Thread: Sliding hand mitre saw not cutting straight

Just a guess, but the most common cause for a saw not cutting straight is because it needs a set & sharpen. The effect is likely to be exacerbated by harder woods.

In any case, it's pretty difficult to get the perfectly smooth & accurate mitre cuts required for framing 'off saw', even when the saw is well sharpened & set, which is why framers generally resort to those hefty knife trimmers to trim the saw cuts & get a perfect fit. You can achieve as good a result with a shooting board, but it requires a bit more fiddling, & because picture frames aren't parallel back & front, you need two setups (a 'left' & a 'right') to shoot the mitres. I've tidied up many a sawn mitre for architraving with a hand-held block plane, but picture frames are the next level up - they have to be perfect & nothing less will do...

Cheers,

What tpi is your saw blade.

Nobex Proman Mitre Saw Blades
Blades to suit the Nobex Proman Mitre Saw.
Nobex Mitre Saw long-life replacement blades for wooden picture frame moulding. Top Swedish quality for straight cutting. With a hard point to give maximum life.


The following blades are available:

• 12 TPI - Carpentry Fast Cut Saw Blade
• 18 TPI - Carpentry General Duty Saw Blade
• 24 TPI - Picture Framing Saw Blade
• 32 TPI - Non-Ferrous Metal Saw Blade

Many years ago I bought one of those type of saws for cutting skirting boards; these were 6” tall 1” thick moulded pine. I found that putting any force into the cut would send the blade to one side or the other, so I learned to just allow the weight of the saw to do the cutting with me simply applying the push and pull. I didn’t even hold the saw handle properly, just loosely grasped it.

Replace the blade. They're cheap enough & disposable. When replaced, ensure the new one is tensioned correctly to avoid (similarly as with any hacksaw or other frame saw) the wanders.

Originally Posted by IanW

Just a guess, but the most common cause for a saw not cutting straight is because it needs a set & sharpen. The effect is likely to be exacerbated by harder woods.

In any case, it's pretty difficult to get the perfectly smooth & accurate mitre cuts required for framing 'off saw', even when the saw is well sharpened & set, which is why framers generally resort to those hefty knife trimmers to trim the saw cuts & get a perfect fit. You can achieve as good a result with a shooting board, but it requires a bit more fiddling, & because picture frames aren't parallel back & front, you need two setups (a 'left' & a 'right') to shoot the mitres. I've tidied up many a sawn mitre for architraving with a hand-held block plane, but picture frames are the next level up - they have to be perfect & nothing less will do...

Cheers,

Yeah I saw those large guillotine trimmers but you're right they are hefty and a little out of my budget! Thanks for the shooting board suggestion had never heard of them before.

Originally Posted by planemaker

What tpi is your saw blade.

Nobex Proman Mitre Saw Blades
Blades to suit the Nobex Proman Mitre Saw.
Nobex Mitre Saw long-life replacement blades for wooden picture frame moulding. Top Swedish quality for straight cutting. With a hard point to give maximum life.


The following blades are available:

• 12 TPI - Carpentry Fast Cut Saw Blade
• 18 TPI - Carpentry General Duty Saw Blade
• 24 TPI - Picture Framing Saw Blade
• 32 TPI - Non-Ferrous Metal Saw Blade

I'll have to check when I get home but its really fine and takes a fair amount of passes so I'm assuming either 24 or 32TPI

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

Many years ago I bought one of those type of saws for cutting skirting boards; these were 6” tall 1” thick moulded pine. I found that putting any force into the cut would send the blade to one side or the other, so I learned to just allow the weight of the saw to do the cutting with me simply applying the push and pull. I didn’t even hold the saw handle properly, just loosely grasped it.

Thanks I'll give that a shot! Very hard to resist pushing to speed it up a bit haha

Originally Posted by Ratbag

Replace the blade. They're cheap enough & disposable. When replaced, ensure the new one is tensioned correctly to avoid (similarly as with any hacksaw or other frame saw) the wanders.

Thanks for the suggestion I'll have to check the condition of the blade.

It's a very devil of a job to try to reset & sharpen one of those induction hardened blades. It could be theoretically done (diamond files?), but just as with any other disposable framesaw blade why would you bother? A new Proman 24TPI blade should only cost a few quid. Bunnings once sold 'em. Perhaps they still do. Otherwise there's Carbatec. Just don't expect anything in a hurry from an actual store. My last order took over 3 months (Festool Sandpaper) to arrive, was put on display & ratted by customers before I "accidentally" FOUND it on the shelf!

Their mail order service is much more reliable, prompt, communicative & efficient.

A company called Lion once made some pretty cheap replica horizontal sliding mitre "guillotines". Replica of what? Unsure, but not the Morso style ones. Perhaps an Orteguil? Provided it's still sharp, by which I mean really, really, seriously if not scarily sharp, it could very well perform satisfactorily too. But as you presumably already have a partly functional Proman (The Picture Framer's Miter Saw) why bother?

Good tool shops should be able to help you with new blades. https://www.gettoolsdirect.com.au/search/go?w=proman Just make sure the blades are the right length before ordering.