Renewed faith in the Neander approach

[Rob Luter]

I’m making a box from scraps as an exercise in small scale casework. The top calls for a mitered face frame. Mitered frames are my nemesis. I usually use my table saw and an Incra miter gauge, but still battle getting everything tweaked just right. There are usually gaps.

I wasn’t in the mood for setting the saw up today so I broke out a garage sale find of several years ago. A Millers Falls/Acme Langdon miter box with saw, both in nearly new condition (scored for the gloat worthy price of $10 as I recall). This thing really cuts accurately. I cleaned the ends up with my shooting board and an old drafting triangle held down with blue tape.

I put all of 30 minutes into the whole process and it’s amazingly accurate. No noise. Less dust. No gaps. No more fiddling with the table saw. Now I need to make a proper 45* fence. Good project for next weekend.

424572

424573

[James Pallas]

Rob, Find a place to keep it handy. Much easier to use then setting up a table saw for just a few cuts. Kind of like getting a nail gun and a compressor out to drive 5 nails.

[Steven Mikes]

I have never used a miter box & saw; what is the advantage vs. marking a 45° line, cutting by eye, and trimming with a 45° shooting board, which is what I currently do?

[James Pallas]

I have never used a miter box & saw; what is the advantage vs. marking a 45° line, cutting by eye, and trimming with a 45° shooting board, which is what I currently do?
Depending on the saw, in many cases you don’t need the shooting board.

[steven c newman]

Just set the mitre box, and go....split the lines, too. :D

[Jim Koepke]

I have never used a miter box & saw; what is the advantage vs. marking a 45° line, cutting by eye, and trimming with a 45° shooting board, which is what I currently do?

Depending on the miter box, you can even make cuts in between the standard pre-set angles.

Some miter boxes will hold the work sloped at one angle while cutting another angle for compound angle cutting. This is handy when working with crown molding.

If your are doing a lot of the same size pieces with the same angle a stop can be set up. Then you don't even have to mark the work.

jtk

[Rob Luter]

I have never used a miter box & saw; what is the advantage vs. marking a 45° line, cutting by eye, and trimming with a 45° shooting board, which is what I currently do?

Nothing. I liked the Miter Box because it assured my cuts were close to perfect off the saw. A couple strokes on the shooting board is all it took. When I make square cuts I use a bench hook and accomplish the same thing. With my history on mitered frames, I don't mind the extra step.

[mike stenson]

I have never used a miter box & saw; what is the advantage vs. marking a 45° line, cutting by eye, and trimming with a 45° shooting board, which is what I currently do?

Like any jig/fixture, ease of operation. Oh, I'll often set mine up for repeated cuts too.

[Tom M King]

That was a great find!

I have, and still use sometimes, a Langdon-Acme just like that, which I bought new in 1973 off the shelf in a family owned building supply. Every finish carpenter I knew then used one. It was at least 25 years later before anyone sold a powered miter saw that I wanted to use. It's still easier to tote that than roll in a miter saw for small jobs, and makes a much smaller mess.

I was forced to learn to sharpen handsaws when, after my normal guy passed on, I sent the long backsaw to someone else, and they filed it out of parallel with the back. I later found out that guy had vision problems. That was in the early '80's, but I'm glad I was forced to learn how to sharpen one. It seemed a mystery to me before then.

I find it easier to just build different shooting boards for specific angles than use an adjustable one. Then if you need to trim a 45, you can just grab that board. I built a stack of them in one session. Some still don't have a fence on them yet.

[Phil Mueller]

Rob, glad you found the “old ways” worked well for you. I use my MF miter box for all 45* cuts. It sits under my bench on the shelf and easy to pull out when needed. Just a few swipes on the shooting board to remove the saw marks.

[David Carroll]

The last shooting board I made I fitted one of those cheap plastic (sometimes aluminum) speed squares from the Borg onto it so it would act as a removable miter fence, much the same idea as your drafting square. Worked like a charm!

DC