Recently I had to cut shelves for a built-in cabinet that was a few degrees off true 90°. I’m a big fan of my crosscut sled, which makes it easy to crosscut multiple pieces to precise length at a perfect 90°, and I wanted to get that accuracy for this job. So I made a simple modification to the sled that makes the process easy and repeatable.

Drill and tap a threaded hole (or install a threaded insert) near each end of the sled’s fence. Now screw a 3⁄8-in. bolt (I use a socket-head machine screw) into each hole. In normal operations, these bolts will not protrude from the fence and therefore the angle of cut is 90°. However, if you turn the bolts to come through the front fence a bit, you can add a small gap between the board to be cut and the fence.

Kamran Firooz, St. James City, FL

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