Miter saw to square-up the top slabs?

[genereyn]

After glueing-up the front and back top slabs, and milling them to final width and thickness, Marc suggests squaring-up both ends of the rear slab and one end of the front slab. In his video, "tenon_cavity...", he uses two passes (top and bottom) with his nice Festool circular saw to do this. He then uses sandpaper to make the two cut surfaces co-planar.

As an owner of a Bosch sliding compound miter saw, I'm wondering why this tool couldn't be used to square up an end of those slabs in one clean pass. That seems like an obvious solution to me, so there must be a good reason why Marc didn't do that. (We know he has that super-cool Festool chop saw with laser-lights and what-not).

Please enlighten me on how others have done this; I'm a bit hesitant to proceed with the SCMS without feed-back from you guys who have already passed this point in the construction.

[Trip]

i used a chop saw -- much cleaner method then presented in the video series....

[AMarshall]

Marc would know best why he did it that way, but I know he tries to show different methods and sometimes does things a certain way to show the most common toolset that beginners would own.

The miter saw method is great as long as you can get the slab safely onto the table. You'd need some sturdy extensions. Also, check your saw's capacity. Saws with ten inch blades may have trouble with the 4" depth of cut required for the slabs. A twelve inch blade should be able to handle it though.

[Trip]

==> Marc would know best why he did it that way

suspect 1) bring tool to job; 2) many folks won't have a 12 inch chop saw; 3) the TS55/75 method works great for the tenon, so why not for the through cut...

But if you have a 12" saw with proper in feed (and a friend to help carry the slab), then you are golden for this operation.

[thewoodwhisperer]

Yeah Aaron is right. This was purely for the sake of trying to make the process approachable by the greatest number of people. Furthermore, I actually don't have enough support for my miter saw. I would have needed some help getting the slabs in place and I would have had to move things around just to get some outfeed support in place. So two passes with a circular saw seemed to be the easier solution all around. With the Festool saw and guide, the method shown will produce incredibly clean results. Depending on your chop saw and setup, it could very well be cleaner. But with a regular circular saw and a typical guide, the cut might not be so perfect and will likely need some subsequent work.

Fortunately, the end of the workbench doesn't really matter that much. As long as it is clean, smooth, and roughly square, you're good to go.

[genereyn]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

We all use whatever technique is most appropriate given our training, experience, and equipment.

While I've been woodworking for a bunch of years, I don't use the chop saw for much other than a radial-arm saw substitute, i.e., making long boards shorter, and occasional crown moulding miter cuts. I certainly have never used it for monster slabs like these. I was concerned that a hunk of wood this thick and wider than the travel distance of the saw's sliding mechanism might be a bit problematic. Turns out that not an issue.

I ended up using the miter saw with a "helper", a hydraulic lift table, to support the slab and keep the end at the right elevation to give a perpendicular cut at the blade. I bought the lift table a few years ago to help with maneuvering the one-piece top of a 7-foot oak trestle table I was building. I know, that's kind of like cheating but I'm pleased with the results.