OK, I’m no motor head. Neither my wife nor I own a high-performance sports car or huge engined muscle cars.

No, we own two pretty pedestrian vehicles. But, that doesn’t mean that people don’t enjoy the hobby of restoring and modifying classic cars to run fast and look sharp.

And, while I do woodwork, my table saw isn’t as pimped out as the table saw of one Marc Spagnuolo…  I do have to admit, that’s one sweet custom paint job!

No, my modest Ridgid table saw has served me well for more than a decade now, and, as equipped, it has been one of the best performers in the shop. But, that doesn’t mean I didn’t make a few modifications to it. For instance, there was the time I built a dust collection system for it. That has helped. And, there are a bunch of jigs I have built for it, and those are nice as well.

But, the best thing I have ever purchased for the saw was my Osborne EB-3 miter gauge. I picked this up about ten years ago after watching his Normness use one on the New Yankee Workshop. It looked like a good design, and it came at a fair price point for significant upgrade over the standard miter gauge.

Don’t get me wrong, the standard miter gauge is OK for a lot of tasks. I can attach sacrificial fences to it, and it does a decent job with other jigs. The problem is that the head on it is small, and it’s tough to get exact angles.

The Osborne not only has a nice wide non-slip fence, it also extends out to nearly 40 inches of width, giving me plenty of support for wide boards when crosscutting them. Plus, with that flip-down stop, I can make repeatable cuts time and time again.

The real strength of the guide, though, is how easy it is to set angles. Unlike protractor-type heads, the guide relies on an extending leg of a triangle to measure out the angles. There are plenty of detents to help you set common angles for different numbers of sides, or you can go freehand to match whatever angle setting you need.

There’s even a quick reference guide printed on the handle, so those hexagons are easy to set and cut …  without breaking out the calculator… right?

The entire guide can swing to work on either side of the blade, so left and right handed woodworkers should be happy with it.

Sure, it’s not gonna help my saw run a faster quarter mile, but at least it helps it be a better performer… isn’t that what it’s all about?