Guillotine or Manual Mitre Saw? The guillotine is quicker. The mitre saw may need finishing with a 45 degree bench sander. What I am wondering is whether the eventual result is the same? Although the pro framers may swear by the guillotine is the work indistinguishable (in the right hands!) if it is done with a mitre saw?
I'm not a framer by any means, but I like using the guillotine to sneak up on the perfect size. It's harder to take a 64th or so off with a miter than with a guillotine.
How about the miter saw and a shooting board and plane to sweeten the cuts up?
I did a presentation of shooting boards at the Northeastern Woodworkers Association's Showcase in April and it was well received. When Thomas Lie-Nielson handed Chris Schwarz (Popular Woodworking) the new CD on shooting boards I commented that I thought it was a great CD. They both looked at me... Lie-Nielson asked "You've seen this, it's brand new?" I responded that I saw it on his web site and ordered it about 10 days before. ;-) I told them both that I was demoing shooting boards in the Jigs and Fixtures area... We all had a nice little discussion and I got to handle Schwarz's new half-back saw. It was a surreal conversation. ;-) I think the best line of the day though was when I guy said, "I met Bill Clinton last week but I'm more impressed meeting you." This was directed towards Lie-Nielson. ;-)
Anyhow, back to the shooting boards. If you've got a decent hand plane you can easily sweeten up the miters. Generally, the wider the molding the larger the plane you should use. This as you need the additional mass for good momentum through the larger material. A side benefit is that you can use the plane for something else while the guillotine is useful only for sweetening.
Thanks everyone, plenty of food for thought there and nothing too expensive. I aleady have a ten inch hand plane for years. I had never heard of a mitre sled, so I looked up this site:Incredibly detailed plans:
I looked at the sled and tried to get the PDF he's provided but it looks like we must have overwhelmed his site. If anyone else got it, would you mind posting it to the binaries group ? Or will this once again cause 'legal' problems ?
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