miter sled for frames

[George Broughton]

looking at incra miter express, jointech and the dubby to make picture frames. any one have experiences, preferences?

[Bruce Wrenn]

My vote goes to the Dubby. I was impressed enough to actually buy one. The DVD is a good tutorial. Unfortunately their customer service sucks, according to all I have read. Jerry Cole (inventor of the Dubby) also has a book out on building picture frames.

[Joe Chritz]

This isn't exactly an answer but are you looking at a dedicated sled to do miters or something to use for all projects that will also do miters?

For a dedicated sled a shop built one is the way to go.

If you are looking for all around use, I haven't used any of those but have used an incra miter gauge and it was a quality piece.

Joe

[Bob Genovesi]

My vote goes to the Dubby. I was impressed enough to actually buy one. The DVD is a good tutorial. Unfortunately their customer service sucks, according to all I have read. Jerry Cole (inventor of the Dubby) also has a book out on building picture frames.

I've got to agree with Bruce as well.

I picked up my Dubby crosscut sled about 7 years ago for about $150 is memory serves me correctly. Back then the DVD wasn't available and I'd be interested to see what it has to say. I have a few suggestions to improve on its design but then again it does work pretty well right out of the box. If you'd like a better photo or two just let be know and I'll take some of mine and post them here.

If you're building more than 2 frames then I'd build a dedicated sled to cut both left hand and right hand miters "exactly" at 45 degrees.

The Dubby Cross Cut Sled

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/BobbyG53/dubby1_4.jpg

I hope this helps your decision making.

[Phil Thien]

May I suggest building your own? It really isn't that difficult. Mine works great:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=80623

[Jim Becker]

I agree with Joe...I'd build a dedicated jig for this. In fact, I did exactly that for the cabinet saw I previously used. Dead-accurate miters because any deviations are offset by alternating sides.

[Terry Beadle]

Check out this video for some tips.

http://www.woodworkingonline.com/2006/11/28/vodcast-4-building-picture-frames-in-your-shop/

I made the jig shown in this video and it works great. One caveat is that I use a David Charlesworth inspired shotting birdhouse to tweak the joints with a hand plane. This actually saves time.

I also bought the Kreg miter fence. When used in the table saw with a Forrest blade it's dead on quick for production work. Cost me less than $150 at the wood working show in Atlanta Ga.

Keep us posted on your results. Good Luck!

[Nissim Avrahami]

I made a dedicated 45° cutting sled. It compensates for all the "a little bit out of perfect" blade alignment.

I'm an amateur and made only 15~20 frames but on non of them I had to "fine tune" the 45°.......from the table saw to the gluing table.

Another advantage with my method is that, the stop is located at the front so even if the frame member is 10' long, I don't have to make any "extensions" to mount the stops.

niki

[Troy Cleckler]

I got the jointech sled from a woodworking show a couple years ago and love it. I like the option of being able to adjust it above or below the 90 degree or 0 mark and if you take time to set it up right it's dead accurate.