Popular Woodworking 2004-12 № 145, страница 47

WOODWORKING

ESSENTIALS

BY NICK ENGLER

Basic Joinery

There are three basic saw cuts: crosscuts, rips and miters. Crosscuts are made perpendicular to the wood grain, rips are cut parallel to the grain and miters are made at angles diagonally across the grain. None of these requires elaborate jigs or complex techniques, but they are the building blocks to basic joinery on the table saw.

Rips and crosscuts are used to form many joints, including the basic edge and butt joints, which can be used to

glue up a tabletop or door frame. These two cuts are also used to cut rabbets, grooves and dados. And a variation of these cuts will create a miter joint. In Chapter 2 we discussed crosscuts and rips. Now it's time to learn about miters.

Miters

Miters can be the most frustrating cuts to make. Angled cuts are harder to measure and lay out than crosscuts. To make a mitered frame perfect, both the inside

and outside dimension of the piece must match on each component. You should start with accurate measuring tools and some basic math, and then you will need to test and retest your setup to ensure its precision.

When you make a miter cut on a table saw, you run into a problem associated with crosscuts - the factory-supplied miter gauge is too small to offer adequate support for guiding most boards. To properly support the work, you must

PRO TIP:

Picture-perfect Miters

To make sure your miters are perfect, start with a new zero-clearance throat insert on your table saw. Bring the blade up through the insert until the blade height is about ¹/4" above the height of your frame material. Turn off the saw. After the blade has stopped, use a straightedge to make a mark, extending the line of the blade slot the full length of the insert. This will let you see exactly where the blade will cut. Add a sacrificial fence to your miter gauge that extends past the blade to eliminate tear-out. You can also extend the cut line to the sacrificial fence for extra alignment accuracy.