How To Use A Miter Saw | DIY For Beginners

today in this video we're going to show you a bunch of tips and tricks so that you as a beginner can use a professional tool like a chop saw and get amazing results and keep all your fingers and i'm using this particular chop shot because i think it's a really good choice for homeowners we're going to show you all the different things that it does and all the tricks and things that i can show you it'll make your life easier that i know about first of all this is a fixed chop saw it does not have a sliding function as soon as you get into the sliding shop size you're dealing with people who need to cut really wide material like 12 14 16 18 inch material and that's generally not you if you're a homeowner right most of the stuff you're dealing with is basic dimensional lumber flooring trim carpentry so the extra investment in having that sliding tool sure if you want to impress your neighbor fine but it's not necessary i would say buy a chop saw like this and for the extra two or three hundred bucks you save get yourself a saw stand because the stand multiplies the effectiveness of the saw and gives you the ability to do things professionally that the saw alone doesn't do so let's just jump into all the different features and benefits and how to work this thing first of all you need to know that it's a 15 amp tool so when you plug it into a plug that's as much power as that entire circuit can handle so you want a dedicated plug get yourself a good extension cord because you can't use this plus something else at the same time you're gonna blow your breaker if you're gonna have a saw get a square that's what this is a little little square and what you do is you pull the guard out of the way and you bring the blade down and you wanna make sure that the saw blade is making contact at the top and the bottom that means that the table and the blade are square if it's not every time you make a cut and you put those pieces together when your miter joint your joints are going to be opened and you're going to be doing filling and it's going to look sloppy so make sure you square it the basics of the saw there is a safety release feature here you have to pull the safety out of the way and then use your other finger to get the power on it has a lock on the back so that you can pick it up and carry it this is the handle not anything else this is where you carry the sucker okay don't be grabbing it from here and the dust bag or any other feature it's designed to last a long time if you treat it nice kind of like your wife the back of the saw has adjustments here so that these can slide in out of the way all right when you're using a saw you don't want to just set the wood in the middle of there and hold it and try to cut this is a great way to break your fingers it's also a great way to have material fly off the back of the fence and land you in the face always push it to the back specifically vertically if you can okay it's less wear and tear on the saw blade if it's cutting down through the thin side than cutting through the thick side of your material you hold it nice and tight there's nowhere for anything to go it cuts really clean and it isn't going to give you any vibration and it's a much safer way to work when you're cutting hold your material cut all the way through let off the tool okay and then you slide your material away from the blade i'll show you a quick demonstration here don't lift it back up until the blade is almost finished moving because what will happen is if you're going high speed this chunk here will catch a tooth fire across the room don't do that this is called the fence it has a few different functions one of them is there so you can compress the material when you buy the saws there are actually clamps that you can buy i don't use the clamps i think they're a waste of bloody time but if you're using round materials or if you need to use clamps then great it's there you adjust them for this reason back of the saw you can actually loosen off this collar this is a double compound miter saw means it falls this way and if you use the yellow tab in the back it can go this way as well in order to function properly you have to move the fence back so that the machine can clear alright you don't move the fence you can't do your miter cuts this particular saw has a full guard on the blade and it only releases as the blade comes down you tighten it up the arrow here is set to zero if you want you can do compound saw if you're going to be doing crown you can use this angle in conjunction with this angle and you can make any combination of any cut that you need they actually sell a guide for that so you can go and pick that up when you buy the saw at the same time if you plan on doing a lot of crown molding speaking of crown this is your crown molding when you're using a chops how to cut crown molding don't vision it like this and measure and you want to cut here and don't go like this you turn it upside down this is confusing for people so here's how we do it when you're visualizing your crown molding this is your wall and this is your ceiling so everything's backwards and upside down but it works great and what you can do is you can set this on your fence so the measurement from here to here is the same to the top and you can just make a pencil line or a marker line on your table here so you can just slide this over real quick set it to 45 degrees and do a miter cut and that becomes an inside corner there's more of this in our how to do crown video you can check the link up here or it's in the video description so for diy homeowners most of what you're going to be doing is finished trim carpentry for instance so you'll be measuring baseboards so you can measure across and you can make your mark let's call it 46. here we go make your mark on your trim now you're going to want to mark at the very top always cut your baseboards standing up you can't cut them like this because as soon as you got to do something other than a straight cut you've got to level the saw down to make a 45 very frustrating okay if you work like this you can read the numbers on the bottom and you can go left and right to all of the different angles that you need keep in mind when you're working if you're going at outside corner that's a 90 degree corner so you actually have to cut two pieces of material to meet together so you have to cut them both on a 45. so just take your whatever your angle is in half and cut both pieces of material that half angle that's how you do miter so here's the 45 i've got my mark i'm going to come down and i'm going to set my saw blade right on it i'm going to start the saw i'm going to just touch the material to confirm it's in the right location and if i need to make any adjustments i just use my thumb to move it left and right again wait for the blade to stop moving then lift it up now after you cut you take your thumb and you slide away from the blade and what that does is that protects your edge from all those teeth that i was talking about the secret here is compression with the thumb when you're done you're cut pull your material away then the saw teeth aren't going to catch this material if there's any movement and rip up your gorgeous outside miter joint now remember if you're going to make a miter joint on that side that way you can do the same thing over here almost every saw i've ever worked with has got positive stops all these little notches if you slide it you get caught you have to pinch the bottom to release it and you'll hear it there's another stop right there they're at 45 35 22 and a half very common 45 is half of 90 and that's if you're doing an outside corner 22 and a half is if you're doing a round corner you actually have to do a series of 22 and a half degree cuts to make enough pieces to get around a bent it's frustrating i know but hey this is how you do with baseboard all right when you're doing baseboard has nothing to do with the saw but always do the longest piece first in case you screw up the cut you can still use the piece again if you start with the small ones and you screw up the last cut and it's a big one you're out of material that sucks door casing it's completely the opposite door casing we work flat on the table okay so in this situation we can measure off our material right make our mark and you always want to work on the front side okay same thing let's say i want to make a miter joint okay you take it over you bring the saw down to the pencil and you always put the blade on the side of the pencil line that's going to be the offcut all alright so it doesn't matter which way you're looking you hold it down on the on the table all right then you set the miter because you need to literally see where this is measure once cut twice that's what that means it'll always be perfect every time so if you have to make a cut like this out of your trim you have an obstruction like a plug i'll show you how to do this so remember because we're dealing with the round saw blade when it comes down to mix contact the material is actually not here it's on the back side and so what you're going to have is it's going to cut the front side lower than the back side and an obstruction is something you have to have the other way around so what i do is i stick my finger between the material and the fence right here i use my middle finger to clamp it all together now i can slide away [Applause] once you get most of the material you set the depth right where you want it and then you slide backwards and that's how you cut around the next thing you might want to see is if you're working an area where the baseboard comes to an end like at the staircase or something and you want to actually have this detail return back down to the ground what you would do is actually cut the base put on the flat right now and so we'd go to 45 do a miter joint and now you have your material here you want to get this cut okay so you go to the other 45 now you have a baseboard that can finish to the floor that is a much nicer look than just doing this then just painting it in and of course everybody's installing vinyl flooring lately so let's just go through this you'll notice here the flooring panel is actually wider than my saw right it comes up short now you can always take the time to flip it around or you can just do this i know oh wow yeah it's so simple but so so true that same technique can actually be used to even more extreme situations [Music] you can make really long cuts in there that actually goes almost 15 inches which is about the same capacity as the sliding compound saw and we saved you 300 now all of these tips so far we're just dealing with the saw without a stand right but just think if that saw is on the ground you're sitting there kneeling and the blades are being you don't want to be anywhere near it because all it takes is for some behind you to bump into you and throw you right into the blade this is why we have a stand somebody bumps into me i'm protected what the sauce stand does is it gives you a lot of flexibility one thing it does when you're working in a small space in your house rooms are never big enough right so you set the saw in the middle and you want to cut material let's say it's ten feet long and you wanna turn it into nine foot three there's not enough room you can release the saw and you can slide it back and forth on the stand so that you can find room for the material you lock it down these swing out and they become a second pair of hands so that when you cut the other piece of material doesn't fall to the ground and wreck your flooring that's money in the bank and it's on a roller so it's really easy to negotiate so in addition to it being a roller it's also a positive saw stop so you can loosen this clamp here and raise this up to extend the table to a certain height this is fabulous when you're doing a project let's say you're building any kind of cabinet and you need 15 pieces of something the same length you can set this up measure off the saw blade lock it down and then cut all 15 pieces just by setting it up against a stop you don't have to measure 15 times just once it guarantees perfection when you need to have precise cuts over and over and over again this is money in the bank speaking about saving money if you like to shop and save money then you buy material in full length you can get baseboards and other materials in 16 foot lengths with both of those arms extended that's 10 feet which means it's more than enough to support really super long material for you to work on okay in both directions one more thing it does if you needed to you can loosen the wheel drop this down it instantly stops at 45 degrees okay which is like the most common measurement is 90 or 45. you can just hold your material and you can cut material sideways this is great for cabinet making or if you've got like a 2x6 or something you need to miter that's how easy that is all you have to do is put your pencil line on your material where you want your saw blade to go right here in the middle of the material where the saw blade makes contact that would be the middle of the material there i would just line this up until i see my saw blade making contact [Music] perfect all right today's shout out goes to robert and his dad how awesome is that you get to do some work and spend time with family they're working on renovating their bar in their basement like that's a huge project thanks for the update fellas you're looking great guys if you want to send in the submission so that you can get to the next shout out hit us up on instagram and facebook all right we're happy to see you there and then maybe you can be highlighted in our next video cheers this is a 60 tooth blade on a 12 inch saw you can buy them with 80 tooth as well if you're doing hardwood flooring or super fine finished carpentry get the 80 tooth blade the 60 is for rough framing and for working with mdf and soft lumber like pine uh it also is very effective against abs pvc or even aluminum you don't have to change the blade okay well that should be enough basics to help you guys get started with your carpentry projects i really highly recommend the 12 inch basic saw and if you want to learn how to install the trim out doors and windows and baseboards and all that kind of stuff then click the link up here because it's a lot more in depth all the nailing and caulking and installation procedures as well cheers to the next time

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 584,013

Keywords: homerenovision, renovision, jeff thorman, homerenovisiondiy, how to use my tools, mitre saw, chop saw, tools, carpentry tools, trim, window trim, door trim, baseboards, how to install floating floor, luxury vinyl plank flooring, lvp, laminate flooring, miter saw hacks, do it yourself, how to use a miter saw, power tools, how to, how to use a circular saw, miter saw basics

Id: -egiw1730m8

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 09 2022