Kobalt Sliding Compound Miter Saw Zero Clearance Throat

This is for the Kobalt (Lowes hardware) 12 inch dual bevel sliding compound miter saw item# 0358936 / model# SM3055LW. I bought my saw probably 8 years ago now but I'm pretty sure they still sell a derivative of this saw at the stores. A couple years back before I bought a 6x4 metal cutting bandsaw I needed to cut a number of aluminum tubes. Since they sell an abrasive wheel that fits this saw I didn't think much of it and used it to cut them. Turns out the abrasive wheel in this saw generates a LOT of heat and ended up melting chunks of the plastic 2 piece throat that was included with the saw. After that project I hadn't needed the saw again for 2 or 3 years and pulled it out a couple months back when I started my flooring project.

Up till a early this year I didn't have a printer with a bed big enough to print this (min 300x300 kind of necessary here) but my Voron 2.4 was just that so I set off to recreate the throat. After several iterations The one posted here was the best fit and was installed. Like most 3D printed zero throat designs the surface is solid and requires the user to cut the hole with the saw. When you do this go very slow, I repeat VERY slow. The outer edge speed of the 12 inch blade at 4200 rpm is nearly 150mph or 241kph that will quite liquify most plastics fast. Go slow and clear any build up of melted plastic. If you never do bevel cuts (head tilted side to side not rotated in a miter cut) then your good to go. If you plan on an bevel cuts tilt the head to the maximum on one of both sides and repeat the throat cutting. I originally hadn't intended on bevel cuts and without thinking tilted the head with material in there before I opened the throat more and my blue plastic made a mess of a nice piece of hardwood. I was surprised though how little the hole opened up more with bevel cuts and you can see in my images it's not to bad. Still better than the original throats.

I've got roughly 500 or so cuts with this new throat and it still works well. I included a 2mm thinner version and a thicker 4mm deck for more rigidity as well as my fusion 360 file.