consistently cutting parts to length

[Judson Green]

Okay so I've been wrestling with this for a while now and i just cant seem to figure it out.

How do you guys consistently cut boards to length?

In the power tool world we would set a stop on the rail of the miter saw or table saw sled. What i mean is consistently all the same length, not so much accuracy. Say your building a six panel door, you need all four rails to be 24¼". I know a sixteenth either way isn't a big deal but ending up with four different lengths, well that's not gonna fly.

For the most part I'm talking about sawing for parts but what if ya throw a shooting board in the mix?

[Jim Neeley]

My steps:

* Cut all a bit long
* trim one to size, finishing with your shooting board.
* take the next piece, shoot one end
* mark the next piece from the first, saw leaving a small amount of waste.
* use the shooting board to ensure true, stack the boards to match length.

The finger tips are very good at comparing lengths of stacked boards.

Just one approach.. YMMV..

Jim

[Jim Koepke]

My steps:

* Cut all a bit long
* trim one to size, finishing with your shooting board.
* take the next piece, shoot one end
* mark the next piece from the first, saw leaving a small amount of waste.
* use the shooting board to ensure true, stack the boards to match length.

The finger tips are very good at comparing lengths of stacked boards.

Just one approach.. YMMV..

Jim

My approach is pretty much the same.

Sometimes I do use a stop on the board and the ruler. The marking square is then slid under the rule to the place to mark. This works well with a folding rule due to the hinges holding it up from the workpiece.

The next step is most of my cuts like this are made on top of the bench using a bench hook. With a bit of practice cutting square and to the line is not that hard. Work towards consistency. Notice if you always are off the same way and adjust for it. My work is usually marked all the way around. The goal is to leave the edge of the mark all the way around on the sawn piece. Any extra left should come of with one or two passes on the shooting board.

For trimming small pieces to fit, the shooting board is our friend. Same with just cleaning up a rough edge.

[steven c newman]

if I have a few that need to be the same length, I tend to gang up on them. Rough cut one end of each ( say a set of aprons for a table) stack them together, then trim all at once on the "wild end", then finish the first end. Then i can un-clamp the bunch. Even works for some joinery I do271278No measuring for this, height equealed the width of a leg, then lay the stretcher for the width of the cut. Used a square to mark both lines, and then, i almost left the lines. Had to just split the lines, to allow for the glue, of course...

[Judson Green]

My approach is pretty much the same.

Sometimes I do use a stop on the board and the ruler. The marking square is then slid under the rule to the place to mark. This works well with a folding rule due to the hinges holding it up from the workpiece.

The next step is most of my cuts like this are made on top of the bench using a bench hook. With a bit of practice cutting square and to the line is not that hard. Work towards consistency. Notice if you always are off the same way and adjust for it. My work is usually marked all the way around. The goal is to leave the edge of the mark all the way around on the sawn piece. Any extra left should come of with one or two passes on the shooting board.

For trimming small pieces to fit, the shooting board is our friend. Same with just cleaning up a rough edge.


So you would mark all four sides both ends of all four rails in my above example? And still use the shooting board to make perfect?

[Judson Green]

if I have a few that need to be the same length, I tend to gang up on them. Rough cut one end of each ( say a set of aprons for a table) stack them together, then trim all at once on the "wild end", then finish the first end. Then i can un-clamp the bunch. Even works for some joinery I do271278No measuring for this, height equealed the width of a leg, then lay the stretcher for the width of the cut. Used a square to mark both lines, and then, i almost left the lines. Had to just split the lines, to allow for the glue, of course...




This makes a lot of sense but...
Do you do anything after the cut? Assuming is not 90° all the way around. If you have four pieces that measure 4" wide x 1½" thick each, your cut not being 90° though all four, might not make four of parts of the same length.

[Kees Heiden]

The rails will receive tenons, do they? Then, you don't need to cut them exactly the same. Put all four rails on the bench next to each other. Mark the shoulder lines with your square on all four at once, then, using the square, wrap the marks all around the rails. That's the critical length. The total length of the rails doesn't matter (within reason of course). They certainly don't need to be planed on a shooting board, rough sawn is good enough. The tenon end will be burried in the mortice anyway. You can save yourself a lot of work if you only do neccessary work, and not try to mimic a powertool.

[Jim Matthews]

I would caution anyone expecting uniformity that intends to gang pieces together.

If you're measuring (rather than using each piece to mark the next) you can induce errors quickly.
I mark the joints as I go, and fit each piece before moving on to the next.

If you make certain that each join is square and straight, things come out great.

It's all too easy to rush this sort of thing and get the placement of 1/2 a joint on the wrong side of a leg, or facing the wrong direction on a rail.
DAMHIKT

[Judson Green]

The rails will receive tenons, do they? Then, you don't need to cut them exactly the same. Put all four rails on the bench next to each other. Mark the shoulder lines with your square on all four at once, then, using the square, wrap the marks all around the rails. That's the critical length. The total length of the rails doesn't matter (within reason of course). They certainly don't need to be planed on a shooting board, rough sawn is good enough. The tenon end will be burried in the mortice anyway. You can save yourself a lot of work if you only do neccessary work, and not try to mimic a powertool.

Hay who you calling a power tool? :eek:

Thanks! The light bulb finally flicked on.

[Bob Easton]

Accurate cross cutting can become VERY accurate, and repeatable, if you learn a "knife wall" technique that Paul Sellers teaches. Essentially, it is this:
- Measure to the length you need.
- Place a square across the board using a reference edge you know to be straight and true.
- Use a sharp knife to incise a line across the board.
- Now, walk that knife wall around both edges and the other side of the board.
- From the waste side, use a broad chisel to cut toward the wall making a groove for starting the saw.
- Saw using a bench hook. Sawing square is a practice that comes with time.

These steps are a LOT easier to understand when you see them in a video. Paul operates a subscription based online woodworking school in which he demonstrates this knife wall technique repeatedly. You can see the technique in the FREE sample video on the first page of his site at: https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/ Play that sample and pay attention to the technique starting at about 4 and a half minutes in.

The technique is intended as a "class 3" cut, for those cases where very accurate results are required, where something shows on the face of a joint. Yet, it is very handy for making things an accurate length, and repeatably accurate. While they look like a few extra steps, they become second nature pretty quickly, rapidly improving the quality of your cutting.