: Well ... lemme see here. Lets assume a 1/4" strip, a 3/4" infeed
: fence to the center of the blade and a 3/4" island after the blade
: and flush to its outside edge. My table saw is 16-1/2" from the front
: edge of the table to the center of the blade and 10-1/2" from the
: center of the blade to the back edge of the table. If the island is
: mounted to the table **directly** behind the blade, the strip will run
: into the island and not deflect around it because at that point the strip
: is too short to be flexible ... it's about 7". So it seems to me the
: island would need to be mounted to the outfeed table for this idea to
: work.
: Have I understood you correctly?

Pretty close.

You want the island to be narrower than 3/4 inch, though, and mounted as far back from the balde as you can get it. In your case this would be about 10 inches behind the blade. Let's assume you use a small "C" clamp as your "island", or, secure a 1/4 inch bolt into a block of wood and clamp it to the end of your table so you get an inch ot two of bolt extending above the table. The threaded part of the "C" clamp, or the bolt, would be about 1/4 inch in thickness (the diameter)

Lets assume the "island is therefore only 1/4 inch thick, and the saw kerf is just under 1/8th inch -- maybe 3/32nds. If the outside edge of this island is set to be in line with the outside edge of the blade then the inside edge of the island is going to be 8/32nds (that's the 1/4 inch thickness) MINUS 3/32nds (thats the thickness of the kerf) away from the outside edge of the strip. In other words, you only need to deflect the strip 5/32nds, or a tad over an 1/8th of an inch at a point 10 inches from the middle of the cut. You could easily deflect it twice as much, but why bother. A very narrow deflection helps to keep the strip almost parallel to your board so it stays on your outfeed table, or rollers.

The trick is to keep that "island" narrow, but as rigidly mounted, and strong, as possible. Imagine if you had an old carpenter's square and clamped that to the end of the table, with the blade coming up above the table. The blade on the square would probably be narrow enough to fit inside the kerf, so the strip would not need to be deflected at all. This would be a very thin "island" and about as thin as you could go, but it might not be thick enough to support the board towards the end of the cut, so I'd go with something a bit stiffer, even if it was also thicker.

PGJ