[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Well, hello.

For this season, we're in an all-new workshop with an all-new look, and we spent a lot of time trying to figure out where all of our tools and gear goes.

And one of the things that we've needed to find a place for is our miter saw.

So what we've come up with is a mobile miter saw cart.

Now, over the years, we've found that it's best to have as many tools as possible on wheels.

That way, we can set up the shop for the task at hand.

So this station does exactly that.

But it also has... ...a couple of swing-out wings to support long boards.

I think it's time for us to get started building this cart on this episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

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Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues -- the pro's advantage.

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Kreg.

And by... [ Up-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, Christopher, our new space, it's been nice to be able to apply some of the lessons we've learned from our magazine workshop.

And I think one of the big ones is mobility.

You know, if a tool can be put on casters, it should be.

But that said, if we put a tool on casters, it needs to be solid and stable.

And that's one of the things I really like about our new miter saw station.

Look at the very wide stance that this miter cell station has.

Yeah, kicking those casters to the outside of the case really adds to its ability to support long boards, especially when we have these big wings out.

Now, it's not all the time that you're going to want to be cutting long pieces of lumber, but it's one of the tasks that we ask of a miter saw.

And so we wanted to make sure that with this station, you can do it with confidence.

And I think a miter saw is one of those essential tools for a lot of shops, but it's not something you're using all the time, every day you're in your shop, either.

No.

You know, we talk about being able to break apart long boards, but most of the time your miter saw station is gonna be tucked up against the wall, and you're just gonna be doing short boards.

So that's where we have these wings that can fold down then.

Now, what you're left with is a pretty compact cart that you can kind of tuck it away or rearrange your shop, depending on the task, right?

Absolutely.

Now, one of the things that I like about this miter saw station as well is the fact that the saw is at a very convenient working height.

I can easily see my lines that are on my workpieces.

And, you know, I don't feel fatigued from bending over and operating the saw, so it's a good height.

Another thing that's great about this miter saw is, you know how miter saws are.

They spray dust everywhere.

Well, most of the new saws have a vacuum port for a hose.

So this station has plenty of room for a vacuum cleaner, and that will help with the cleanup.

Now, when it comes to building a project like this, we really want to be considerate about how much time and effort you're going to take in making it, right?

Sure.

Now, this miter saw station goes together easily but solidly, with simple tongue-and-groove joinery.

So it's very much a case of you cut the parts out to size, some easy joinery, and you are gluing up and assembling in no time.

So I think our first step is to start making the cart then.

I'll get busy.

The construction of the miter saw stand begins with the construction of the plywood box that supports the wings and the saw itself.

Now that plywood box has two sides, a back, a bottom, a shelf, and two doors.

So the first thing we need to do to build that box is to cut our plywood down to the final finished size for each of the parts.

Now, in the past, I'd probably wrestle 4x8 sheets of 3/4-inch Baltic birch plywood back to my table saw.

Well, if you've ever done that, you know that breaking down heavy sheets of plywood on a table saw is no easy task.

So this time I thought, "I'm going to do something smart.

I'm going to try a track saw system."

Well, this system consists of a solid table.

It's got some different fixtures to help me position the plywood, a track with a zero clearance insert, and the circular saw -- well, it's not a cheap saw with a rusty framing blade on it.

This saw is specifically made to produce finish-quality cuts every time, and it'll do it in plywood and solid wood as well.

So I've got everything set up to go ahead and begin cutting my two sides.

So that's what I'm going to do now.

[ Saw buzzing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The parts for the miter saw cabinet base are all bound together using a simple tongue-and-groove joint.

Now, the tongue-and-groove joint is a great choice for shop projects because it's easy and because it's a true wood-to-wood connection.

So it's strong.

Now to cut the joint, I'm going to begin by cutting dados on the lower inside edge of each of my sides, the back inside edge, and then also on the very back of the cabinet itself there's a dado on the lower inside edge.

To do this, I've got a 1/4-inch dado set up here, and it's 1/4-inch high, and my fence is set so that the inside of the cut is about 1/2 inch away.

So with our saw set up, let's go ahead and cut the dados.

♪♪ [ Saw buzzing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Well, previously, we cut grooves on the inside faces of our two sides and the lower inside edge of the back.

Well, now it's time to cut the tongues, which will fit in this.

So what I've done is I've raised up my dado stack.

I've buried it in a sacrificial fence.

That's going to allow me to cut the tongues on the two sides of the back and around three sides of the bottom.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Before we assemble all the plywood parts for the case, there's one thing I need to do, and that is I need to drill three 2 1/2-inch holes in the bottom of the back.

Now, those holes provide an exit for air from our vacuum cleaner, which will help control some f the mess of the chop saw, and it'll also give a place for us to slip the electrical cord out for the vacuum cleaner.

So I have a hole saw set up in my drill press.

But, you know, hole saws can really burn and bog down and go through dense materials like Baltic birch plywood.

So here's a little tip for you.

The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take my drill press and I'm just going to score the outline of the hole that's going to be cut by the hole saw.

I'll then swap out bits with, say, 1/2-inch Forstner, and I'm going to drill a hole on the inside of that outline.

That hole goes all the way through the plywood, and that hole will provide an exit for sawdust while we're drilling all the way through with the hole saw.

So out goes the Forstner bit, in goes the hole saw again, and we should get three clean holes that don't leave our hole saw burned and black.

Well, we're ready to glue up our case.

Now, one thing you want to notice is that I went ahead and rounded over the front corner of each side to soften that edge up a little bit.

Glue-ups should be fun, they should be easy, and they're easy because we plan things out.

You want to have a dress rehearsal and know what part to start with and what to finish with.

You need everything laid out -- clamps, glue, some wet rags.

And you also want to make sure that none of your joints are too tight because when the glue hits that wood, it's gonna swell out, and there's nothing worse than trying to force joints together that just don't want to go.

So you want a nice, easy fit.

So I'm going to start by gluing the back into my side and I want to put glue on both sides of my joint to make sure I've got good coverage.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So I've put a couple clamps on the case to keep things snug and tight while the glue dries, and now I just need to do a little cleanup with a wet rag.

All miter saw stands suffer a little bit from instability when the wings are fully out.

It's a lot of distance.

So to counter that, we've done something a little different with this miter saw stand.

We've added caster plates, which means that the casters have a much wider footing than on most other stands.

So that gives us a little more stability.

So my next step in building this structure is to go ahead and put a little glue underneath these caster plates and screw them down securely.

And after that, I'll screw on the casters.

[ Drill whirring ] Well, next up is the installation of the shelf that supports the miter saw.

Now, what I want is for the top of this table to be 3/4 inch, or the thickness of this plywood above the rim of our case.

The shelf itself is supported by cleats that run along the interior.

So the problem is, where do I locate the cleats so that my miter saw is 3/4 inch above the rim?

Well, to do that, I'm gonna take a little square, and I'm going to go ahead and drop the blade... down from the top of the table and lock it in place.

Now you can look at the numbers or not.

That's optional.

But with this location fixed in place, I can now transfer that distance to the interior of my case parts.

And that leaves me a reference line for mounting the cleats.

And so our cleats go directly underneath that line.

[ Drill whirring ] Well, with the saw shelf in place, I think we're ready to move on to the wings.

You know, a miter saw station has two really important jobs in the shop.

The first is to raise the saw up to a comfortable, ergonomic working height.

And Chris has accomplished that here by building this case with the shelf for the saw to sit on.

The other thing that a miter saw station does is it lends support to workpieces while you cut them.

And our support on this miter saw workstation is gonna be a pair of wings that fold up.

Those wings not only are going to lend support, but they'll have some fences attached as well for things like stop blocks.

So we're gonna start over at the table saw by cutting everything to size.

So our support wings have a couple of parts.

Let's run through those quick.

The first is going to be that long surface that's actually going to be the wing on our miter saw station.

And underneath that wing, we're gonna add a little bit of blocking.

The blocking is nothing more than a couple of cleats.

The real long one along the lower front edge, and that's going to add a little bit of extra rigidity and act like a stop for the support wing that we'll add.

The other cleat is going to go along the hinge side.

And that's really just to beef up that hinge edge and give a little bit more meat for the hinge screws to mount to.

Now, of course, we're gonna have to cut the fences as well, but we'll wait to add those till later once we get everything attached to the saw case and we can align everything.

And while we're here at the table saw, we might as well go ahead and cut that fold-out support arm that will hold our wings up once they're fully raised.

[ Saw buzzing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Saw buzzing ] Okay, so we have all the parts cut for our support wings and our support arm.

Let's go ahead and recount what those are quick.

I'll start with the support arms.

Now those are just plywood panels, and I cut those to the size of the table saw.

But they have one thing that's a little bit different than the other parts on here.

That's that long angled cut.

Just gives them a better profile when they're attached to the case.

And I made that cut using a circular saw with a track guide.

And I placed that sheet onto a piece of foam and made the cut.

But if you don't have a circular saw, that's okay.

That cut's pretty easy to make to make with a jigsaw.

And that's actually what I did here with these wings.

I nipped the corner off, simply made a line, followed it closely with the jigsaw, and then I used a file to smooth it out and take care of any variants in my cuts.

So for the wings here, I have actual wing panels.

I have the fences, and we'll set those off to the side.

We have the pair of long cleats.

Those are gonna be the stops for those support arms.

We also have the shorter cleats here.

And those are for our hinge.

But at this point, we're ready to go ahead and assemble these.

So let's start with one.

And we're gonna need one of the long support wing stops and one of the short cleats.

And one of these support arms.

This is the orientation that these cleats are gonna be in.

Everything's basically flushed to the edge, glued down, and screwed in place.

[ Drill whirring ] Okay, now we take care of that long support arm stop.

Same thing here.

We're going to position it so it is flush to the front and the two ends, and glue it and screw it in place.

[ Drill whirs ] There we go.

Now that wing's done.

I'll go and get those cleats assembled on the another one, and then we'll head over the miter saw case and get them installed.

[ Drill whirs ] When you're building a project like this, constructing all the parts is really one thing.

Putting them together in the right way is almost a whole nother project.

Exactly.

Because Chris took care of positioning our saw by installing it on the shelf.

But we now have to position the wing so that it's level with the miter saw table.

Right.

Because otherwise you're not going to get the right support that you need on your workpiece.

So what we did was we took a -- just a piece of 2-by stock, jointed one edge nice and straight, clamped it to the saw table, and then we could clamp one of the wings in place.

Exactly.

And that helps hold it up in position while you are installing the screws on the piano hinge.

Let's talk about that piano hinge for just a minute.

I found with piano hinges, a lot of the times you have to figure out exactly where you're going to position that hinge.

Right.

One thing I like to do is I like to open up that hinge to 90 degrees and use that to kind of position that inside corner on top of the stock I'm screwing it to.

Right.

What that leaves is that the barrel of the hinge then is exposed.

So then when the wing is up, it's not pinching or binding on that edge.

Exactly.

Because if you if you make that flush on the top edge, if you lift it up a little bit too far, you're really pushing against that hinge and eventually you're probably going to pop some screws out.

Sure.

So once you have your 2x4 clamped to your miter saw, it's going to position the wing pretty much where you need it.

Right.

But this wing can still twist before you install the screws.

So I like to set a sliding square to that height right next to that 2x4.

Sure.

And then check on the front edge and check on the back edge and make adjustments as I need when I start to install those screws.

Yeah.

The result then is that this wing is perfectly parallel with the saw table.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So now the second part of this that we have going on here is we have the wing and then we have the support that folds underneath it.

Exactly.

And the position of the support is important as well, because we want that support -- In the fully open position, there'll be a block that we're going to add.

And that block meets up against that front long stop that I installed on the bottom side of the wing.

And we want to position the wing so when it's open, that that arm is right underneath this stop.

So when that stop is installed, it meets up there at a nice 90-degree angle.

Nothing's binding.

Nothing's tight.

Right.

It just likes to rest right there.

So that means that the wing then is being supported right where your workpiece is, where you need the most support.

And it's also not gonna have that support kicked out from you unexpectedly.

Exactly.

Okay, we left off by attaching these blocks to the supports that are gonna keep our wings level.

Yeah.

Now, the next thing is to add the fences.

But first, we have to locate our saw.

Right.

That sounds pretty simple.

Yeah, you just bolt it down, right?

Exactly.

But you do have to make sure that you have full range of motion with your saw.

Sure.

Because once you set, let's say, a 45-degree angle, sometimes the back of the saw is actually further back than is at the 90-degree mark.

Right.

So you make sure you have a full range of motion.

And make sure if your saw is a slider, you have the space behind the saw well.

Right.

So that the carriage isn't gonna bump into the back of the cart or anything like that.

Exactly.

And you want to make sure that it is parallel.

Once you get it in its final position... Yeah.

...you want to make sure it's parallel to it so you don't have one fence that's further back than the other.

Right.

So when you do decide to put the fences on, the plans call for just making the fences out of a piece of 3/4-inch plywood that we've been using all along.

And there's really kind of two schools of thought here on how you want to attach those.

Now, the first one is probably the most obvious, where you'd want the plywood extension fence to be flush with the fence on the machine.

So we'll use our same straightedge, clamp it in place, bring the plywood fence up to it, and then you can just screw it down.

Exactly.

Now, the other school of thought says that you take your miter saw fence, then you add a shim in between your reference point, screw it down, and then your fence is actually set back further from your miter saw fence.

And the school of thought here is that this is really the only thing that matters.

Right.

The fence that's right next to the blade.

And this does have the added benefit of, if you're cutting something that's bowed, it gives you a little bit of extra room to have a reference right here and not worry about fences that might get in the way further down the line.

Yeah, especially if you're dealing with long, floppy stuff like moldings and trim work for houses.

Yeah.

Or I work with a lot of rough lumber.

A lot of times that has some bows in it as well.

Right.

So what I like to do -- speaking about fences -- is I like to add some stuff that gives me options for accessories.

And in this instance, that's a piece of top track.

And what this is, is it's a piece of extruded aluminum that has a T-slot on top.

That gives me options for adding accessories.

I can add tape to this.

Sure.

Adhesive-backed tape so I can add a flip stop and I can set some measurements -- Slide this guy in here.

So I can add stops and I can set a pretty good reference point.

So if I want to make a repeatable cuts, I can lock this in place, referencing off tape if I choose to add one.

And then if I need to make a longer cut, I can simply flip it out of the way and make a longer cut.

Right.

It is pretty handy, but it does add a little bit more complexity to the whole project.

Not that big of a deal, necessarily.

No, I do like the fact that it will pull the plywood fence, which sometimes can be a little flimsy and not necessarily straight.

It pulls it in the straight, which I do appreciate.

Yeah.

You can go the low-tech route, though, and just leave the plywood fence the way it is.

Then you can just clamp a stop block in place with a regular clamp.

Or if you have like these little guys, which I frankly love -- the hand screw clamps -- you can use those as kind of ready-made stops for the miter saw, just lock it in place and make as many repeatable cuts as you want.

So it kind of all depends on how you use the saw, because I think there's a lot of people that look at a miter saw as a precision tool for final cuts, or... Sure.

Or there's a lot of people that use it just to break down rough lumber.

Yeah.

You get your boards from the lumber yard, hack them in the rough pieces.

Yep.

And you do your final cut somewhere else.

So let's get these taken care of, and then there's just a couple of details left to wrap up this project.

Sure.

Now, if you're anything like me, you're pretty tempted to think of this large open space below the miter saw as another place for storage.

But it's actually designed to hold a shop vacuum.

And what this does is a couple of important things.

First, it keeps the shop vacuum with the miter saw no matter where you roll it in the shop.

And it's an important safety tool, too, because you can thread the hose for the shop vacuum up through the back and into the saw and collect as much dust as possible, which I know on a miter saw can be a challenge.

The other thing that's nice is with these doors... you can close off and muffle the sound of the shop vacuum, at least.

You still have to deal with the sound of the miter saw.

What you're left with, though, is a mobile workstation that turns a good tool into a great one.

Now, if you'd like to build one of these miter saw carts for your own shop, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

And after you've spent some time in your shop building one, let's meet right back here for another great project in "The Woodsmith Shop."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Phil: If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition, with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free "Woodsmith" book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD.

Or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- craftsman-quality stains and finishes since 1953.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

And by... [ Up-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪