It's been a little while since I used this sled, but there are two features that you really need to position the rectangles to form the pentagons. The first is the 18 deg angle from the fence of the table saw. The second dimension is the distance the fence is from the blade, which sets the edge length of the pentagons. With the 3" edge length that I made, the short leg of the sled is 3.927".

Not sure what you mean by short leg Brian. I understand the 18 deg angle and then creep up the fence to get whatever edge length one desires. The 3.927 is a result of the cut ? But with 3 inch edge . X = 3 sin18deg which is .7776. Add the 3 edge length and the yellow short section of the sled perpendicular to the long would be 3.776 ? Thanks for replying . Think I will be experimenting very shortly . I’m intrigued

Sorry . Messed up my scientific calculations. Sin 18 == .309 x3 == 0.927 so now I understand where you are coming from.🙈

The dihedral angle is measured from adjacent faces. Since the blade angle is measured from perpendicular to the table, you need half of the supplementary angle. (180-116.5)/2 = 31.7 deg.

@@bshusted ty yt - thank you youtube - thank you mr Husted

@@bshusted Wow good point!!

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you asking about the miter angle (how far the blade is tipped) or the sled I used to cut the 108 deg sides to make a pentagon?

Sorry. Not a product I'm selling, but I hope you can make your own.

I'm glad it's not just my kid who loves smashing this and putting it back together.

To make sure that I had the polarity alternating, I just had them all stacked up in a line and then flipped the line over each hole. If you forget what the next one should be, you can always bring your stack next to the adjacent hole and see if it attracts or repels.

The bevels are from the dihedral angle of the dodecahedron. This is the angle for which the faces meet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_polyhedron_dihedral_angles

@@bshusted ​ @Brian Husted I have a query, please suggest me. I want to make a wooden 3V geodesic ball. I have found the edge lengths but I'm confused about calculating the bevelled angle of each pentagon & hexagons of my geodesic wood ball to attach each faces correctly. As 3V geodesic, a kind of an Icosahedron should I follow the dihedral angle of the Icosahedron?

It's half of the dihedral angle of a dodecahedron. If you think about the angle between adjacent faces of a cube is 90 degrees. The miter angle would be half of this, so 45 degrees.

You can see in the clip where I'm installing the magnets that I am flipping the stack each time I move to the next hole. This ensures that the poles will alternate. If you ever forget where you are, just go back and compare to the previous. I was most concerned about getting this part right and I've made 2 without a problem, so it's not too bad.

Thanks. We do actually use them as coasters and currently as a candy bowl. Somehow I don't think I'll get rich off of this idea, but I appreciate the interest.

I'm glad that you like it. To cut the parts I'm using a 10" table saw. There's nothing particularly special about the saw. I think you would have a hard time making safe cuts with a handheld circular saw. A compound miter saw could be used instead.