Shelf Mounted Train -- Tips And Tricks

Radial Arm Saw

Cutting Custom Brackets

The first thing you should do is get a good blade capable of cutting aluminum.  Make sure that your fence is at least an inch above the cutting surface, and that it does not have more than one cut in it (if you have previously used the fence to cut angles for example, you will need to replace it with a new fence).  The force of your blade on the aluminum is considerable, and may break weaker fences (guess what happened to me...  There's now a new dent in the wall behind my RAS saw.  Luckily, no injuries resulted)

With the new fence in place, put a stop-board two inches from the cutting edge of the blade For some reason, the picture to the right does not show my stop board, though I did use one.  This will help make sure each piece is exactly the same length.

Lastly, use a clamp or a board to keep the end piece of the L-Bar against the fence.  My first few cuts resulted in the end piece shearing (shown below).   In my case, I used a clamp.  I had to cut a slight notch in my fence so that the engine of the RAS saw could clear the clamp.  It occurred to me later that I could have simply used a board clamped to the cutting surface, perpendicular to the fence, to hold the L-Bar in place.  A quick test showed that this was also a viable solution.

To the right is a picture of two pieces of L-bar -- one cut while clamped to the fence, and one that was not clamped to the fence.

Stop Board

A stop board is simply a piece of wood clamped parallel to the fence of a drill press, miter saw or radial arm saw.  When cutting a piece of wood, slide the piece of wood along the fence until it hits the stop board and make your cuts.  Using a stop board produces much more consistent cuts than hand measuring, as there is no possibility of transfer error.  Make sure no dust or debris gets between your cut piece and your stop board though, as this will effect the consistency of the cut.  One idea to help prevent this is to cut a small notch in the bottom of the stop board to receive dust from the previous cut.