Versatility of a Panel Saw and Router Machine Combo

I bet you've seen these panels saws at lumberyards and home centers. They're commonly used to cut sheet woods, just like I did down to size, make them easier to handle. But if you think all these machines can do is cross cut sheets of plywood, you're wrong. They're very, very versatile. There are a lot of different things that these machines can do for you from cutting stuff to size, very accurately plus or minus a 64th of an inch to also do joinery . Hurry on here with a router head installed. So what I'm gonna do today is walk you through some of the different things that a panel saw like this can bring to your shop. At the heart of these saw router combo machines is really the sled right here. And that's where I want to go next because I did a cross cut but commonly here in the Chaparral. So I'm gonna want to rip those big pieces of plywood can be pretty hard to handle those on a table saw, especially when like me you work by yourself a lot. So what I'm doing here,is to set up for a rip pivot that had 90 degrees then I can direct read using the ruler. To set up for the dimension I need to produce. And with the assistance of roller bearings down on the bottom here, that's gonna be very easy to feed this piece through for my rip. Here's how it looks. One of the things you may not be able to see from your perspective is that in addition to the saw blade that we've got in here and like a table saw high tooth count alternate tab bevel for good cut quality, there's also a riving knife just like a table saw would have. And that also helps increase our cut quality and make our work easier here. As we're cutting these big pieces. Now here, we're treating this machine like a big table saw handling these big pieces of plywood. We can also make it work like a really big sliding miter saw with S pretty incredible with capacity. So a little bit of more, a little bit more change up here on the machine, and I'll show you how that works. I'm working on a quarter saw, white Oak bookshelf and this is one of the sides for it. So I've got the glue up done. What I need to do next is cross cut my ends on this thing. And the width of this piece is such that it won't fit on a sliding miter saw it's a pretty big, heavy piece. It's all solid white Oak. So what I've done here on the saw router combo is I've installed some ledges. And with these ledges, they create a shelf that helps bring my workup off the lower level that I was on earlier with the plywood. So now to square up my end and on this end, I just want to eliminate the saw tooth look of it. So what I'm gonna do is slide it over using the laser line to indicate where the cuddle B to make sure I'm in fact, gonna remove my sawtooth and, or be ready to make a cut. And again, using this like a big sliding miter saw. Now any good miter saw has a way for you to do repetitive cuts. So got a couple options we can play out here. We can put a block on direct read off the tape measure, use that stop block. So every time we come up against it we get exactly the same length cut as an alternative. There's a split stop system as well benefit to flip stops is that we can bring it up, engage it flip it down, and it's the name get it out of the way, make another cut, not using it. So got a couple of different options here to make sure your pieces all come out, uniform length. And again, what we've done here is really simulate what we would get from a sliding miter saw but with much greater capacity here on our saw router combo machine I keep referring to this machine as a saw router combo. So we should have a look at what the router can do as well in order to do that, let's look at changeover. I'm gonna get this down to an altitude where it's a little easier for me to work on unplugged, power and vac. And then,the way this carriage comes off is unscrew a couple of thumb screws. Now that one comes out of the picture It takes care of the changeover. We can get power back on. We can get dust collection back on and the router will be good to go. So we can see what kind of joinery features the router brings to the unit here. Now that the router's on, we can have a look at the joinery. We can do taking advantage of the router being attached to the system here. So here's what I'm gonna do. First thing, flip up a stop, bring the panel over. What I'm working on here is a entertainment center. This is one of the sides and because of its size it'd be hard to handle this on a table saw with the data ahead, but we can do it by bringing it to the panel cutter here. So what's gonna happen is once I turn the router on there's kind of a nose cone down there on the other side of the base, that's gonna ride up on the plywood hold it nice and firmly against the back of the panel and keep everything nice and flat. So I get a good, consistent depth of cut. As I worked my way down Pretty common joinery here. We want to have a rabbit up here for the top of the cabinet. Now, somewhere here in the middle, in all likelihood we're gonna have Dato's. And what I need to do is a through data here nor did I do that. I'm gonna engage against my flip stop,lock in place. Now the through data was really gonna look very much like the rabbit did gonna plunge the router up above the work, go all the way through, relax it away from the work and go back to the top of the carriage. Now just a little bit further down. I want to do a stop data. So I same deal here. I'm gonna take advantage of my flip stops But if we're gonna stop and start and distinct points the next thing we want to do is use the stop collars on these columns. That's the top of my travel And that's the bottom of the travel Now because of the ability to control the plunge of the router I can start the cut here with the plunge get to the bottom of the cut, relax away from the work. And I've got those distinct starting and stopping points. So there, we can see that stop data right smack in the middle of the panel. So again, what we've done here is gone over some ways that allow you to take advantage of the router being mounted here on the machine to let you do a lot of joinery even on large panels like this very easily and very safely. Well, as you've seen these combination, vertical panel saws and routers really add a lot of versatility to a shop. If you look around, you're gonna find the schools are using them cabinet shops using them. Of course, we've all seen them in the home centers where they're using them to buck down plywood, which is where I started this story. Now, as you're doing your shop and pay attention to the idea that different heads are available, and by going with different heads, those bring different variables to the particular machine you're ended up with and your shop. So scope that out. And once you learn a little bit about it, it's gonna help you make sure you get the right machine set up for you. So I hope you enjoyed here learning about the versatility that panel saw and router combinations can bring to the wood shop along with the safety that they bring. Happy woodworking