Cutting a miter?

[Steve Roxberg]

I have a right tilt contractors saw and need to cut some miters on a 2 5/8" wide board.

With the mitergage on the left the scrap piece is getting caught by the blade on the bottom side and violently kicking back. Violently enough that it got sucked down in to my insert and pushed the blade into my throat plate.

Should the scrap piece be to the left of the blade and the good piece being controled by the miter gage be underneath the blade?

[Jason Beam]

Zero clearance insert will prevent the falling down and possibly some of the kickback.

Stick a scrap on your miter gage that is taller than the height of the blade as a sacraficial fence that extends past the blade and will push the offcut past the blade.

If you're beveling (blade tilted instead of miter gage), the sacrificial fence should help prevent trapping of the offcut.

Hope that makes sense :)

[Steve Roxberg]

To be clear the blade has been tilted to a 45.

I use zero clearance throat plates but how would you make one for a 45?

[Bill Wyko]

Just use a couple of pieces of scrap and make a back and a bottom. Make sure no screws or nails will be in the path of the blade. Then clamp it to the saw on both sides. Then run the saw through the sacrificial fence but make sure the saw blade is set as to not go all the way through the bottom piece. Also if you are using a blade with a lot of teeth, inspect it to see if any debris is between the teeth of the blade. I've had that happen when I'm cutting segments and it's very nerve racking.

[Chuck Lenz]

You should really be useing a miter saw for that task.

[Steve Roxberg]

The scrap attached to the miter gauge worked perfectly, thanks for the idea.

[glenn bradley]

To be clear the blade has been tilted to a 45.

I use zero clearance throat plates but how would you make one for a 45?

Same as any other but I cut a stopped dado on the bottom to within about an 1/8" of the top surface. This lets the ZCI set in the throat and I raise the blade to cut the slot like usual.