Spindle moulder mitre slots

[Mrs C]

Some of the older spindle moulders have mitre slots running at 90 degrees to the fence. Does anyone know what they were designed for?

I am just curious

 

[Trevanion]

They’re what the fence is fixed to usually, typically they’re dovetailed rather than more modern T-slots.

There are accessories that would be fixed into them like spring hold-downs and tenon tables and generally whatever you needed to suit the task such as a tilted table for bevel cutting with a straight block.