Woodpeckers Iron Grip Coping Sled (IGCS)

Woodpeckers Iron Grip Coping Sled (IGCS)

Running the narrow end of a workpiece through a router table can be a stressful task. There just isn’t enough material to reach the outfeed fence before you leave the infeed fence. The bearing on the bit is only so much help…it needs two points of contact to keep the cut straight. That’s why you need an Iron-Grip Coping Sled for your router table when you’re making cope and stick door frames, bridle joints, tenons, half-laps and other end-of-board cuts.

Iron-Grip™ Coping Sled

Woodpeckers new Iron-Grip Coping Sled improves on our ever-popular original Coping Sled and beefs it up with a stiffer base, larger fence guide and the Iron-Grip clamp (which gives you two points of contact but only one knob). It’s the stiffest, flattest and most secure coping sled on the market.

The foundation of the Iron-Grip Coping Sled is a precision-machined anodized aluminum base milled from cast and ground tool plate – the most stable aluminum material on the market. Four UHMW glide strips are added to the bottom of the 11-1/2" square base to minimize friction and keep the Iron-Grip moving smoothly. What you won’t find on the bottom of the base is a bar to fit in a miter gauge slot. It doesn’t need one.

Instead of guiding off the miter gauge track, the Iron-Grip Coping Sled guides off the fence. This eliminates the tedious job of aligning the fence perfectly parallel to the track. Just get the fence aligned to the bearing of the router bit, align the fence guide on the coping sled to the router table fence and you’re good to go.

The crystal-clear fence guide is 3/8" thick and 15-1/2" long, making it ideal to work with any router table fence, whether it’s a Woodpeckers fence, another brand or one you’ve built yourself…it handles them all (needs to be at least 3" tall). With 3" of depth adjustment, it can even handle the deep tenon cuts needed on entry doors.

We’ve taken a “belt and suspenders” approach to securing your work to the Iron-Grip Coping Sled. First, an adjustable top plate captures your work against the rigid back fence, preventing rotational movement. Second, coming down from the top, the new Iron-Grip stainless spring steel clamp gives you two points of contact with only one knob to adjust.

The clamp slides effortlessly right or left to position the clamping pads right where you need them. Once adjusted to the thickness of your stock, it takes less than one full turn of the knob to release the stock and slide in the next piece. It’s faster than a pair of toggle clamps and won’t distort your sled the way toggle clamps do. The adjustable plate accommodates stock up to 5-3/4" wide and the Iron-Grip clamp holds stock up to 1-3/4" thick.

The newly designed back fence has a T-slot to mount a sacrificial backer. The backer prevents blow-out where the router bit exits your stock. Just chop the end off and slide the piece forward when you change projects. You’ll get three MDF backer boards with your Iron-Grip. When they’re gone you can make your own from scraps or we offer them in convenient 3-packs.

Like all Woodpeckers products, the Iron-Grip Coping Sled is precisely machined and carefully inspected in our Strongsville, Ohio, manufacturing facility (just south of Cleveland).