Heard a guy at the supply house say he never uses a tablesaw sled for cabinet doors

I was picking up plywood last Tuesday and this older cabinetmaker was telling his apprentice that sleds are a crutch and real work gets done on the fence. He claimed he's been building shaker doors for 30 years without ever needing one. How do you square up panels perfectly without a sled?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessa_hart182mo agoMost Upvoted

He's right that you don't need a sled for cabinet doors, but squaring up panels on the fence alone takes some tricks. A sharp miter gauge with a tall, stable fence can get you there if you cut panels slightly oversized and then trim them one at a time using the opposite factory edge as your reference. Sleds just make it easier to gang up multiple doors at once, which saves time when you're doing a whole kitchen run. Your mileage may vary on whether that matters to your workflow.

holly_green822mo ago

Yeah, I did a whole set of shaker doors last year without a sled. Like @tessa_hart18 said, you can make it work. I clamped a long, straight piece of MDF to my miter gauge as a tall fence. I cut all my panels about an eighth oversized, then ran each one through for the final trim, making sure the factory edge was tight against that fence every single time. It was slower for sure, but I got perfect squares. A sled would have been faster for batch work, but I didn't have the shop space for one at the time.

david7391mo ago

@holly_green82 brings up a good point about space, but here's what I gotta ask: if you're that experienced guy who's been doing it for 30 years, why not just teach the kid how to use a sled properly instead of calling it a crutch? Seems like passing on the setup tricks would be more useful than just saying "real work gets done on the fence.