Mitre bar replacement

It looks like only Bosch, Skil and Ryobi make 16 mm slots (5/8″). You can’t buy a high-quality mitre gauge replacement, you have to make it yourself. So I bought a 16 mm mild steel flat bar and made a mitre bar that has no play. The idea was simple – resize the bar from 16.0 mm to 16.3 mm (5/8″ to 41/64″ which is an extra 1/64″) by hammering. The method is not very sophisticated but it worked just fine. I don’t have an anvil so I used a sledgehammer instead.

It’s not easy to show the progress in pictures, but I flattened the bar in 4 places on each side, which is 8 places in total. I got a width of 16.3 mm which filled the slot nicely, without any play. If I went too crazy with hammering I used a file to go back to the desired width and to keep all 4 spots in line.

Drilling and cutting threads was the next step. I just duplicated the original piece. The pitch in threads was different so I couldn’t use the original knobs and bolts.

One more thing had to be done to prevent my new bar from falling into the slot. I drilled a hole at the end of the bar, cut the thread and installed a little screw, a washer and a spring washer.

Excess material had to be filed down from the other side. Once that was done I applied some 3-in-1 oil to protect my new bar from rusting.

The bar seems to be working OK and it wasn’t expensive to make. It has no play and that makes me super happy!