Lie Nielsen \ Wenzloff Mitre Box

[John O'Neill]

Hi All

I wonder if we will ever see new mitre boxes fashioned after the old cast iron ones? (the ones that had fittings for a long backsaw?) It would seem like a natural add on for Wenzloff and Lie Nielsen.

Or consider manufacturing a high quality set of brass guides for a wooden 'shop made' mitre box.

What do you think?

[Don C Peterson]

I dunno, the problem is the initial tooling and setup costs and for something like that I would imagine those costs to be very high. In a world of cheap power tools, LN, LV, etc... have to be very picky about which tools to produce.

The relative ease with which you can make your own miter box and the relative non-scarcity of quality vintage miter boxes together with a significant capital investment and realatively small market would seem to indicate No. But that's just a guess on my part.

[Mike Wilkins]

If I recall, Lee Valley and Garrett Wade still have them in their catalogs. Not sure of the country of origin, but they are still available, just not widely used due to miter/sliding miter saws. I personally kick myself every time I think of the one in a local tool store (Retool) that I passed on.
These would be really nice for small jobs, remote work sites away from any electricity, and is faster to set up.
You may want to look around antique stores, flea markets or hand tool dealers around the country.

[Chris Friesen]

I wonder if we will ever see new mitre boxes fashioned after the old cast iron ones?

The tensioned-blade kind (like this one)

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=32926&cat=1,42884,43836

can use thinner blades than any backsaw and thus will likely be easier to push. Also, the saws are longer for a more efficient stroke, and the whole thing is cheaper than a good backsaw.

[Bill Houghton]

These would be really nice for small jobs, remote work sites away from any electricity, and is faster to set up.

A good miter box, like a Millers-Falls Langdon Acme, can slice off a sawkerf's thickness of wood at the end of a piece of molding - just like a powered saw can.

Tooling and building is undoubtedly expensive - in their day, these saws sold for more than planes!

[Don C Peterson]

The tensioned-blade kind (like this one)

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=32926&cat=1,42884,43836

can use thinner blades than any backsaw and thus will likely be easier to push. Also, the saws are longer for a more efficient stroke, and the whole thing is cheaper than a good backsaw.

The blade may be thinner, but those old miter boxes came with saws with up to 28" blades, that miter saw has 25" and I paid quite a bit less than $160, but then again maybe you meant a good NEW backsaw.

The old saws can be sharpened instead of buying specailty blades at $16 a pop.

[Bill Moser]

The tensioned-blade kind (like this one)

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=32926&cat=1,42884,43836

can use thinner blades than any backsaw and thus will likely be easier to push. Also, the saws are longer for a more efficient stroke, and the whole thing is cheaper than a good backsaw.

Maybe easier to push, I don't know -- I looked at these a few years ago, but ended up buying an old stanley 2358 off of ebay (28" back saw) in great condition for about $60, and couldn't be happier with it.

[John Shuk]

I have the saw pictured. I'm not thrilled with it. I use it for cutting pine with my young son and it hasn't done well as far as clearing the kerf. I haven't used it for hardwoods yet but the hold downs are pretty flimsy as well. I don't think I'm asking too much of it to cut 1x6 or 1x4.
My son finds it nearly impossible to use which bums me out a little.

[John O'Neill]

I really like Bob Smalser's and Robert Rozaieski's ideas posted here:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=90108&highlight=miter

If you meld the two together......
I think the fittings of Bob's, or something like them manufactured in polished brass with some additional features (Let Lee Valley, Lie Nielsen and Wenzloff suggest how to do that). And then how about using some of the wood in the Miter Box of Robert's to match the Curly Maple or Rosewood handles of one of their excellent Back saws?

That would be a 'stunner'. I couldn't imagine the setup costs to be too much and a tool junkie like me would have to scoop one up. :rolleyes:

[David Keller NC]

What I'd like to see L-N reproduce a lot more than a miter saw box is the Stanley miter shooting board and plane. They're big collector's items, and a good one with all of the parts can go for $2,000. I make a lot of frames and mitered boxes, and frankly, I just don't rely on the sawn cuts, whether done with a power miter saw, a food-powered miter box, or a table saw and a long miter fence.

The reason is that the sawn surface is rarely accurate and smooth enough to make a perfect miter joint, but 3 passes on a shooting board always yields an incredible fit. I use my shop-made board so much that I've had to replace it 3 times due to wear. A ductile iron version with a matching plane would be wonderful, particularly if made to modern machining tolerances.