Miter Saw Clamp Extension - no more screwing

Miter Saw Clamp Extension

Intro

Most miter saw clamps adjust height by screwing the shaft up or down when your material changes, which takes forever. Also, my clamps were limited in how far down they would go. To address this, I was adding wobbly scraps on top of the cut material to make up the difference.

This model address the issue with a set of interchangeable extensions for various material thicknesses that easily attach to the existing clamp pad.

The model is parametric to adjust to different clamp sizes.

File List

• Miter Saw Clamp Extension.3mf

• Miter Saw Clamp Extension.f3d (extract from ZIP)

• Parameters.pdf - table of parameters

• Cap.stl - print a TPU cap to avoid using TPU on the main model

• Tray.stl - 5 positions (+ one on clamp)

Filaments

• Lower Segment: TPU 90A (protects material)

• Upper Segment and Collar: PETG (adheres well to TPU)

• Lettering: PETG

User Parameters (see Parameters.pdf for full list)

• Clamp Offset (2.75 inches): set the clamp to your likely maximum material thickness. Measure the distance from the bottom of the clamp pad to the saw bed.

• Material Thickness (0.25-1.5 inches): size of material you are clamping. Max Material Thickness depends on Clamp Offset and text settings. If Material Thickness is too high, the extension becomes too short for lettering. In that case, you don't really need the extension...

• Pad diameter (44 mm)

• Pad height (8.2 mm)

• Lower segment height (5 mm): height of TPU segment

• Text Height (10 mm)

• Text Offset from Lower Segment (15 mm): distance above TPU segment

Rolling your own

• Change Clamp Offset, Pad Diameter and Pad height to match your clamp. Choose a large Material Thickness (creates a short extension) and print one to test the fit.

• If you don't care about lettering, things get much simpler. Suppress the Emboss feature in the timeline.

• Export to 3mf if you want the slicer to recognize the lower and upper segments. The slicer will ask whether to import as parts or separate objects, choose 'Yes' for parts. Select TPU for 'Base Lower'.

Issues with parameter changes

1. Text - To have the text print with a different color filament, I use the slicer to paint the faces. Each letter has several faces to be painted which is time-consuming. Chamfering the text in Fusion means the slicer only needs one click per letter to paint it. Unfortunately, after changing the Material Thickness parameter, the chamfer feature loses some of the faces. You should get a warning, but inspect the lettering before exporting, and if necessary edit the chamfer feature to add the missing faces (hold down CTRL while clicking on the outer face of any letter not chamfered).

2. The tray and cap should adapt to different pad sizes, but YMMV.

Slicing and Printing

• I used 'Strength' settings, 75% infill, 6 wall loops, Support Cubic, but you do you.

• Lettering can be painted a different color in the slicer.

• Multifilament: I printed on a Snapmaker U1, so filament swaps were not as much of a concern. I positioned the lettering at uniform heights to minimize the number of layers that need swapping. You can also minimize swaps by reducing text height.

Conclusion

I hope someone finds this useful!