Help in Making an Octagon

That's true if you are constructing a hollow octagon out of eight individual pieces. The ends of each of those pieces are cut at 22.5 degrees because it takes two of them to form the necessary 45 degree angle. But the O.P. isn't trying to assemble an octagonal-shaped "ring." He is looking to cut a solid octagon out of a solid square by clipping each of the four corners off the square. To do that, he needs to set his blade to 45 degrees.

Lee

You're right. I flip-flopped the two equal sides with the hypotenuse. (Would have made measuring easier, though. )

Lee

| I have a 4" square piece of wood that is 15" long. I need to make | it into an octagon. A table saw with blade tilted at 45 degrees | won't do it. How do I cut the corners off?

I have a right-tilt saw, too, and I think I'd be tempted to clamp a two-by to the table on the left side of the blade to serve as a temporary fence. I'd use the normal fence for positioning and alignment, then move it out of the way when I made the cuts...

Thank you *so* much for not wanting to cut a nonagon!

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

LOL!

I had just about come to that conclusion myself! Thanks.

I tried that, but my fence has a big old piece (the clamping mechanism) on the right side of the fence. That leaves no infeed area.

The jointer approach is probably the safest way to do this job even though it'd just be nibbling away. There's only 4 cuts that need to be made.

I cheated and used a CAD program.

So do I and I have done this operation many times by using a piece of scrap as a sacrificial fence on the face of the normal RH fence.

Tim W

Exactly so. Or better, a 4x4 for the temporary fence (so that the last cut has some workpiece-to-fence contact area).

It's tremendously useful sometimes to have a plywood fabricated straightedge, 'cuz those of us without jointers can't find straight edges in a lumber pile.