This video will change the way you cut miters and bevels with a table saw!

hi I'm James Hamilton from stumpy knope's woodworking journal and this is part 4 of our five-part tutorial covering table saw safety how to make effective rip cuts how to make defective cross cuts how to cut better miters and bevels and finally how to get the best cuts from plywood's and sheet goods if you're a veteran table saw user you'll find some useful tips and maybe identify some areas that you can sort of fine-tune your skills and if you're a new woodworker these videos will give you a big head start and help you to keep your fingers on your hands where they belong as each of these five videos are released I'll add links in the notes below just click on show more if you're on YouTube we've already posted part one on safety and part two on rip cuts and part three on cross cuts but today we're gonna focus on angled cuts such as miters and bevels we'll start with the fundamentals well throw in some tips and then we'll troubleshoot some of the problems you may encounter for the last several years I've been replacing my cheap drill and Forstner bits with quality bits from fish tools they're a family-run company that still forges their bits the old-fashioned way try replacing your most used bits with fish bits using the links in the notes below this video and you'll see why I love them so much right at the outset let's clear up any confusion about what constitutes a miter and what's a bevel the term is used interchangeably and I'm not going to get into a debate about which is right and which is wrong for the sake of this discussion will define a miter as an angled cut across the face of a workpiece such as a picture frame an angled cut along the edge of a workpiece is an edge bevel and that same cut on the end of a workpiece is called an end bevel now let's discuss your blade most miters and bevels are finished cuts and they usually made across the grain although edge bevels are made along the grain by finish cuts I mean they have to be crisp and precise because any errors or splinters will be visible in the finished project so the blade you use will make a big difference a 40 or 50 tooth combination or general-purpose blade may work great for most cuts but for crisp miters I greatly prefer an 80 tooth cross blade as I said most miters are cut across the grain and in that situation having more teeth will produce a cleaner cut the exception to this rule is if I'm cutting a long bevel on the edge of a workpiece that runs with the grain in that case 80 teeth may be too many to clear the dust from that long kerf effectively and you could end up with some scorch marks so your combination blade may be a better option for long edge bevels edge bevels are usually cut with the table saw fence like any rip cut but n bevels and miters require a sled or a miter gauge a sled is your best option because it gets the workpiece up off the top of the saw so it can't be affected by friction they may cause it to shift during the cut and some sleds also feature clamps to further secure your work but most of us probably use a miter gauge so that's where our focus will be in this video because accuracy is critical I strongly recommend an auxilary fence with adhesive backs and paper attached to it I'll put a link to the same paper I use in the notes below this video the sand paper will prevent the workpiece from reflecting away from the blade during the cut it's a big concern for both miters and edge bevels and it can completely change the angle of your cut if you don't have it he said back sandpaper handy consider using a stop block on your miter saws fence to keep the workpiece for moving away from the blade it won't matter how carefully you make your cuts if your miter gauge is bar wobbles in the slot of the saw if your bar can't be adjusted you can use a punch to create two or three dimples on the side of the bar this will raise some steel around the dimples to take up any gap in the slot don't go too deep at first so you'll have to file them back down make small adjustments to find the perfect fit through trial-and-error check out your saw blades position as well you'll have miss cuts and gaps in your joints if your blade is not both perpendicular to the top of your saw and parallel to the miter slot don't neglect these alignment tasks they can make or break your project the most common miter angle is 45 degrees and this can be set with a head of a combination square but since that's the most common angle why not make a jig to make the setup faster this supply would has one end cut at 45 degrees the other is at 90 degrees there's a groove running through each side and it will fit my miter bar snugly I can use one side to angle my gauge in one direction the other side to angle it in the other direction and the square end to return it to 90 degrees if you make the jig carefully your settings should be dead accurate but it never hurts to check by making a couple of test cuts on some scraps assembling them and then using a good square to see if they add up to 90 degrees which way should you angle your gauge for a miter so does it slope upward toward the blade or downward toward the blade you can cut a miter in either direction but an upward slope limits the capacity of your cut if the workpiece is wider than a few inches your miter gauge will be off the top of your saw that started the cut a downward slope is a more comfortable way to cut in my opinion and can accommodate wider work pieces which ever way you angle your miter gauge don't forget you have two slots in the top of your saw you can cut one miter on the left then the opposite angle on the right while maintaining your preferred sloping direction on both sides however I don't recommend jumping back and forth every time you change the angle of your gauge you increase your chance for air cut all the left miters first then the right minors or vice versa most frames are made from at least four pieces with the miter on each end of each piece all four sides may be the same length but at least the sides that are opposite each other will be if the lengths of the sides is imprecise your corners won't fully close no matter how carefully you cut your miters so I cut the miters on one end of each side then I use a stop block to cut the miters on the other ends ensuring that the sides that are supposed to be of equal length are you may even cut a miter on the end of your stop block to match the end of the workpiece that will go against it this will also create a wedging action that holds the end of the workpiece firmly against the fence as you cut a notch where the point seats will give stray dust somewhere to go so it won't build up and interfere with your cuts and end bevel is cut very much like a mitre except instead of angling your workpiece in relation to the blade you angle your blade in relation to the workpiece many of the same rules apply such as the vital importance of proper setup if your miter gauge doesn't hold the workpiece perfectly perpendicular to the blade or the blade is not parallel to the miter slot you are sure to have gaps in your assemble joint don't trust the bevel indicator on your table saw it's not precise enough for Acura setup some saws have built-in stops that are designed to make it easy to tilt your blade to 45 degrees and then back to 90 but dust can build up inside the saw and make these less than reliable as well instead set your bevel angles by hand the body of a combination square may be used to find 45 degrees as long as the throat insert your sitting it on is perfectly flush with the top of the saw for bevels other than 45 degrees you may use an adjustable bevel gauge and a protractor to transfer your angle to the blade however the most useful tool I found for setting a bevel angle is a digital angle box like this one you zero it out on top of the saw then the internal mechanism will sense the precise amount that you tilt the blade I'll put a link to the one that I use in the notes below this video some sauce have blades that tilt to the right others tilt to the left a feature you may pay no attention to until you cut a bevel when you're making a beveled cut on the end of a workpiece with a miter gauge the direction of the tilt doesn't matter all that much because anyway strap beneath the blade has a way out should it catch on a tooth at the end of the cut but all of this changes when you're cutting a bevel on the edge of a workpiece with your table saw fence if your blade tilts toward the fence anything caught beneath the blade has nowhere to go and if something goes wrong it'll become wedged beneath the blade and potentially kick back at you if your saw tilts that way move your fence to the other side of the blade this may feel awkward at first but it's a much safer orientation for a cut such as this it's easy enough to cut bevels between 45 and 90 degrees on a table saw but what if you need a more acute angle such as 30 degrees you can't tilt your blade that far but you can do it with a little math subtract 30 degrees from 90 and you get 60 degrees tilt your blade to that angle then run your workpiece on edge which is 90 degrees and the result will be a 30 degree bevel of course you can't cut a bevel exactly like this because you're removing the entire edge of the workpiece halfway through the cut you realize the only thing still supporting the panel is the spinning saw blade beneath it instead use some double-sided tape to attach a second piece of material to the backside of your workpiece now you can safely bevel the entire edge of the outer panel while the inner one rides on top of the saw where it will provide support throughout the cut in our next part of this series we'll take a look at making better cuts in plywood and other sheet goods if that video is already posted I encourage you to watch it and the three previous parts using the links below this video again if you're on youtube just click on show more see you there wait don't go yet if you're new here please subscribe and remember to ring the bell I would really appreciate that give us a thumbs up or better yet leave us a comment I always read them and be sure to check out the latest issue of stumpy nubs woodworking journal it's always packed with tips tricks and tutorials designed to make you a better woodworker

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 391,583

Rating: 4.9619246 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, jig, technique, basics, picture frame, box

Id: 7aZCdt8Cs8M

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 19 2019