mitre saw

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I am trying to locate a hand mitre saw that can cut an 8 3/4" skirting. Whilst I appreciate that a power saw would do this, I am reinstating skirtings room by room, and hire costs for a circular saw would be prohibitive. I have searched the internet, and the largest I have found so far is a Nobex, which is still too small.

Alternatively, does anyone know of a way of fabricating a jig to do this.

N.B. I need stepless adjustment, since very few of the corners I will be working with are exactly 90 degrees, 45 degrees, etc.

Any info would be gratefully received.
Best Regards

D.T.

 

[Anonymous]

Quite honestly you are better off learning how to use a hand saw properly. That and good sharp plane to true things up. Don't forget that the very slightest cupping on the board will make things more awkward whatever tools you use. Mike.

 

[Anonymous]

Quite a lot of professional carpenters don't mitre for inside right-angle joints in skirtings. They cut a negative of the face profile of the skirting into the end-grain of the abutting board, and make the joint that way. This has the advantage of accommodating non-90 deg. joints much more easily than a mitre.

Frankly I don't think I'd do it that way myself, but it might solve your problem.

 

[Anonymous]

That's the proper way to do it David, all internal angles on skirting should be scribed if the timber shrinks it is much easier to fill than a mitred joint.
It does take longer to do well though!

The other David.

 

[Anonymous]

This is easy enough to do with a bit of scrap. All you need is 2 wood blocks with something flat and metal glued to their sides (eg a 6" metal ruler or what have you). Just clamp them to the workpiece in any position you wish.

4 blocks would make it user-wobble-proof.

Alternative one could use a £27 toolsation.com electric mitre saw to do it, reversing the wood half way thru the cut. Its surprising how accurate this can be if done with care, lining it up by looking across the edges of the teeth. Within a fraction of a mm is easily achieved this way, and I cant imagine needing that kind of accuracy for skirting.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

A tip I picked up from a professional joiner was to use a large diameter drill in making the internal butt joint. Many skirting mouldings have round components to their profile (a torus is a good example). Mark the profile on the piece to be cut, use the drill first to cut the most prominent part of the curve, then cut the rest with a coping saw. Adjust finally with chisels and gouges/rasps.

For external mitres I agree that you dont need sophisticated machinery. However I find it easiest to cut the mitres on a table saw set for 45 degrees, then to use a low angle block plane (or a proper mitre plane if you are lucky enough to have/be able to afford one) to adjust the fit if needed.

 

[Anonymous]

This should do it for you


Compound Mitre Saw

 

[Anonymous]

David Penrose is quite right, I had forgotten to mention internal angles. Method is -
Cut an internal mitre on what ever it is you are working with - skirting, dado, anything moulded.
Take your coping saw and cut the shape that you see on the face of the work.
This will give you a perfectly scribed joint if you do it properly.
I found this a little difficult to describe so I hope that makes sense. Mike.

 

[Anonymous]

Makes a hell of a lot more sense than my attempted description, Mike!