Sloppy slots
Miter slots stink. No two ways about it, it’s really hard to make a tool that works well in a miter slot.
The miter gage that came with your tablesaw wobbles several degrees. If you don’t believe me, stick a long skinny piece of wood against the nice, 90 degree flat surface, put it in the miter slot, and wiggle. I actually made a whole damn picture frame before I figured out why I had to recut each side eighteen times to get it right on 45 degrees… the resulting frame held a wallet-size picture, but that’s besides the point.
You either need a hunnert doller miter gage with adjustable width, or better, build yourself a crosscut sled. There’s lots of plans around the ‘net.
If you build a miter sled, you can machine the runners yourself, and get them hyper-accurate in the planer (plane a board to the right thickness then rip off strips for the runners)–it’ll be a perfect fit to your table. That’s what I did, and I’m plenty happy with it.
–dan
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