Table Saw Measuring Using a Stop Block

When I first got my shop set up, I had a table saw, but I didn't have a miter saw in the shop. So I had to do all my cross-cutting on the table saw as accurately as I possibly could. Everything from chair parts to table parts to face frames for cabinets, everything got done on the saw. So I learned a lot of good techniques and tips and tricks about how I could do that cross-cutting. So let me show you on one case.

What I needed to do was cross-cut lots of long parts. So one rule in woodworking is that you don't wanna use the miter gauge and the rip fence together because you can get a piece of wood trapped in here between the two, and that's very dangerous. However, we can use the fence as a stop block if we put a block like this on it so that we stand off of the fence once we start making the cut. So this is pretty simple. What I've got here is a piece of wood, one inch stop block.

I machined it to a perfect one inch thickness. That makes the math easy because I've got a cursor, I've got a pointer on the fence. Now I can use the ruler on the fence to set the fence position. All I have to do is set the fence for a perfect one inch more than what I need. So I clamp the stop block on, that's the first step.

Now notice that when I put the stop block on, I kept it up off the bed of the table saw itself. That's because as I slide parts over, one thing I found is that you're gonna get sawdust on the table. And if this is tight to the table, sawdust is gonna get trapped between there and you're gonna get tripped. You're gonna be up against sawdust, not up against the stop block, and as a result, when you make your cut, it's gonna be too short. So make sure you hold the stop block up like this.

Then all I have to do is set the fence position. Don't forget to add an inch there because of our one inch stop block. Now I can slide this over until it kisses the block, move forward and make a cut. With this simple setup, I could cut one part, I could cut 1000 parts, the stop block and the fence are gonna guarantee that every one of them is exactly the same. If I have to come back in the future and cut more parts to the same length, very, very easy to duplicate that setup by using the stop block and the fence.

So great technique for cross-cutting many, many parts, getting them all perfectly identical.