Hi Jase,
Oh yeah, my copper beech is just outside the window here…well, I say just outsde the window, but maybe 25-30’ out, as otherwise it’d be just inside the window. And I’ll agree, a few of the green ones would be nice indeed, been thinking of scoring a few saplings ( f. Grandifolia )from one of the local beech forests to give it some company.
I snagged my ball-bearing outfeed gizmo at the local dump, where there’s all sorts of things. I’d bet you could make one with a chunk of timber, some golf balls, the appropriate sized Forstner bit and mebbe a little fine sawdust plus oil to turn in.
The rolling pins - saw some cheap charlie ones for small money and had a light go on in my tiny little skull, spun a couple and they were concentric enough, so I went with them. Saw off the handles at mebbe 1 1/2" out from the pin, drill appropriate size holes in a ladder-like frame and there you have it. Spacing: around a foot or so, center to center.
If you have access to the table leg hardware, by all means use it, better than the lags I suggested. Also, a couple of machine screws, countersunk, going through to threaded inserts or whatever in a couple of wood bits, so you can clamp the aux. table to the standard table, that’d be a nice touch. And, now that I think of it, might want to make the legs removable, so you can swap in a set that are the same height as the tablesaw table.
The formica does well, in fact some factory made outfeeds ( notably the Deltas ) for tablesaws use it. It’s not as slippery as, say, high density polyethylene, but it does fine. Best to put dadoes in after it’s had the formica applied.
As to the Mazola…well, lets just say that if I was to investigate further now, the blonde would probably remove certain parts of my anatomy. ‘…the better part of valor’, y’know?
Best regards
doc…