Shopsmith Forums

It is hard to beat even a modestly priced compound miter saw for such cuts...


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I ran into the same issue last year when I was building a box/bird house type project. I set the table saw up as you did but I felt very uncomfortable with the cut. The solution that I found was to use my band saw for the cut instead of the table saw. I was able to set up the same type of bevel (just in the reverse direction) to allow me the ability to make the cut in a more comfortable position. Plus, then I didn't have to worry about that extra little piece becoming a projectile. The real difference here though is I wasn’t cutting very long pieces. For long pieces maybe some sort of custom support/guide might be in order.

Lots of good info. Thanks everyone. This is a good video that I did not see until now.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Arch ... _Miter.htm

I also like the idea of creeping the cut up until a get the full corner cut off. That would only work on one end though. The other end would need to be crosscut to length and then crept up.

A lot of work. I agree that it would be nice to just use a compound miter saw which I do not have. I bought the Shopsmith to take the place of almost all saws, but someday I will most likely get to that.

Thanks for all the help!

Attempted to cut a small piece off of scrap wood. Sure enough, it fell into the blade and violently shot out downward through the table insert.

The piece was only about 1/2 inch thick but it got knarled up a little by the blade. The scrap piece had a nice smooth beveled cut though.

Lesson Learned...

1. I need to make a table insert with a small opening to prevent the wood from falling through.

2. I should make an extended wood fence for the miter gauge to push the piece all the way through.

3. Save money for a compound miter saw or just buy a better blade for my skill saw.

hopyard wrote:Attempted to cut a small piece off of scrap wood. Sure enough, it fell into the blade and violently shot out downward through the table insert.

The piece was only about 1/2 inch thick but it got knarled up a little by the blade. The scrap piece had a nice smooth beveled cut though.

Lesson Learned...

1. I need to make a table insert with a small opening to prevent the wood from falling through.

2. I should make an extended wood fence for the miter gauge to push the piece all the way through.

3. Save money for a compound miter saw or just buy a better blade for my skill saw.

Pushing past the saw blade is always a good practice. Tilt or no tilt.

Many accidents and or close calls have happened by drawing a cut off board back past the turning blade. The drag may cause the piece to rotate enough to catch the blade and launch it. Don't ask how I know!

You could use a 45 degree router bit. If you use a hand-held circular saw to cut your boards close to their finished size, you can then clamp a fence to the board and true up the miter with with router bit. It's a cumbersome process, but works. The easiest way to do it is with a table saw with tilting arbor, but most anything beats having to dodge those little cut offs after finishing a cut that occur with a tilting table.

I kind of have saws coming out of my ears so I just don't usually use any of my SS's for cuts like that. I was looking and decided that if I needed to that I would make an add-on table top (maybe only from the blade to the left) that would bolt down through the holes in the table (on a 510 as in the picture) that the shaper fence bolts to. I would make it extend to the left past the edge of the saw table far enough that I could cut a miter gauge slot in it over far enough to the left to allow plenty of safety room between the miter gauge and the saw blade when the table is tipped to 45 degrees. The blade side of the add-on would need to be cut at a 45 degree angle as well. Then the cut-offs would just fall away from the blade.
What am I missing?


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I suppose putting the right hand side SS casters on a car hoist and raising one end of the SS to 45degrees would be out of the question.... ..no, I'm not even drinking.