I have all my tools on mobile bases and as such I wanted an outfeed table that was also mobile. I have a Unisaw with a 52" Biesemeyer fence. I also wanted it to be large (48 inches by 48 inches), and this created a problem in that a simple fold down table would be too long to fold down in back of the saw. Thus I needed an outfeed table that could be removed very quickly and folded up flat so as to be stored easily.

So I set out to make a large outfeed table to attach to the back of my saw. Here is a rather bad blurry view of the overall setup from the front. I will get a better photo as soon as is possible. In the meantime you get the general idea of what it looks like. Here is another blurry view from the back.

I started with a sheet of Melamine from the Borg (Home Depot). I cut a 4 ft by 4 ft chunk out of a sheet and then I made folding skeleton and leg support for the melamine. You will see this skeleton type frame in the upcoming photos listed below. The skeleton was attached to the melamine by first routing a shallow 1/16 inch groove in the melamine so that the skeleton could be glued to the melamine. There are adhesives out there that supposedly stick to melamine, but I have not tried them. SWMBO found that some white vinyl tape we had stuck to the melamine well and so she applied some to the cut edge of the melamine so as to give it a nice finished look.

For the legs I made a simple "U" shaped set of legs with holes at the top to support a bolt that would serve as a hinge. Here is a photo of what I mean. You can see the bolt at the top that runs parallel to the table and this serves as the pivot point for the legs. At the top of the legs I rounded off the flat side of the leg board so that it pivots properly on the hinge without binding. In the photo you can see the frame of boards used for attachment to the melamine.

The braces in the above photo are just some flat steel that I got at a hardware store. I used two overlapping pieces where I attached one piece to the top support and I attached another to the leg. Both pieces are arranged so that they overlap and then clevis pins with a spring and a washer and a cotter pin are used to hold the braces in place. Here is a view of the pieces before they are overlapped. This way I can pull the pins and fold the braces out of the way when the table is being stored. This system allows the legs to be folded flat against the bottom of the melamine. Here is an up close picture of the pins in the braces. This photo also shows how the top the leg is rounded off to avoid binding. It also shows the hinge/pin assembly for the leg attachment.

For the wheels I used simple caster wheels that I got at a local hardware store and I got these bolt on brackets that go with the wheels. Here is a photo. They allow the wheels to spin, but they do not allow for height adjustment once the bracket is bolted to the leg. This is not a problem because my shop floor is pretty level. I could always shim the saw or the table if the floor was not level. I have found that as long as the outfeed table is level with or lower than the top of the table saw, all is well.

Attachment to the saw was the tricky part. I wanted a system that was easy to remove. So I started by making a piece of 2" x 2" lumber that fit along the back rail of my Biesemeyer fence. Here is a photo. I cut the length so that it fit inside the frame supporting the melamine. You will note in the photo that the supporting frame for the melamine has pieces glued to the melamine that goes all the way up to the front edge of the melamine. The ends of these support pieces thus rest on the rail of the fence. You will see this better in a later photo. Next I got a piece of angle steel from the local hardware store and I attached it to the underside of the melamine as is shown in the above photo. This took some fiddling because I had to get the metal attached close enough to the front of the fence to hold it tight to the saw. This took a few tries to get right. I drilled small 1/8 inch holes in the metal angle piece attached to the melamine so that small (0.5 inch) screws could be used to anchor it to the melamine. You can see some of the screws in the above photo.

Now with the angle bracket attached to the melamine, I hooked the angle bracket over the 2 x 2 that I had set onto the angle steel of the Biesemeyer fence. Here is a photo. Next I drilled holes into the angle steel of the Biesemeyer fence (perish the thought) and I attached the 2 x 2 to the fence using some drywall screws. You can see the drywall screws as they are drilled into the fence steel. Here is a view of the table and the attachment part on the saw as the table is about to be "hooked" onto the saw. I should point out that I had to shave down the 2 x 2 that is attached to the saw fence so that the melamine top surface was flush with the top of the Unisaw. This also took a few iterations to get correct. You will find that I make a lot of stuff up as I go along, and as such I don't often use a ruler when I can do a "fit and test" method to get things done.

Finally, with the whole thing in place I set one long drywall screw into the skeleton pieces so that they went into the 2 x 2 attached to the saw. Here is a photo. This holds the whole thing together nicely.

The table has worked marvelous for me and I am very glad I took the time to make it. I have not had a need to remove it. In fact I have found that I use it a lot as another work surface and as such I have found that it attracts a lot of stuff.

The whole list of photos are in this directory in case you want to see if you missed any.