Thread: Tips for getting good 45 cuts

There is no such thing as a mundane question if you do not know the answer. Cutting exact 45 degrees is very hard. One way which works for me is to cut them with a hand saw (or drop saw or any other type of saw you have) then use a mitre shooting board and a sharp hand plane to "shoot" the edges to a neat and close to perfect angle. In fact I have 3 shooting boards which I have had fun making out of scrap timber. One for 90 degrees and 2 for mitres. You may need two different mitres shooting boards. One for picture frame type mitres and one for the edges of boxes (mitres across the face of the timber or along the face). Do a google search or search the forum for shooting boards and you will find plenty of sites and videos. Shooting boards let you adjust a joint by fractions of a thousandth of an inch. Shooting boards of various types will add an amazing level of accuracy to your work. I will try and post some pictures tomorrow when I get home.

Also one member Alexs has a really good method using a disc sander, and you can search for that in the Box Making forum.
Also in the Table Saw forum, there are various ways of ensuring the accuracy of your saw set-up.

I just love giving people "homework"

Thank you for the advice and I love Homework so keep it coming. Learning as I go by myself is hard but thanks to this forum it is getting a lot easier for me.

Also have a look at Davids box making video series on the Timberbits website. Step 5 shows his jig for mitreing.

If I could just add my two cents worth.
I use a Trade Tools SCMS for most of my mitres and I set it up using one of those Wixie digital angle gizmos. I can get very accurate cuts for any angle using this saw ..BUT.. the big thing I have found is to make sure the work is very firmly clamped, especially when cutting at other than 90 degrees.
When the blade is operating at an angle there is a strong tendancy for the blade to pull (or push) the work piece laterally and if this occurs you end up with the intended vertical axis of the cut being off by a couple of points

Ian

If it's 45's you want for a frame there is a way to get these spot on,you can buy a 90 degree jig which fits on your table saw,this has a runner which fits into the slot on the table and in effect spits the 90 to 45.to the blade
If you are familiar with the Triton saw they have a 90 cross cut gauge which can be set to 45,although this may not be a true 90 if you cut using one side piece on one face and the other side on the other face you end up with a true 90 corner.Don't use the one face.
I hope you understand my explanation,if not please change it.

I'm planning to build a couple shooting boards to clean up my efforts. I'll be using a low angle jack plane once they're built.