Backstory:
I'm building a Lithium LiFePO4 battery as part of my Airstream rebuild.
In making this battery came the need to have thicker busbars to connect the cells together. So, I bought some 1/8" x 3/4" x 36" copper bar stock. I decided it would be less wasteful if I cut the copper to size using the bandsaw. To prepare and figure out the best way to do it I cut some closely sized scraps of wood first. This lead me to discover alignment issues. I quickly saw that squareness was a problem.
Anyway, thanks to advice from several knowledgeable people on this forum, also from a few folks in Shopsmith Facebook group, also Scott Markwood's and Doug Reid's YouTube videos concerning Shopsmith bandsaw alignment and the Shopsmith Bandsaw Manual and lots of perseverance, I got the darned thing properly aligned. Including re-saw aligned.
At that point I cut my first few bars to size using the Shopsmith miter gauge to hold and guide the copper bar stock and an offset, I made, clamped to the bandsaw fence before the blade to keep my cut length consistent (3-1/2"). I cut three bars that way. The cuts were square-ish and the lengths were pretty uniform, but not as precise as I wanted. There were also other problems. To me, it felt dangerous, I could not work with lengths shorter than about 9" and I did not feel I had the ability to really control my cuts. My last note on that method, it wasn't very fast.
Here's a couple of pics.
That got me wondering if it was possible to use a crosscut sled on a bandsaw. I went to YouTube for inspiration and found a few videos on bandsaw sleds. One in particular on the Makify1 channel looked simple and fairly easy to make. I had some decent 3/4" scrap plywood (construction grade) I sanded it with a 240 grit disc and made the sled body out of it. I made the runner out of a small scrap of pine lumber. So, I broke a lot of YouTube woodworker taboos by not using Baltic Birch plywood and a hardwood runner.
I'm truly not a woodworker, more of a project guy, so I don't have furniture or cabinet grade lumber scraps, yet. That's okay though because this doesn't need to be beautiful or last forever.
In making this sled I did use the Shopsmith 4" jointer, table saw and bandsaw. I do love my Shopsmith!
I also really like this little crosscut sled. It's great for small square crosscuts. It really has fulfilled my hope for it. It's accurate, fast and definitely feels safe to use.
![PXL_20220731_210224468.jpg PXL_20220731_210224468.jpg](https://www.hobby-machinist.com/data/attachments/373/373170-9f22e137a96554d8d80ec84de6aec2f2.jpg)
Using the bandsaw to cut my busbars allows me to get 10 slightly longer than 3-1/2" bars out of my 36" stock. I did the math before hand and learned that I could not do that with my table saw or my miter saw. The 1/8" blade kerf would not have allowed it. Here's a picture with calipers in it showing how little waste was left over.
There's still more work to be done. I still need to add slotted holes to these busbars like some thinner ones I have. The information I recieved here will be very useful. I have the end mill bit I need and I'm set up to use a milling machine locally at place called 757 Makerspace. I should feel right at home.
Here's a short video of the sled in action. Apologies for the shabby condition of the hand model in the video, he was all I could afford. He was willing work for wood chips and copper dust.
I'll post new updates as I progress.