Miter Cut Angles

Select all the angles you typically cut with your miter gauge.


  • Total voters
    38
  • Poll closed .

Vaughn McMillan

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Recent discussions about Incra miter gauges have made me wonder...how many of you make angled crosscuts at non-standard angles? Select as many choices as is applicable. (But I'm asking about cuts you typically make...not some oddball cut you made once just to see if you could do it.)

For me, I'd say over 99% of my crosscuts are done at 90º and the rest have been at 45º. I could probably count the all 30/60º cuts I've done on one hand.
 
Me. I use my Hitachi SCMS. I can split a gnats fanny with it. Half degrees are a piece of cake. Quarter degree is a few seconds longer to set up.
 
Me. I use my Hitachi SCMS. I can split a gnats fanny with it. Half degrees are a piece of cake. Quarter degree is a few seconds longer to set up.

My point is how often do you cut something other than 90º or 45º? That's the main object of my curiosity. (Keep in mind, I don't do trim carpentry, so I've not had a need to fudge a miter cut to get it to fit an unsquare wall.)
 
Mostly for trim as well. Other is when I really mess things up or the carpenter who build the wall did :D For really off cuts I often have to sand/shave to fit anyway so 0.01º accuracy on the cut itself is irrelevant.

The 15º is handy for making "round" corners (=== / \ ==== so 6 * 15º = 90º) for trim pieces or other curves where you don't have a lot of meat to work with on the pieces used.

A project I'm currently working on had some 31º cuts, but they could have been 45º if I had re-thought my layout and would have been easier to do to boot.
 
on the Mac it is option-shift-8 °

I rarely if ever cut anything other than 90°, if I do, it is on the miter saw, however I've always wanted one of those fancy Incra Mitre Guage thingamajiggers

edit...
I use my crosscut sled and will occasionally cut to fit if i need an oddball angle for something.
 
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You make a good point Vaughn i bet the boys at Incra are having fits over this poll;) Still it did not stop me picking up my new Miter Gauge today. Yippee no more craftsman miter gauge frustration. Now all i need is more shop time.
 
I've made numerous taper-sided boxes that require odd combinations - like 44.2° miter with 0.9° bevel, etc. Everything from flower pots to decorative boxes and potpourri jars.

Most work is at the more common 22.5/45/90, though.
 
I voted other as I don't use a miter gauge. My table saw is equipped with a slider that I use to make 90° cuts with. Any angles I need are done on my Hitachi SCMS.
 
Most all angle cuts are done with an SCMS:thumb: It goes from 90 to 45 some of them even 55 and I use just about every one of them at one point or another. My miter gauge gets almost as much use as the blade guard.:thumb:
 
You make a good point Vaughn i bet the boys at Incra are having fits over this poll;) Still it did not stop me picking up my new Miter Gauge today. Yippee no more craftsman miter gauge frustration. Now all i need is more shop time.

One of the main selling point for me about the Incra is not in how many positions it has, but how accurately it'll return to any of those positions.

I've used several "factory" miter gauges over the years, and despite my best efforts, I could never get one that would accurately and without a doubt return to 90º when I wanted it to. So I just got into the habit of checking it each and every time I moved it back to 90º. Same thing with 45º. Always had to check to be sure the adjustable stop screws hadn't moved. With the Incra, I've had no need to check. I know - without a doubt - it'll be exactly on the money. Every. single. time. :thumb:

I don't have a decent miter saw, so pretty much all of my angle cuts happen on my table saw. Or at least they did, when I still had a shop I could actually use. :rolleyes:
 
I rarely use my miter guage, usually just for a quick rough cut. I have a sliding table mounted to my saw that I do almost all of my cross cutting on. I use it along with a forrest woodworker 1 cross cut blade to make all my cabinet face frames and square cut wood countertops. with regards to mitering I have a 45 degree (here is where I would like to know how you make that degree symbol. lol) jig that I put on my radial arm saw. for compound cuts I tend to use my sliding compound miter saw.
 
I rarely use my miter guage,

This.

Though "rarely" isn't quite the right word. How about, maybe 2-3 times a year that I actually pull out the stock miter guage and use it.
Otherwise it's 90+% of the time that I use the cross-cut sled.
Otherwise I pull out the crappy homemade-yet-still-works-accurately 45° sled (thanks for the shift-opt-8, Ned!) when I want a miter.

In fact, I just built myself ANOTHER cross-cut sled, since I use them so much. So I built a small one, since the vast majority of my cuts are in wood that is less than 10" wide.
 
I have yet to make a cross-cut sled, and my CMS isn't so good so I use my miter gauge all the time. Haven't had a problem with 90º (cool :D) but kinda sloppy at 45º.

I've never cut any other angle. :eek: I turn green wood...but want to start more flat work. (Oh crap, that box swap is coming up fast!:doh: )
 
My Jessem Miter is pretty adjustable, every 1/2° I believe. Except for casing trim work I pretty much use it for most miter cuts in the shop. I use the Miter saw for mostly chop operations. Have been using the radial arm more than it though.
 
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