Miter Cuts w/o Tilting the Table???

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:07 am

Is there a Shopsmith accessory that aids in making miter cuts on wide pieces without tilting the table?

Is that tool the Joint-Matic Bevel Miter Gauge (555461)?

It appears that the Bevel-Miter Gauge went the way of the Joint-Matic.

brown_hawk · Post by **brown_hawk** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:48 am

I'm assuming that you mean an angle cut on the edge. For that, you could do:

the router table with a bevel bit in the router; or

a hand held router or saw against a straight edge with the same bit; or

possibly a shaper or a molder if you can find the proper blades.

If you are talking some kind of production run, it would probably be more effecient to make a jig that you coould pop the board into, and then run the router against the jig.

Why does it have to be on the SS?? It would seem that you are limiting your options by insisting on using the SS.

Hawk

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:35 am

First of all, I am inquiring about a miter cut (of any angle) across the end of a board. A cut like you might want to do if you were building a shadow box to hang on the wall.

Yes, there are other ways. The Shopsmith does not have to be the foundation for every wood working operation.

But I have a Shopsmith and a lot of accessories that I have never used enough to know how they all work. I am simply trying to understand how all of these are/were designed to function. The real beneficiary of my efforts are those who are working with me - my oldest daughter and my grand kids who have all shown an interest in the Shopsmith and what it can do.

The Bevel-Miter Gauge is no longer shown in the catalogs. It was previously but disappeared about the same time as the Joint-Matic.
I think the Bevel Miter Gauge was designed as an accessory to work with the Joint-Matic. Maybe not.

The question, I guess, is does it have any utility if one has no Joint-Matic? It it safe to use as an accessory on the Shopsmith?

I apologize for not being able to frame my questions effectively.

kd6vpe · Post by **kd6vpe** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:00 am

Dusty,
Good question. Kinda like what I was trying to ask about before on my molding project. I have decided that I will place my baseboard on the miter guage set to 45 degrees and instead of laying the board flat on the table like a normal miter cut I will place the board against the mtier guage standing up and cut the bevel that way. No need to tilt the table but I am unsure how this will work. I know there is a limit to the depth of cut meaning the width of the board can't be more that 3 inches or so. If this does not work then compond miter saw will have to be the way. Maybe someone out there will have a better suggestion.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:44 pm

The Bevel-Miter Gauge (555461) works fairly well for cutting miters; however, there is a big drawback.

Because of the way the jig rests on the main table (set up as a table saw), the stock can only be about 1" longer than the required finished piece (measured long point to long point).

The procedure would be as follows:

Prepare all of the pieces to be mitered by cutting pieces that are no more than 1" longer than the long-point to long-point finished dimension.

Cut a miter on one end of each piece, cutting off no more than is necessary to complete a miter cut.

Measure and mark (on the infeed side) the finished dimension for the 2nd cut (measured long-point to long-point).

Cut the miter to finished length.

There is not much flexibility using this fixture for end cut miters. I will probably not use it much more in the future than I have in the past.

I have requested documentation from Shopsmith. If, after reading the documentation, I find that I have improperly characterized the Bevel-Miter Gauge I will that here.

For now, I'll hang mine back on the wall. Since I don't have a Joint-Matic, I suspect that I am trying to use it in a manner other than it was intended.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:03 pm

Just curious, why don't you want to tilt the table? Are you cutting exceptionally long pieces of wood?
The reason the table tilts is so you can make cuts like this. If you are cutting long pieces of crown molding, etc., you are better off using a power miter saw. But if you don't have one, with the proper set-up (compound miter cut) you can use the SS with the table tilted to cut crown molding (I have done it). But I have a miter saw too, so it is more convenient for cutting this type of molding.
The accessory you might want to think about is the table saw sled. Not knowing exactly what type of angle cut you want to make, this suggestion is iffy at best. The sled allows you to cut wide boards the same as you would with a miter gauge, but with more control because the sled is held in place with the T-slots.

edflorence · Post by **edflorence** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:22 pm

kd6vpe wrote: I have decided that I will place my baseboard on the miter guage set to 45 degrees and instead of laying the board flat on the table like a normal miter cut I will place the board against the mtier guage standing up and cut the bevel that way. No need to tilt the table but I am unsure how this will work. I know there is a limit to the depth of cut meaning the width of the board can't be more that 3 inches or so. :

I don't have experience with any Joint Matic tools, but I do know that the SS Miter Pro works great for this sort of "picture frame" miter, as long as the overall height of the cut, as you say, is less than 3". By attaching a flat board to the outside of my MkV 500 auxiliary table as an outfeed table I have been able to cut some pretty long frame legs. I think if I were to try this with the miter gage instead of the Miter Pro I would clamp the workpiece to the miter gage fence pretty securely. Even with a sandpaper facing there might not be enough length to the fence to ensure the piece doesn't slip.

One trick I have learned that aids in lining up these type of cuts is to run a strip of masking tape in front of the saw blade, then (saw unplugged, of course) with a straight edge mark the tape with a line that represents the outside limits of the teeth on the workpiece side of the blade. The cut line on the workpiece is then registered on this line when setting the "stop" on the Miter Pro.

And, as has been mentioned before, there are always options such as a sharp plane and a miter shooting board!

Let us know how you finally decide to get the cuts done.

brown_hawk · Post by **brown_hawk** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:59 pm

Sorry, Dusty, my apologies.

Can you post a picture of the bevel miter gauge? So far the only pictures I've seen just shoe the regular miter gauge.

It sounds like it should do compound miter cuts. But the length thing is throwing me off.

Hawk

ETA: Okay, found pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/12199425@N ... 306102105/ posted by reible

Looks like it is made to do an angled router bit profile on the end of a board. Good for crown molding?

I remember seeing it advertised, but I can't remember anything about it and what it was supposed to do.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:30 pm

brown_hawk wrote: Can you post a picture of the bevel miter gauge? So far the only pictures I've seen just shoe the regular miter gauge.

It sounds like it should do compound miter cuts. But the length thing is throwing me off.
Hawk

I think it is designed to function with the Joint-Matic and trying to use it without a Joint-Matic may be ill-advised. I've requested documentation from Shopsmith.

As always, they were most accommodating. Linda read the pertinent parts to me but I'm waiting for something to read myself.

Here are pictures of the Bevel-Miter Gauge. Please ignore the fact that the blade is set much to high to be safe. Not good.

eldyfig · Post by **eldyfig** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:29 pm

Nice pics, Dusty. I want one of those.

kd6vpe wrote:Dusty,
Good question. Kinda like what I was trying to ask about before on my molding project. I have decided that I will place my baseboard on the miter guage set to 45 degrees and instead of laying the board flat on the table like a normal miter cut I will place the board against the mtier guage standing up and cut the bevel that way. No need to tilt the table but I am unsure how this will work. I know there is a limit to the depth of cut meaning the width of the board can't be more that 3 inches or so. If this does not work then compond miter saw will have to be the way. Maybe someone out there will have a better suggestion.

I tried it that way for cutting a baseboard, but found I got a much more precise cut tilting the table.