Reminded myself this morning of teaching days when students were afraid of cutoff kickback and cutting small parts on the big compound miter saw which I also own.

I drew up these to cut out for my own saw, and I'll send the file to the college lab manager.

The saw has 1/4" x 1/2" holes in the metal fence already.  I'll add a photo of them mounted on the saw after I cut them out later.

Prior to this I've just used small c-clamps to clamp on plywood scraps.  These will use t-bolts I already have and either cam levers or wing nuts on the back side to loosen/tighten or remove them.   The gap between the metal fences is indeed a danger.   This will be a permanent attachment to my saw so I can put my tiny c-clamps to other uses. The wide slots allow me to pull them 1" away from the blade, then I can loosen the metal fence they are attached to and slide it back for miter cuts.  I'll cut these from a scrap of cheap 1/2" thick birch veneered plywood I have. 

 4D

Good idea and clever safety solution. Thanks for sharing the idea.

Got them cut out. I trimmed the length so they would both fit on the plywood scrap I had.  Otherwise I would have made them as wide as the metal fence they are attached to. 

 

I remember one student who I had that had previous bad experience using this saw and was deathly afraid of it. That day I showed her the trick of adding an auxiliary fence to it and demonstrated how much safer it was.  She was extremely grateful and a few days later I saw her showing another student the same trick.   While you would think this is such an obvious trick, it may be so obvious to the experience woodworkers that they assume it is "common" knowledge, the students we had mostly came with absolutely zero experience using any woodworking tools. 

4D

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by 4DThinker

I've never felt the need for a zc fence on my Bosch SCMS. I do have a zc tape on the bottom but, the blades I use, Tenryu 80t "Silencer" designed for the scms, produces a nice exit cut. If the degree of rake isn't correct, you will get ragged exits. 

I upgraded the blade when I got mine and always get clean smooth cuts.  The ZC fence is more about keeping small cutoff waste from getting thrown back and sometimes spit out from the saw.  I use mine more to trim hardboard pieces to precise length or cut angled or compound angled ends on the bottom or top of table legs or some such.  I've got a radial arm saw in my garage that does the tough crosscuts.  The saw show in the photo lives in my basement CNC room to support the CNC. 

4D