Need to build myself a miter shooting board.

[ken masoumi]

I'm trying to make a rectangular box with mitered corners(like the picture below),the box is 10.1/4" X 6",(2.1/2" high),I tried cutting the miter corners on my SCMS,it was not accurate, then tried to tilt my old table saw blade to 45° but again the miter edge is not straight,tried my 12"sanding disc with it's table set at 45° so I could sand the pieces to 45 degree but the table rubs right against the disc so tight that it stops it from turning.

Now of the 3 methods I find the table saw the best for giving me the closest miter cuts but I still need to fine tune the miter ends to make them perfectly 45°.
Tried to find a simple shooting board design for miter cuts but all I could find is a whole bunch of people doing a show and tell after they have made their jig,I need to see how it is built from scratch ,Paul Seller's jig was well made but too complicated and needs special planes to cut wierd groove/dados to accommodate the fence ,the rest of the jigs on youtube do not seem to be accurate enough for my use.

If any of you has a simple design for a miter shooting board and is willing to share ,I would appreciate it if you could post it .
What I mean by simple is,it is easy to follow and build and yet accurate enough for making jewelry boxes /trinket boxes .
Your help is appreciated.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTIk4bi2mrKJlKRILjqycmc62FE6TTJe 5udsL09oOOOoqvRUAJ-

[John TenEyck]

Something is wrong with your miter saw and table saw. Both should be able to cut those without hassle. I'm not saying a shooting board isn't a good thing to have, but you would benefit more from giving your miter saw and table saw a tune up and putting a new blade on them since they will get a lot more use than a shooting board, especially if they produce accurate results. And if they don't, they aren't worth the space they're taking up in your shop.

John

[Greg Hines, MD]

Given how thin your material is, maybe try a 45 degree miter router bit? Most of the miter shooting boards I have seen would be for picture frames, so the work would be flat on them, and you can shave off a thin shaving. Running them as tall as yours would not work well. You could also tilt a jointer fence to 45 degrees, but would probably need a jig to hold the work the the fence.

Doc

[daryl moses]

I just use finger joints for Jewelry boxes etc. Lots easier to glue, look nice, and are stronger than a 45 degree cut IMO.
I agree with John, for small cuts like you are cutting a miter or table saw that is tuned well and has a sharp blade should do what you want provided the piece is clamped to prevent movement.

[Brian Henderson]

I can see where the SCMS might not be 100% perfect, they're not really made for exacting accuracy, they're mostly made for construction cuts, but a table saw? If your tablesaw can't make that cut perfectly, there's a serious problem.

[Frank Martin]

I did that cut for a cabinet I am building on my sliding table saw and no problem. Perfect corners all around. You need to tune up your table saw.

[glenn bradley]

Something is wrong with your miter saw and table saw. Both should be able to cut those without hassle. I'm not saying a shooting board isn't a good thing to have, but you would benefit more from giving your miter saw and table saw a tune up and putting a new blade on them since they will get a lot more use than a shooting board, especially if they produce accurate results. And if they don't, they aren't worth the space they're taking up in your shop.

John

+1. If you rarely cut miters, which I assume is true, a shooting board will get you through this project. I have a few shooting boards and am glad I do. My tablesaw is also well setup and I cut any angle with impunity including the 45* I cut to make one of my shooting boards ;-)

The Neanders here probably have a method and practice for achieving a reliable 45* without a reference surface to start with. Those folks are a clever bunch. If they don't chime in here, you might re-post in the Neanderthal sub-forum.

[John TenEyck]

Not looking for an argument but a CMS is capable of amazing accuracy, at least one that's well set up is. There's not much room for error installing crown molding and that's how it's cut. I cut the segments for this bowl with my CMS, using both the bevel and miter adjustment, with no fooling around.

318474

John

[Larry Browning]

The thing I have discovered about cutting miters on the TS is that even though I thought the workpiece did not move up, down or in and out, it did. So unless you have that board clamped solid to a sled of some kind or clamped to your miter gauge, it is going to slip. Even the slightest slippage will cause the cut to be off. Also, I found that the blade insert must absolutely flush to the table as well. Measure and check everything multiple times before you make the cut. Oh, yeah, since you are tilting the blade, the trunnion might need to be adjusted for an angle cut. It might be perfect for a 90deg cut but way off for a 45. Check the angle at the front and back of the blade with the blade raised as high as it will go.

[ken masoumi]

Thank you all for your comments, the problem as I see it: ( as Greg mentioned,post #3),the pieces are thin and tall ,very hard to hold tight against the fence so it doesn't move during the cut,,I'm not ruling out the possibility of my TS needing a tune up but I did a quick check and miter gauge /fence on the saw was square to the blade.

I'm going to try to clamp the pieces to the miter gauge using an F clamp because the miter cuts (when I look at them at eye level )were not evenly cut .

To hold the piece 6" long on the miter saw was a challenge to keep straight and firm ,and too short for the clamp,I must grab them tighter by hand since I don't see any other option.
I'll check to see if the table saw needs to be adjusted and give it another try if that doesn't work, I'll go ahead and use finger joints as suggested.

I thought I'd ask about a shooting board as a last resort since it seems to be the safest bet to get a perfect 45° but frankly I'd rather find a quicker way to cut these miters,the shop is way too hot.:o
Thank you all again.
Ken.

[ken masoumi]

Larry,John,thank you both,you must have posted while I was typing.
I'll check to see if my miter saw has lost its alignment again.but as you mentioned the pieces were most likely not held correctly and firmly ,hence the crooked miters.

[John TenEyck]

Ken, you can cut them safely on your MS by first clamping two pieces of plywood to your saw. Put a 3/4" piece about 6" wide flat on the table and hold it in place with a little double stick tape if you can't figure out how to clamp it. Then stand another a little taller than your work piece on top of the first and clamp it to the fence on both sides of the blade. An alternative is to screw the two pieces together; then you can just clamp the upright to the back rest. Anyway, what you've made is a zero clearance insert in both planes. The workpiece is fully supported in the cut. With just a little extra work you can incorporate a clamp into the back rest but I generally don't bother because the plywood has a lot of friction and holds the work with only light finger pressure. When you make the cut stop before you go completely through the piece of wood on the table so that it remains as one piece. You can accurately cut very small pieces with this set up. You also can clamp or screw a stop block to the plywood so identical parts will be identical. Oh yeah, make the cuts as miter cuts, not bevel cuts.


John

[Jerry Thompson]

I have never regretted making my two shooting boards, 45d and 90d. With a low angle jack the joints are all but invisible. No I am not a Neander but whisper shavings coming off of a plane.....well.

[ken masoumi]

A temporary zero clearance insert, ? I never thought of doing it that way but I like it, I will give it a try Tomorrow,I just couldn't take the heat in my shop Today .
Thank you John for the suggestion.

Jerry,I would appreciate it if you could post a picture of it(45°),thanks.

[Larry Frank]

I am also in the process of making some boxes with miter corners with 1/2" thick material 3" tall and about 8" long.

I could not tell from your post if you are cutting them standing up or flat.

I am using a cabinet saw and a sled. The pieces are flat on the sled and held in place with a hold down clamp on the sled.

My sled is flat and I adjusted the blade over to 45 degrees to the sled with a digital gauge. I cut a trial and found I was off a bit so made adjustments until the pieces were 90 degrees. I checked the corners with a machinist square. In addition to getting the angle good the length of opposite sides need to be identical.

For me the sled is a key in getting reproducible cuts and accurate ones.

[Brian Holcombe]

Setup a shooting board. You can perfect this as much as you like, but a shooting board will allow you to fine tune a cut to thousands of an inch, something that is quite critical to good miters.

I build box frames for prestretched canvas and this is my preferred method.

[Harold Burrell]

Here are 2...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIcIOfQGja8

and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ypbvcxb-8M

I made the Paul Seller's one. It works well.

[Larry Frank]

This is the sled that I used for cutting the 45° corners.


318518

[Pat Barry]

I am also in the process of making some boxes with miter corners with 1/2" thick material 3" tall and about 8" long.

I could not tell from your post if you are cutting them standing up or flat.

I am using a cabinet saw and a sled. The pieces are flat on the sled and held in place with a hold down clamp on the sled.

My sled is flat and I adjusted the blade over to 45 degrees to the sled with a digital gauge. I cut a trial and found I was off a bit so made adjustments until the pieces were 90 degrees. I checked the corners with a machinist square. In addition to getting the angle good the length of opposite sides need to be identical.

For me the sled is a key in getting reproducible cuts and accurate ones.

This is the method that works best IMO. I wouldn't use the miter gage unless those were just something like shoe moldings

[Ted Reischl]

I use a sled almost identical to Larry Frank's. I am guessing he uses an endstop too.

What really makes these things work is a Wixey gage. No fiddling with triangles, no test cutting.

A key to making good fitting miters on a box is to cut all the joints on pieces that are the same length before moving on to the next side. I make some small boxes that are six sided, all joints are mitered. No end grain anywhere.

[Greg Sznajdruk]

If this is going to be a frequently recurring process then this may be of interest.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=32922&cat=1,42884

Greg

[ken masoumi]

I am also in the process of making some boxes with miter corners with 1/2" thick material 3" tall and about 8" long.

I could not tell from your post if you are cutting them standing up or flat.

I'm cutting them flat .
I really like your sled with the hold down clamp,it seems to be the perfect solution for repeatable miter cuts especially on tall (3" and up)pieces.thanks for posting the picture.

[ken masoumi]

Update: I decided to go with a 45° chamfer bit and router method so I just ordered the bit from Lee Valley ,it has one of the widest cutting length available online(1.1/4"). thank you all for your comments, pictures ,and the links ,for now I'll stick with cutting it with a router which is the quickest way for me to get this project done and out of the shop((anniversary gift), later on I'll explore all the sled/shooting board ideals and take my time building the proper jig.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/images/item/woodworking/router/16j3008bh.jpg