Miter Saw Station
As it turns out, this would not be my first miter saw station build. I previously made one (sorta) in my basement shop in Maryland (let’s call it “the original”). It was nothing like what this project became, but it wasn’t my first foray into this type of project. The original was never actually fully completed as I was getting frustrated during part of the build and just abandoned it. All that was actually completed were the two cabinets which the miter saw sat upon (I didn’t even have any drawers built for it, just the carcasses), and the short platform and fence which sat on either side of the miter saw. The top was actually going to be something similar to the Chop Saw Station fashioned by Norm Abram. Sadly (not really), there are no pictures of that failed project for reference as it was disassembled and scrapped prior to the move to Florida.
Norm Abram standing next to the chop saw station he built on New Yankee Workshop.
The first major project in my new workshop was my miter saw station. It was inspired by the miter saw station created by Jay Bates at Jay’s Custom Creations. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched all of the videos that Jay produced for the build of his miter saw station. I quickly went ahead and purchased a set of his plans for the miter saw station and I was immediately blown away at the level of detail in these plans.
Jay Bates’ original miter saw station design.
I knew I would not be able to duplicate Jay’s miter saw station in my garage workshop as I simply didn’t have the same layout, space or the same miter saw for that matter. Jay included a Sketchup model of his miter saw station with the plans, so that was a great place to start my alterations. I decided to just start my own drawing from scratch so that I could get more proficient with Sketchup and, at the same time, make my miter saw station fit my space exactly.
Sketchup 2017 is one of those “tools” that really is indispensable when it comes to woodworking and project design. It is a fairly simple program to learn and, best of all, it’s free. It’s a great way to get your ideas laid out and get a better look at them. Another great design tool I would learn to utilize a couple of years later is Autodesk Fusion 360, but I won’t get into that here.
Location, Location, Location
The way that my garage is designed, the only place I could put a miter saw station of any size is along the back wall to the left side of the door leading into the laundry room. That section of wall is about 14 feet long, minus the space where the water heater sits. That left me a little over 11 feet with which to play.
The base of the miter saw station is pretty much the same as Jay’s, with only the overhang on the far left side removed. The upper section of drawers is more or less the same. The drawers on the left side were shortened a bit due to my space constraints and the set of drawers on the right side would have a file drawer incorporated into them to hold all of the power tool manuals for everything in the shop (more on that later in the article). The open shelving at the top is, again, virtually the same minus the space on the left that was removed. The open space on the right side would be for my drill press (or so I thought).
Miter saw station modified from Jay Bates’ plans.
Once I got my design set up, I made sure to lay out all of the parts so that I could maximize the use of the plywood. This is quite a large project, and it takes quite a bit of material to construct it. After getting it laid out, I went off to Home Depot to get the plywood. I decided to go with the PureBond plywood that Home Depot has mainly because of the natural glues used in its manufacturing.
We Do Not Alter the Plan (thank you Hans)
Initially, I decided to construct the carcasses using dados and rabbets, instead of pocket screws. After constructing the base cabinets utilizing dados, I wasn’t pleased with how they came out (poor execution on my part) so I quickly scrapped that idea. It would be so much simpler and faster to just go with pocket screws. I was never really big on the concept of pocket screws, but I quickly came around to their use, especially for shop projects.
Once the base cabinets were rebuilt, I set them up on the floor and got them spaced out and level to each other. Leveling cabinets on a garage floor is a royal pain with everything sloping in different directions. It was at this time that I realized that I needed to remove the floor tiles from under where the miter saw station would sit. The little coins on the tiles were making leveling much more cumbersome. I got everything leveled and then installed the tops and secured them to the cabinets and to the wall supports. After installing the shelf for my miter saw and getting the saw level and even with the cabinet tops, I was able to put the miter saw in place. Finally, it was starting to look like something.
Next came the upper cabinets. This was pretty much a rinse and repeat of the base cabinets, minus not putting backs on these as they would be up against the wall. The cabinets were then secured in place and parallel to the miter saw fence (the miter saw is set 1/2” forward from the fence to allow for any irregularly shaped rough boards to be cut without causing any binding or kickback). The open shelving was probably the simplest thing to construct for the whole project. Although a bit heavy, I got them installed above the upper cabinets and secured them in place.
Make Sure You Check Your Drawers
At this point, I had a functional miter saw station. I now needed to make all of the drawers. Drawers…drawers...drawers...drawers...I’m sick of drawers by this point. When you’ve got to make 20 drawers of multiple sizes, it gets a little redundant after a while. Anyway, I digress. I got the drawers completed, and now onto the drawer slides. Drawer slides...drawer slides...you get the point.
I carefully laid out where I wanted all of my drawer slides before I even built anything. I cut spacers of varying lengths to accommodate the different spacing between drawers. Using these spacers guaranteed that each set of drawer slides would be parallel and even with each other. No problems here, thankfully.
I now had functional and usable drawers...WOO HOO!!! Next up were the drawer faces. This was definitely not my strong suit yet (it still isn’t, actually). Figuring out the right height and width was a real struggle for me on this project. I didn’t figure in enough of a gap between the drawer faces so when I went to pull certain drawers out at the same time, they would rub together a little. I think that was partly because some of my upper cabinets were a little out of square, something I should have been more careful about checking during construction. Tuck that nugget away for future reference.
For drawer pulls, I had initially decided that I would make them myself, so that’s what I did. You can see them in this picture after they’ve been installed. I just used some scrap pine boards I had lying around, cut a 15 degree angle on both sides, softened all of the edges and that was it. They served me well for a year or so. That was until I accidentally broke one off when a heavy 8Q walnut board slipped off the miter saw station when I was using it to help support the board while running it through my thickness planer. I wound up replacing all of the pine drawer pulls with metal ones that matched ones I installed on future projects.
Here is the finished miter saw station (minus the stop block). You can see all of the pine drawer pulls that I made for each drawer. I still had my Craftsman drill press on the miter saw station at this time (that would change shortly).
Measuring...It Does a Woodworker Good
After dust collection, a stop block system and trim were installed, the miter saw station was finally finished...or so I thought. I never liked the huge open spaces that were not being utilized behind the base cabinets. The space behind the left cabinets was really a lost cause just because of the placement and inaccessibility. The right side, however, showed some promise.
You can see all of the empty and wasted space behind the base cabinets.
I decided to build a cabinet that I would fit into the space and have a long drawer onto which I could hang all of my smaller clamps. I would put it on wheels and then I could roll it around the shop, if needed, and take it right to my assembly table for glue-ups. All in all, it came out pretty good. It’s a bit awkward to roll around, so that aspect might not really work out. However, for storing my small clamps and vises, it works out great, and I’ve made some use out of otherwise wasted space.
The miter saw station was now finished...JUST KIDDING!!!. When I initially designed the file drawer, I somehow screwed up the measurements for the width of the drawer. It wound up being a little bit too narrow to fit a standard file folder. I suppose I could have just remade that small cabinet, but that would also mean I would have to take down the open shelving and everything already stored up there, and I simply didn’t want to do that. Since I wasn’t really happy having my drill press in that open space, I decided to just make a whole new file drawer cabinet instead. This time, I got the measurements correct and I can now store all of my power tool and other shop manuals in one place. The drill press would simply live on the floor for a little while until I would make a stand for that in the future.
The finished miter saw station (with the added file drawer cabinet).
Overall, I’m considering the miter saw station build a big win for me. It was my first major woodworking project in my new shop. And while I made some mistakes along the way, I wound up with more experience than I had previously, and I now had a fully functional workstation to aid me in the construction of future projects. Most of all, I’ve got TONS of storage for things that were laying around all over the place previously.
***RETIRED: July 2021***
The pride and joy of my workshop, the miter saw station, has now been officially retired and fully disassembled. The Rockler Miter Saw Station was built in its place. While it was a very functional workstation, there were simply too many flaws in its design and construction (no fault of Jay Bates’ design, purely my lack of experience in building it). Coupled with a desired shop layout change, it was time to bid adieu to my old friend the miter saw station. It served me well for the three or so years I had it in service. Good-bye, old friend.
