Ultimate Miter Saw Bench

[@lrr1952]

Very nice setup! I bought my radial arm saw in 1976! It was my first large power tool purchase. I only use it for 90° crosscuts since I now have a table saw for ripping. I never thought of integrating a miter gauge for angle cuts! Great idea.

[@WoodshopMike]

Very cool. Glad you liked the idea, i saw it from Tabb Adams. Cheers!

[@ryananthony4840]

The black top is nice, most wood you'd cut is light, so it's a nice contrast

[@WoodshopMike]

I like it too. Easy to clean up, pretty durable, and it looks nice. Win win win👍👍

[@ryananthony4840]

@@WoodshopMike I took a large black entertainment center my brother was throwing away with the same thing in mind.... I'm going to use it to make a 48" wide router table and infeed and outfeed for ripping on the table saw

[@WoodshopMike]

Right on! 👊👊

[@dennismacwilliams196]

What a big, but very nice and well though out project.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you very much! It's made a big impact in the shop!

[@VaughanGuitars]

Hi Mike, First off I wish I had the Cnc Machine, so nice. I build doors, gates and louvered shutters and really took an interest on this video. I have an Omga 600 P3S 14 in 5 hp 3 phase radial and a Dewalt 12 inch sliding compound saw set up similar to what you have. What I have found is keeping the radial arm saw to rough and finish cut a perfect 90 degree cut and use the Sliding compound saw for angle cuts. Even though this can be done with the radial saw I just hate having to take the time to guarantee that nothing has moved on the Radial saw from setting to setting. Thanks for the great video and I am going to look into the kreg fence system for my set up. Thanks for the video and love the saw station set up a lot more than what I have at the moment.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you so much, I'm glad the video was interesting! I'm like you, I hate the idea of moving the RAS out of square with the fence and only use it for making 90 degree cuts. I've been super happy with the Kreg fence system. Glad I could give ya some ideas! Cheers!

[@cynthiastandley5742]

Do you have a plan for replacing the benchtop under the RASs when it gets chewed up in a few years?

[@WoodshopMike]

I leave those at 90 so there will only be one cut line in the bench (or at least that's what I tell myself 😂) but should I need to replace the top, I'd route out a section and basically make a replacement throat plate.

[@johndoe1765]

Thumbs up man great build learned a lot thanks.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you very much! Glad it was helpful👊👊

[@jefferymccarley]

Awesome workbench !!!!! I'm jealous....

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you, it's been a great addition to the shop!

[@revon0521]

Great upload, Mike. I cut my teeth on those Dewalt RAS's; no, not literally. Younger folk are intrigued that the Dewalt badge is found on these awesome old school saws. Thanks for sharing.

[@WoodshopMike]

They really are great saws, I'm so glad to finally have them up and running in the shop! Glad you liked the video, thanks for letting me know👊👊

[@986munkie]

Good, very detail oriented video keep it up! Love how that top + drawers turned out.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you so much for the feedback! I always wonder if I'm giving too much detail 😃. Yes all of those extra drawers are going to be super helpful and I really like the new look!

[@EvanDunville]

Great setup! I have a radial arm saw / mitre saw station im working on this year. I have a DeWalt sliding miter saw and a vintage DeWalt 12" radial arm saw

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you, I'm really enjoying it! Those vintage RAS's are hard to beat. Not the tool you need everyday in a "modern" shop, but definitely the perfect tool when the time comes. Thanks for watching, cheers!

[@davehahn23]

QQ, since you have the t-track in the table, why didn;t you use that to attach the RAS fence, that way you could adjust it if needed?

[@WoodshopMike]

🤔 I feel like there was a reason at the time but I don't remember why I didn't do that. I used t-track to mount the fence on my previous miter saw station and it worked very well👍

[@johndowning2231]

I have a large DeWalt RAS and a 10” Rockwell 30C. I also have a DeWalt Compound Miter Saw. Looks like I can adapt your idea, here.

[@WoodshopMike]

That's awesome! Would love to see photos when your done! Have fun👊👊

[@CrossCutTabb]

Great system buddy, glad the ole Dewalt went to a good home!

[@WoodshopMike]

Hey dude I couldn't have done it without you! That ole DeWalt is a sweet cutting saw man!

[@NWMT]

Very organized. Nice. Certainly a dedicated commercial for Kreg products as well! If you mentioned how you will be managing dust collection, I missed it, so your thoughts there, or a followup video seems appropriate. I'd love to see/hear if Kreg has a RAS dust collection solution product, as most of those are custom made designs. Thanks.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you very much! Kreg did sponsor the project so there's sure to be lots of blue goodies 😀 They don't have a dedicated solution for the dust collection, but that is something I plan to build a solution for (hopefully sooner than later!).

[@freeq1829]

Thats an awesome workbench my friend. I have a table saw and a miter saw but would love to have a sliding miter saw for cutting bigger pieces. I love the integrated track design looks professional and well built.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you so much! It took a bit more planning than I thought it would, but once I got the location of the radial arm saws settled the project was pretty straight forward!

[@scottkapton4658]

Which Model is your larger RAS?

[@WoodshopMike]

It's a "long arm" model GA

[@marwanabutarieh1868]

Soooo professional.... Good luck 👍

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you very much!

[@kurtanderson1701]

what's the outfeed roller with a scissor lift at ~9:00?

[@WoodshopMike]

Ah, that's a product by trend. Came in pretty handy?

[@karlsavage4278]

Nice set up and very well laid out . have you wished you had done anything different now that you have used it for a while , an update video would be nice , Thanks heaps

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you very much. I wouldn't change anything with the layout, but I am working on better dust collection for the saws. Cheers!

[@jerbus7956]

That grey one in the middle is massive! What model is that? Does it take a 16 or 20” blade? What’s the length of the crosscut?

[@Jack-bq2jm]

How do u adjust the fence for long crooked pieces that push the piece off at cut point

[@WoodshopMike]

sorry for the super late reply! If I can I flip the piece around so the crown of the bow is against the fence. Otherwise I'll put scrap blocks between the board and the fence to fill in the gaps.

[@Roy-ij1wq]

Impressive setup. The laser got your fence very close to perfect but you can fine tune your radial arm saw within thousands of an inch in all directions by following the procedure Jon Eakes outlines in his book "Fine Tuning a Radial Arm Saw." For example, to do a simple test for 90 degrees, set the blade height to cut a little more than half way through a piece of scrap 3/4" particleboard and cut one side. Flip the board over and put the same edge against the fence and repeat. The resulting shadow will show how close to 90 degrees you are. The design of the miter latch makes it very easy to fine tune the arm in either direction and, once the set screws are in place, it will stay in alignment. This procedure lets you get your saw in perfect alignment before you put a kerf cut in your table. A complete tuneup involves additional steps but allows you to use the saw safely for other operations such as ripping and cutting dados. The most important adjustment is to be sure the table is parallel to the arm and with your setup you need to do this before you attach the saw to the bench. Do this by turning the motor so it is perpendicular with the arbor pointing down. Swing the arm so the arbor is over a rail and adjust the height of the arbor so it just clears and lock the arm and carriage in place. I like to use a small piece of formica as a feeler gauge. Repeat this procedure until all of the rails are equal distance to the arbor. When you put your top on the rails, it will be parallel to the arm. You may also want to look into making a sacrificial fence that allows you make a fresh kerf cut for a zero clearance cut. Your Kreg flip stops can be modified to accommodate a 3/4" sacrificial fence by breaking off the end.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you very much Roy and thanks for all the additional info! Good stuff 👍👍

[@Roy-ij1wq]

@@WoodshopMike You may have got lucky and started with saws with rails that were already parallel to the arm. I just picked up a 1949 DeWalt that has the original top and it is still parallel to the arm. Who knows? You may have gotten lucky and ended up with your arms parallel to your top. It's easy to check.

[@WKYanks]

Did you square the radial arms saws up to the fence?

[@WoodshopMike]

Yep sure did👍👍

[@WKYanks]

@@WoodshopMike It looks fantastic! What model is that monster DeWalt?

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you and sorry for the late reply! The big saw is a DeWalt "long arm" model GA

[@timothycreasy2161]

I never knew you were a cnc, or a radial arm saw man either Mr. Mike. Two of them on top of that !! Now I am waiting to see if you make more storage underneath the the stands like you did your Kreg router stand. As always, God bless, and Merry Christmas to you and your family

[@WoodshopMike]

I've had the radial arm saws in waiting for a couple months now until I could get to building the bench! Very excited to have them up and running😃. Yes I'll be building out some cabinets under the benches eventually on these also. The CNC is new to the shop as of a few months ago and I have a lot of different content in the works around it! Thanks for being such a great part of the channel sir, I always look forward to your comments. God bless you and yours as well and hope you have a Merry Christmas!

[@johnfrederickson3082]

Where did you buy the scissor lift?

[@WoodshopMike]

Harbor freight. I've used that thing so much I'm not sure how I got along without it before🤣

[@kerrywargo4693]

Where did you get your black melamine from? I can't find any locally.

[@WoodshopMike]

I could only find it at A&M supply. They have a couple locations in the south east. If you aren't close to one of their locations do a search for cabinetry suppliers, or if you have a Menards in your area, I believe they usually carry it. Good luck!

[@Tensquaremetreworkshop]

So, you have two radial arm saws, but do not use the radial arm feature- can you explain why?

[@WoodshopMike]

I'm not sure what you're referring to as the feature that I'm not using.

[@Tensquaremetreworkshop]

@@WoodshopMike My understanding is that they are called 'radial arm' because they can be moved radially- i.e. rotated horizontally left or right. There are saws that do not do this- but they are not radial arm. I was trying to understand why you do not use the feature after which they were named...

[@WoodshopMike]

Gotcha. Yes they can do that and with the current setup they could be adjusted to cut angles or used for ripping. For my needs, having them set dead on 90 is what I need. If I do need to cut an angle it's faster for me to usually setup the track saw and ripping material is much safer on the tablesaw.

[@Tensquaremetreworkshop]

@@WoodshopMike I keep hearing about ripping being 'safer' on a table saw- but there are failure modes on a table-saw (like lift on the back of the blade leading to side ejection) that cannot happen on a RAS. Yes, a table saw can have a top cover- but going by most YT videos that is often not fitted... So what exactly is the unique safety issue with ripping?

[@WoodshopMike]

Totally valid points you bring up. With both tools there's the risk of blade injury. The larger risk with ripping on an RSA is the wood self feeding and being launched through the shop or lifting off the table depending on which way you decide to feed material.

[@ondrejivanko3261]

Congratulation. I want similar workshop as yours, too. When I will be bigger guy. Maybe. You have my like.

[@WoodshopMike]

Thank you👍👊👊

[@michaelgage9919]

Wow - what’s the retail price on the CNC machine?!?

[@WoodshopMike]

Thanks! This is a ShopBot PRSalpha ATC and with all of the upgrades etc with this particular machine it's around $48k. They also have less expensive 4'x8' machines that start around $22k. Here's a link to their product page so you can check out the different models and options if you're interested.

[@roofermarc1]

It's very hard to align the radial arm saws to other saws. The ras tops are aligned to the arms. Once aligned then you'd align the the tops to the bench's and to the miter saws. Very hard to do this I found. So the whole ras assembly would have to be adjusted and brought level to the bench top

[@WoodshopMike]

Yep you're totally right. It took a LONG time to make sure all of the benches and individual RASs we're level and square before I started attaching the bench top.

[@frankwolf5126]

cooles Ding gefällt mir

[@WoodshopMike]

Vielen Dank

[@thomascooper6679]

I can't believe you have Tabb Adams' RAS ! I thought that model GA looked familiar. The idea of a miter gauge used with a radial arm saw is brilliant and I'm planning on using the same idea. Question: how do you secure the miter gauge in a fixed position in the miter slot?

[@WoodshopMike]

It's so cool to not only have this epic piece of history in my shop, but it's only made better that it's from a friend like Tabb! I got the miter gauge idea from him, so he gets all the credit there 😀 To keep it in place, it just butts up against the other fence.

[@thomascooper6679]

@@WoodshopMike Hope to see much more video footage of your RAS in action. What became of the Incra fence and all table top hardware that Tabb had?

[@WoodshopMike]

I believe he sold that to another fella that bought his smaller RAS

[@HOG95fsxts]

I'd have to sell my house in order to afford that CNC monster. So, l'm both impressed and depressed. Love the eclectic collection of vintage and modern equipment.Anyway, how long did this project take?

[@WoodshopMike]

Sorry to be the emotional rollercoaster for ya🤣. The vintage radial arm saws are very cool indeed. The project took a few days and most of that was me just determining where exactly I needed the RAS to be in relation to the miter saw and getting everything level.

[@larrywhite6536]

What does this bench set me back?

[@WoodshopMike]

This one is 17' long overall and was about $1800 in materials. Each of the universal benches though are in the $200-$275 range just depending on what size bench you get. Hope that answers your question!

[@billboy7390]

It doesn’t matter what kind of blade you have on your Saw, Aluminum or nonferrous metals will not hurt the carbide on your blade.

[@WoodshopMike]

It still just seems like good practice to keep a beater blade on hand for aluminum.

[@neilarmitage6632]

Dexion shelving is the same product but 50 plus years old

[@WoodshopMike]

Very cool, I've not heard of them before.

[@brucewelty7684]

bad title. ONE mickey mouse mitre sa vs TWO outstanding RAS!

[@Jack-bq2jm]

U really using a CNC bruh...pretty sure 99% of dont have a cnc to make this. Tell Kreg we need a better instructional video if they want us buying these products

[@PatrickPease]

Nobody has all the goodies, can't blame the dude for using what he had

[@ronayles9050]

must be nice to get free stuff,, why is it, the wood workers who have the following and can afford the "gifts" get it free.. but the average worker who cant afford the extras.. have to pay..