miters

[gerry]

Hi All,

I am fairly new to woodworking and am trying to aquire some new skills... I am in the middle of making an oak framed mirror, I have the timber thicknessed and planed and am about to embark on cutting the miters! I dont have access to a table saw, however I do have a router and a flush cutting bit (the type with the bearing at the bottom). I was planning to make a 45' jig from 18mm ply that I could clamp my frames to and then run the flush cutting bit over it with the bearing running across the ply to hopefully create the perfect 45' angles!!! Does this sound like a reasonable idea? Do any of you have a plan for such a jig?

Hope you can help as I dont want to end up with some really pretty firewood :)

Gerry

[GarageWoodworks]

Sounds like a bad idea. You would have to make the cut in one pass at the max depth (with bearing on the bottom) with the bit cutting on both sides.

Use a hand saw and a miter box and it will be 10X faster and safer!

[gerry]

I was planning on rough cutting the miter and truing up with this method so that the bit would only be removing around 1mm or so of stock. Can you elaborate on why you think this is a bad idea please - remember im a noob! Thanks.

I hear you but im not too confident with my skills yet and fear that the miter would never line up!

[dadiOH]

1. You'll blow out (splinter) the exit side. Avoidable but you're a noob :)
2. Superfluous. If you can make the 45 degree cut on the ply to make your jig you could make a 45 degree cut directly on the frame members. __________________

If you can't cut it with a miter box you won't do any better with a router bit. Just use a fine toothed saw and all will be well.

[Michael Faurot]

If after making the cuts with the hand saw and miter box, it's discovered things need to be fine tuned or the ends are little rough use a shooting board.

[dadiOH]

Let me add a bit...

More than accurate 45 degree angles go into making a frame...the cuts need to be vertical...the stock needs to be the same width...the lengths of opposing pieces needs to be the same.

IME, that last one is the one that people tend to have trouble with. One reason is that any rotating cutting device tries to pull (or push) the stock along the fence when cutting at other than 90 degrees. That includes router bits. And the harder the wood the more the cutting device tries to pull it. OK, you could clamp your stock on your jig, problem solved if it is clamped firmly enough.

You didn't say how wide your stock was but keep in mind that the router has to rest on something while you cut and if the stock is narrow the router may rock. Even if the stock is wide, there isn't a whole lot of router base plate on it at start and finish. The solution here is to use other pieces of your stock along the sides of the one being cut so they can provide a running surface for the base plate. Another solution is a bit with the bearing on top so that jig can be wide and clamped on top of stock.

All in all, it is just a lot easier and probably more accurate to use a miter box rather than a router. Especially a hand held one.

Good luck with the frame.

[Buck Turgidson]

Nothing wrong with practicing on some scrap first. That's how I learned to make nice coped joints.

I get pretty good miters by clamping the stock in a cheap plastic miter box. It is the slipping in the box that generally screws it up.

[J.]