my improved sled
After quite a bit of reading and comments lately on the subject of sleds, I thought I'd show y'all mine. I've made some recent improvements. A couple of you will be happy to hear that my sled requires no masking tape for the sensors now! I know I've been promising I'd post pics about this for a while now but I wanted to get my improvements done before I showed it. I do plan to make another that is less "robust" as I over-engineered this one a bit. With the new "four-inch" stretchers on the ends, I shoudn't have to worry about racking and could make the whole assembly much lighter without comprimising strength.
The sled is basically a long "U" shape that has an inner "floor" that can be raised and lowered to accommodate different thicknesses of materials. The "floor" rides on 4 bolts which can all be loosened and then tightened to the correct material thickness. To do so, I loosen all four and then hold the material up to each corner and tighten the bolt appropriately.
This pic shows the grooves for the bolts.
This shows the inside- the lower "square" holds the nut that the carriage bolt tightens into. I'll use threaded taps on my next version but I will say that the extra thickness does keep the piece from racking too much.
To use the sled I put the piece to be carved into the center with double stick tape (It hasn't failed me yet... very tough stuff as I use the kind woodturners use) I carved marks showing the center of the sled with my CW-- this makes lining up the piece in the center very easy. I then put the sled all the way to the right with the left side "four-inch rail" under the sensor. I then just use the sled as normal, ensuring I use "center" for everything. Perhaps there is a better way to do all this, but it works for me and there is no loss of material.
Let me know if you have questions,
Lawrence
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