Had an itch to get into a little finer of woodworking, recently.  Step one... finally build a good, square crosscut sled

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Basically, just followed the William Ng 5 cut method.  Square to .002" over 16" or a little over .0001" per inch.

I think it turned out pretty good.  I will definitely get some good use out of this making plaques, coasters and the like.

100% shop scraps.   Hard maple for the runners, MDF base, some doubled up 3/4" furniture grade plywood for the critical fence, and doubled up 3/4" construction grade plywood for the front fence.

Cool, I don't know what I'm looking at though, and I have 2 table saws at home.

Cross cut jig for making perfect 90 degree crosscuts.  

No slop between the runner and the T slot and verified square to the blade.

A little more precision than necessary for most work, but I do laser engraved plaques sometimes and in batches, I index the plaques off of eachother on the engraver.  Error adds up.  So in this case, with an error per inch of about .0001 per inch, a 5 inch wide plaque will be square to within half a thousandth and 4 plaques stacked side by side will still be square to within two thousandth.   Plenty accurate for my purposes.

Look up William Ng's 5 cut method on youtube.   Great info there.

Generally referred to as a "sled."

I've been woodworking since 1978... I keep telling myself "I'm gonna build a sled". Maybe this fall

I put it off for a long time.   It really is not a big deal.  The math is really straightforward and if you're careful, you can nail it on the first adjustment.

One thing I did a bit differently was put my fence at a slightly off of 90 degree angle for the initial placement.   That way, when I did the 5 cuts and the math, it would be intuitive and obvious which direction the fence needed to go for adjustment.

Other than that, only thing I did differently was clamp the sled to the table and use an indicator for my fence adjustment.  Most everyone else I've seen on youtube clamped a pointed board to the sled as an index point and used feeler gauges for the adjustment.  Equally effective, I'm sure.

Befor you know it you’ll have multiples.

I have a 5 foot wide 2 foot deep cross cut sled with hold downs and zero clearance inserts. Down to a small parts sled that’s 12” wide. Miter woods. Triangle sleds. I lost count of them.

For me taking the time to make a sled or jig pays for itself rather quickly. I also have so much scrap balitc birch that I burn every week it costs me very little to make them minus the main body and the runner.

I'll make another one for a specific dado stack when I start into box joints, for sure.

Works like magic.   Perfectly square cuts.  Overkill for this job, but still.   Feels good, man.

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Aromatic cedar is a bitch to work with.   Pretty but annoying.

OP inspired me.

Building one today, not sure why I waited.

My used Unisaw came with a sled but it was off a bit. Ikve been meaning to fix it, for the last three years. Maybe someday.

Take a scrap board.  Cut the longest side first.  Just half a blade width, so long as the entire length is cut.  Rotate 90* and cut again.

Keep going until you get back to the first side you cut.  Cut it again, but this time cut off a good inch or so, so you have something to measure with your calipers.  

Measure the far tip of the cut and the near tip of the cut.   Far side measurement minus the near side measurement (be sure to measure as far out to the tip as you can).  That will be your total error for all four sides.

Divide that by 4 to get the error for one side.   Divide that by the length of the 5th cut to get the error per inch.

Now that you know the error per inch to be corrected, you just need the number of inches to correct at the fence.   So measure from the pivot point of the fence (wherever you left one screw in place) to where you wish to index off of to adjust (the further away from the pivot point, the better).  Make a little pencil mark on that spot.

Multiply your error per inch adjustment amount by the distance from the pivot point on the fence to the adjustment point (IOW, the number of inches to be adjusted).   The resulting number will be how much you need to rotate the fence as measured at that spot you left the little pencil mark.  Make a little pointed board you can clamp to the sled and use as an index point and set the movement with feeler gauges.    

When you've got the fence where you want it, clamp the fence to the sled in a few spots, verify your fence is still where you want it and drill, countersink, and install a screw in a new hole on the bottom side of the sled/fence.

I made a small index sled for cutting drawer box joints. It worked okay. I really envy you guys who have a dedicated wood shop. I have to reposition my stuff for mechanical repair and welding on a regular basis. Definitely makes for a thorough cleaning out of sawdust to keep from burning the place down. My late brother had a nice Rockwell table saw with the metal stand. It was hardly used, but my sister-in-law gave it away. Didn't give me a chance to offer to buy it. I suspected all those years that she hated me, but that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. It would have worked well with those type of jigs.

William Ng has another good video on clamping a little index board to the crosscut sled fence for doing box joints.  I'm really keen to try it.

Sorry to hear about your jerk sister in law.  

Yeah, kind of inherited this shop.   Been transforming it for production and creativity for my little engraving/woodworking side business.

In addition to the cedar coasters, I've already gotten some good use out of this sled for some reaaally basic jointery (like a half saddle joint) making a pipe clamp rack out of scrap lumber.  Will have some pics of that, tomorrow.   Just having a sled you can clamp a board to on end for jointery is a big plus.  

Again, I should have made one of these sleds years ago.

Maybe add a small raised strip on the back as a sort of tactile guard to remind where not to place your fingers and thumbs?
I did that on mine.  Just inset a 1/2” by 6 or 8” long piece of walnut that sits about a 1/2” above the back board.   Not sure if that was my original intent, but it does well for helping keep your fingers away from the blade

I also routed a T-slot track into my back board so I could position a stop block

Yeah, I need to put a little strip there for safety, good tip.

I thought about doing slots for clamps and stuff in the fence, but so far I've just been using a little pistol grip clamp to clamp stop blocks to the fence and it's been perfectly convenient.  I don't really like those pistol grips for much else but for that, they're awesome.

I can see where a T slot in the sled itself might be beneficial for a hold down or something.   Might incorporate something like that into the next sled.

A well done sled is worth the time to create it.

The Cross cut slider is just NOT larger enough to make accurate cuts.

Adding a larger wooden fence to the typical cross cut guide helps, but an actual sled is still way better.

Use some polyurethane to make snug fitting guides.
Wood just moves to much with humidity.

Got a router? make some slots and some hold down clamps... Makes it way more better.. you can cut all sorts of weird angles, and tiny pieces with out your hands getting close to the blades

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ooh, noice.  Yep, definitely going to do some T slots for hold downs on next one.

I also like your miter saw setup.   If I didn't already have an old radial arm saw, I'd probably do something like that.