Flubbed up on my sled

[Brad Hays]

So I'm resetting the rails of my generic 3/4" plywood table saw sled to fit the saw at work and I messed up the alignment on the first try. It's fixed now but my problem is I ran it past the running blade with it somewhat misaligned and now the kerf in my sled is about 2 blade widths wide. Instead of putting down a new thin floor and then recutting, I was wondering if there might be something I could just simply fill the gap with and then recut. That way I'd preserve all the height cutting potential the sled has that adding additional floor would take away from. So far I've thought of using either Bondo or regular wood filler. Whatever it is it'd need to withstand the blade cutting through it without chipping.

Any suggestions for a filler?

 

[Lou Jacobs]

How about simply gluing in a strip of wood the width of your double wide (1/4”?) kerf and recutting it in that?

 

[Brad Hays]

That's a good idea I hadn't thought of but being newer to woodworking I'm not sure I can product a piece small and accurate enough to do the job properly. If I can't find a suitable filler I'll probably end up putting down a thin sheet of whatever and just go on with it.

The more I think about it I just can't imagine any kind of filler that wouldn't chip out over time. Might as well lay down a thin sheet of something on this one and remake if I need the added height cutting ability.

 

[Lou Jacobs]

Thickened epoxy, or even thick CA is good at gap filling. Your spline wouldn’t have to be a perfect fit if you used the right adhesive. There are all kinds of fillers available for epoxy, but for non-stressed joints, fine sanding dust or even flour will work. Tape a piece of wax paper to the bottom of the sled so that the glue doesn’t drip out, then lay the spline in from the top (or vice versa) and after it’s all cured, sand it down to make a flush surface.

 

[Richard Coers]

Bondo

 

[Kirk Amidon]

Don't bother with Bondo - it will chip out over time. Right way to do it, short of a new piece of 3/4" ply is to cut a groove (dado) about halfway through the ply - so 3/8" deep and about 3/4" wide or wider - likely will need multiple passes with either dado blades or a router. Mill a strip 3/8" thick and as wide as the groove. Glue. Then recut your kerf. This approach will result in a deck that is flush and you won't lose any capacity.

Take your time on ripping the replacement strip, and sneak up on the size and you'll be in like Flynn.

 

[Walter Mooney]

What Kirk said!

 

[Mike Johnson]

You could glue a layer of Formica across the entire surface of the sled and cut a slot through the material.

 

[Brad Hays]

You know what...I've gotten a lot advice on this and I'm going with this Formica option. What I decided was just to make a new sled entirely, because this one is ready for retirement honestly, but I wanted to do at least something for it to keep it functional...and the Formica is gonna do it best it can if all you want to do is lay down a layer of something thin.