Putting the sawboard to use

Having made my sawboard I put it to good use today cutting some 12mm ply for a small project I had in mind.

Using it to cut the shelf I needed for my router cabinet was fairly straightforward, but it left me with a sizeable off cut which I intended to use to make a box for a small toolkit we keep in the house. 

I needed four pieces of ply about 70mm wide. Marking them and cutting them individually would have been okay, but I thought I could probably use the sawboard to do this and all I needed was a way to produce a repeatable cut. I attached a stop to the end of my bench and set the sawboard the correct distance away. 

I used some bits of scrap ply to raise the board so that the stock material could slide under the sawboard. 

Once against the stop, which I guess is acting like a fence, I used a sash cramp across the bench to hold it in position.

This now gave me a secure work-piece to move the saw through and make the cut. 

After the cut, I then simply moved the stock up and repositioned the cramp.

When the stock got to narrow and the sash cramp was catching against the other clamps, I just a piece of cut ply to push the stock against the fence.

I managed to cut eight pieces and the repeatability was very good. Of course I should have used a piece of scrap on the bench top to prevent the inevitable scoring of the surface with the saw, but I knew that would happen and accepted the minor damage as okay on this bench.

Here's what I ended up with producing.