controller a few years ago — FINALLY got around to using it.

Switching to flex hose

Until now, I had been using the stock hose that came with the vacuum:. This meant that there would be 7-feet of hose coiled under the saw.

Figuring out the passthrough hole

Another option would be to use 2-1/2” tapered connections on both sides but I opted for the easier ‘just run the hose through the plate’. I brought a sample of hose with me to the store to try and compare what size of holesaw would be perfect. Spoiler, I went with 2-3/4” hole saw. You could probably force the hose through 2-5/8 with some effort and that would be super snug.

DIY drill guide

Having a sample hole makes it easy to mark out where to land it and helps keep the hole saw from wobbling

Punched through

It tore out a bit on the under side since I didn’t fully add blocking, but this won’t matter.

Quick test fitting

The cut-to-length hose makes the entire thing tidier.

So I tried buying some hose hangers

Pro-tip: none of them fit dust collection hoses. I tried a few of them and they all explicitly stated they were good for 2-1/2 dust hose. Nope.

Just DIY it

Was so much less frustrating to just raid the scrap bin

Secured

I used a thumb-twist hose clamp to ensure the hose couldn’t slip through the hole.

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Step 8 - Integrated hold-down

About halfway through this build, I needed a bit of a break — I wanted something easy (ish) I could knock out and add some value. My miter saw doesn’t have a quick release hold down because Bosch didn’t think it would be a good idea? I don’t know. Hold downs are great, but they have to be quick to engage and disengage — ain’t nobody got time be twisting a knob a bazillionty revolutions to tighten/release the hold down. Here, I set out to make use of an auto-clamp to try and replicate the quick-set/release functionality.

Cutting a short T-track

Aluminum can be cut using standard woodworking tools. A bit of tape helps to keep the cut edges a bit cleaner

Making some test router passes

Snug fit

The real run

Just hammered in

Testing a plate

Here, I have an automatic toggle clamp to handle clamping

Test mounting

I opted to put this only on the left side of the saw since that would be where the majority of my cuts would be. Note that the front plate is recessed enough that this plate does not protrude past the fence

Test with plywood

Engagement is easy — just push forward on the red handle and the clamp pad extends down.

Release

Pull the lever towards you and the pad rises.

Adjusting for different material

For thicker material, I need to make use of the track

Adding a bigger pad

The current foot pad works for a lot of cuts except when the material is too thin. By adding a big plywood foot, I can extend the reach of the clamping pad.

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Step 9 - Drawers

Ah, the moment I’ve been dreading — I hate drawers. I hate making the drawers because nothing ends up being square and I hate hanging the drawers because drawer slides are the devil. I forced myself to make a whole bunch of drawers so that maybe, by the end of this, I might be a bit more proficient.

Getting ready for plywood cutting hell

Five drawers per cabinet, four cabinets….

Two pass cutting

I cut loosely with the track saw and then ran everything through the table saw for exact sizing

Cleaning up the edges

Here, I’m gang-cutting them to be the exact same size

Cutting to final length

All the side pieces cut

This was all that was leftover

Preparing to cut rebates

Gripper

Makes cutting rebates in the sides a lot less nerve wracking

All the rebates cut

I will still need to the cut back rebate all the way through

Batch pocket holes

Here I thought I would be smart and batch out the pocket holes for the drawers

This was such a good idea...

Spoiler: I'm about to have a bad day in a bit

Cutting the drawer bottoms

I used a mix of 1/2” and 1/4” plywood for my drawer bottoms — the smaller drawers used thinner material

Cutting off the back rebate

Here I’m cutting all the way through to remove the rebate entirely. I haven’t moved the fence so everything is still in the same location

Test fit

Perfect - just the right amount of snugness

Batched out the remaining cuts

Perfect corner

Putting everything together

Screwing the drawer bottom

I didn’t glue this in, on the off chance that I would ever have to replace this, for whatever reason

Copy Paste

So everything so far has been progressing well — perhaps even a little too well. After I built out my first few drawers, my mistake set in. I assumed that, since I gang cut everything in nice neat batches, that the cabinets would all be the same width. Nope. There was a bit of variance with my cabinets so some of the drawers were a bit too wide. One of the downsides of pocket holes is you can’t “un-pocket hole” something.

Thankfully, I caught this after only doing the first size of drawer so I only had to fix a few drawers. So, pro-tip: drill pocket holes after you have the box sized to the actual opening.

Dialing in the dado stack

For the bigger shelves, I went with 1/2 plywood bottom so this was a great chance to try out my new dado stack

Cutting the grooves

Point blank dust collection makes it a pretty painless affair

Drawer components cut

Cutting the drawer bottoms

All drawers built

Each of the cabinets is ever so slightly a different width so the drawers are sized for each one.

Mounting the drawer slides

Just use blocks

I eventually gave up and stopped using the drawer slide jig because I just couldn’t rely on it. Using stilts is the way to go

Using hardboard runners

This will give us the space beneath the first drawer

By sitting the drawer on top of the spacer

Making sure that the drawers themselves are level

Need to check front to back and side to side

First cabinet done

Repeat a few more times

This was actually quite tedious because, even though I made a pre-leveled base, I wanted the individual drawers to [roughly] line up with each other — even though there was a substantial slope to the garage

Cutting the drawer fronts

Cut from a single sheet to ensure continuous grain pattern

Bulk pack of drawer slides

Drawer installation jig

This jig is great

First cabinet drawers installed

This will set the location for all of he remaining cabinets. Using a laser made this a bit less tedious

Having to rejig some shelves as I went

To account for the substantial incline

All done

And now with a splash of color

Now that the drawers are built and ready to be loaded, I spent a couple days moving stuff into their “final” home. For a few of the drawers, I made some specific drawer organizers.

And now with standard color

Just a bunch of scraps

The circular saw et al drawer

Cut a couple slits in a scrap

And we have a dual saw support

Squaring out some hardboard

Simple box with dividers

Perfect for organizing my sandpaper

Cutting some notches on one side

And now I have a holder for tracksaw clamps

Raiding the scraps bin

Roughly throwing together this easel shape

And throwing together a vertical backstop

Spaced just right to hold a edge guide

Edge guide holder for trim router

I don’t use this router very often but at least now, when I do, everything will be together

More scraps

Now to chop them down to even widths

Clamp spacer

By carefully spacing them, I can keep my 90 degree clamps from flopping around

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Step 10 - Fence

There are arguments for and against having a fence — I see value in both but I’ve always had a fence and it’s just something I’m more familiar with. And, since I know these work surfaces are just going to be covered in crap anyways, having a fence allows me to shove everything behind it and presto, I can use the miter station! Also, having the Kreg top track and stops already probably doesn’t hurt.

In my previous builds, I made an extended length L using plywood but I never really trusted it to be true; this time around, I went with aluminum extrusion which is likely going to be way more true than anything I’m going to be doing. There was only one catch (other than cost and availability in Canada) — the Kreg top-track requires a certain amount of height off the table (for the stops to work) and my extrusion wasn’t tall enough. My workaround was to use a piece of 3/4” plywood as a buffer; but in order to attach this, I needed to counter bore specific and consistent holes for the M5 machine screws to recess into. Of course, I don’t have a drill press since moving, so I did the only reasonable thing: I got a new one (which of course, took months to get here).

My old fence

Step one was to take this apart.

Removing the old tape

Sadly, I had to get rid of the old tape since it was calibrated against a different miter platform width (which then means a different distance from the blade)

Right hand side

On the right hand side, I just needed a single length of extrusion so that was easy peasy.

Lining up the extrusion

This miter station is shorter than my previous (three extrusion pieces). I kept this offcut of plywood around for a few months while I waited for the drill press

Testing

With that plywood offcut on top of the extrusion, the Kreg top track is high enough that the stops properly contact the work surface

Cutting the buffer down

That single offcut was long enough that I could use it to pad both the left and right side

Testing with scrap

Here I’m marking out where I need to drill to recess the M5 screw

Test drilling

For me, the plunge depth needed was 5/16

Testing the fit with a couple pieces

Final drill hole

I used a 15/64 drill bit to make a through hole (can also use a 1/4 bit if you want a bit more wiggle room) and then a 1/2” Forstner bit to counterbore (5/16 down in my case)

Testing with the actual piece

All drilled

I really, really appreciate having a drill press

A splash of color before I forget

I had to cut one of the tracks down to length

I wanted to end the track at the end of the counter top. This can be cut slowly with the miter saw

Attached

The top track screws into the back of the plywood padding.

Installing the tape

The tape needs to be skewed approximately 1/4” left or right of the actual distance, so that the mark lines up.

Rolling the tape out

I just peeled and pressed it down overtop the existing tape residue

Test fitting

There is just enough room to slide the flip stop on and off the top track

Both sides installed

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Step 11 - Small touches

Removable side plugs

I sized the width of the miter platform to allow for the expansion wings on the miter saw to be extended, but almost all of the time, the wings are not extended. To keep dust from just blasting out the sides, I needed to make some kind of cover/plug that can be easily installed/removed. Also, by having the panel that can be easily removed, makes cleaning out the dust box a lot easier.

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Lumber rack

One difference with this shop is that I don’t have as much linear wall space to put my lumber rack so I opted to get the generic pivoting metal-arm lumber rack. I bought a cheapo set and they aren’t great — thankfully I was able to drill out the holes to be inline with each other and I had a supply of smaller bolts (that would give me a bit more adjustment range) etc.

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Shadow cut line indicator

The miter saw I have doesn’t have any kind of laser or shadow cut line indicator. There are aftermarket lasers that can be used (triggered with the rotation of the blade), but I found an option on Etsy for a 3D-printed sewing lamp mount that provides a nice shadow cut line. I put this light on a foot-operated switch - step on it and you the light comes on..

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Milestone

This has been a multi-month project in the making with a lot of “side quest” projects I’ve done along the way as I procrastinated (from doing drawers) and/or needed a thinking-break. There are a few small things I have left to do:

• An extended fence stop for distances when I’m making cuts less than the smallest length on the fence (about 24”) — I think a single piece of 24” aluminum extrusion will work very nicely there: don’t have to worry about precision or warpage (as much)

• I’d like to replace the zero clearance tape I’m using on my saw now with a more proper zero clearance

But for now, this project was a long time coming and it’s finally done.

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Mix-ups, surprises and lessons learned

The two biggest whoops moments were:

1. Measuring the correct depth needed for the cabinet sides but then writing the wrong number down

2. Forgetting to cut the drawers front/back to the exact final width before drilling pocket holes

With the former, I ended up getting ‘lucky’ in a sense: if I had correctly written down the dimensions and made the cuts as planned, I would have needed another sheet of plywood (not the whole sheet, but I definitely would have needed to start into a new sheet). The way things turned out, I could use various offcuts to pad the missing span without any additional material being ‘wasted’. There doesn’t seem to be any substantial structural problem with doing this so maybe I got lucky…

Also, when purchasing the drawer slides, I bought 26” slides for all but two where I accidentally picked up 24” slides. Whoops.

With the drawers and getting everything lined up across the left and right cabinets (which were NOT connected by a pre-leveled base), this was super tricky and tedious. Pro-tip: only use 2 or 3 screws to attach drawer slides until you are absolutely certain you’re all done and everything is set in place. Then go back and fill in the remaining screws if you want. This way you’re not waiting forever screwing/unscrewing screws and you’re not wearing out the wood.

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Appendix - What's all there

• Everything is built around the Bosch GCM12SD. I bought this saw back in 2015 — apparently, Bosch did a stealth update without updating the model number in any way

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Some differences between the old and new GCM12SD

• On the front of saw, where the saw blade is mounted, if there is a black plastic module, you have the old revision; if yours is silver, then you have a newer one

• On the main handle, if you have two thumb-activated safety buttons, you have the old model

• On the fence, if your fence is mostly ‘squared off’, you have the old model; if yours has multiple peaks, you have the new model

• Also on the fence, if your lower fence has measurement markings on it, you have the old model

• I’ve seen reports that there is a difference in the number and placement of the bolt holes in the throat plate. I’ve read that the front and back set of screws on the throat plate differ: on the old model, the front and back screw holes are four inches or so from the edge whereas on the new model, they are within 3/4 inch of the edge. That being said, Bosch’s official image of what I imagine is the ‘new model’ doesn’t have this aspect

• For dust management, I have a Ridgid WD1270 (‘5HP’ vac, 2-1/2 hose, 141 cfm); I have a reusable filter bag and a VF6000 HEPA filter. I threw a diffuser on to reduce the amount of dust kicked up by the vac exhaust

  • Instead of the hose that came with the vac, I switched to 2-1/2 flex hose which I can cut to whatever length I need

  • To hook up to the saw, I used the Bosch VAC020 adapter; there are a few adapters and I found the information available on the website to be horrendous, but this unit worked well for me

  • I used 2-1/4 90-degree elbows to relieve the strain on hoses in a few places and used 2-1/4 x 2-1/2 Quick Couplers to seamlessly connect to the hose and for hose clamps, I used left-hand bridge clamps. Bridge clamps are great because they span over the coil in the flex hose so you can apply pressure, but without mangling the hose

  • For pre-separation, I happened to have an extra Dust Deputy around, but I imagine a cheaper/knockoff option would be sufficient as well

  • To automatically control the vacuum, I used a Mastercraft Intelligent Dust Power Switch; something like the iVac Automated Vaccum Switch would provide the same functionality

• For the fence, you would have to size that to the space you have available. I used a combination of 400mm and 500mm 2040 Aluminum extrusion. I used some inside-connectors to link them together. I picked up a kit of profile connectors and an assortment of M5 connectors to secure everything down. From the previous miter station, I had already bought the Kreg Precision Trak and Stop kit so I had all of the bits I needed

• For the hold-down, I used a very short length of T-slot and a Bessey auto-adjust inline clamp. When I built my own foot pad, I had to replace the bolt: I had to find a M8-1.25 bolt at the hardware store.

• To provide the shadow cut line, I found this option on Etsy and have it always-on and connected to a WEN foot operated switch

• For now, I use FastCap Zero Clearance tape which is universal; I happen to use as 100T blade

• The lumber rack was a really cheap row unit: once you get it installed, it’s fine, but out of the box, it’s not great — you maybe better off waiting for a more mainstream option to go on sale

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This miter saw station was modeled after and improved upon my previous one. The previous one was built with a different skill set and tools available.

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