I recently bought an old house in RI. It has a seemingly ever expanding list of projects that will be occupying all of my free time for the next 3 to 5 years. There won’t be a lot of structural framing work, but a ton of molding and baseboard cutting is in my future. I’m planning on buying my first CMS. I don’t think I need the capacity or the $ of a slider, a 12″ CMS should do just fine. After somewhat obsessive reading on this topic for several days I’m down to the Makita LS1221 and the Hitachi C12LCH.
That being said my main question is how to set the bevel? The setting is just lining up the metal pointer on the graduated scale. This doesn’t seem terribly accurate. A quick calc suggests that being off 0.5 degree on a 4″ cut is 1/32″. This seems like a fair amount of slop. And 0.5 degree seems like a pretty easy error to make in the bevel setting.
I feel like I’m missing something in how to accurately set the bevel. Based on this I’m leaning towards the Hitachi because of its digital readout, but its a fair amount more $ than the makita. And people have been making bevel cuts for a LONG time without the digital so what am I missing?
eric
Replies
Welcome to Breaktime.
Now, as for your question, if we told you a high-level trade secret like how to cut an accurate miter, we'd have to kill you, and none of us wants to see that happen.
Seriously, the fence on miter saws is adjustable, so you can get close enough to a perfect 45. The detents are usually spot-on in respect to one another. Sometimes a fence will be warped, which you may fix with a hammer or may return to the store for a replacement.
BTW, I love my Hitachi 10" slider, and the laser on it helps immensly with cutting odd angles. Makita makes good tools too.
Generally you set the saw up to cut 0.0º bevel at 90º mitre and check to make it still cuts zero bevel at the 45's; if not, then you have to seriously reset the fore/aft verticity of the pivot. And that gets you to what these saws are designed to do well time after time: cut an accurate mitre.
The bevel scale is less accurate-lookiing, on some saws, than the mitre scale and you will see many saws modified with a sharpened point on the bevel indicator and sometimes with a streak of white paint and hand-markings if the scale was off, but thankfully that's rare on the newer saws. And now you know why the trim guys cut everything vertically, if they can, and why vertical capacity is a key feature.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Its called trial and error. It will be a very rare occasion when you need an exact 45 degree angle when dealing with old homes. Todays saws are pretty dern accurate...yesterdays walls are not. Most often you figure the angle you need, cut the peice and fit it, to find you need to modify some portion of the cut. Such modifications will most often be done by hand.
FWIW, I own a Makita 12" dual bevel sliding compound miter saw. The markings on the bevel scale are so small and tight, that there is no way to be sure I`m getting the exact setting I`m looking for...for example, when cutting an inside corner on a peice of crown moulding with a 38 degree pitch, the bevel setting is 33.9 degrees. The markings on the scale are about 1/32" apart. There aint no way for me to be certain I`m at 33.9 as opposed to 33.7. ....but it will get my cut close enough to fit, and adjust.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
Like the other guys have explained, in this case, close enough is good enough. So, get the biggest saw you can afford. You'll never regret having the extra cutting capacilty. And get a saw that bevels left and right ... it makes life a lot easier. The makita is a very good saw ... if you can save significant $ over the Hitachi, it's probably the way to go for you.
Youi might try to find a trim carepenter doing work in your area, maybe trimming a new house, and ask him if he likes his saw, and ask him to let you fiddle with it.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
So you want to get into fractions of a degree. One degree is about 1/16" at 3" and the bevel scales are pretty small. You would need a venier scale and a magnifying glass to get more precise.
For this degree of precision, there is another way. It may take some trigometry and a scientific calculator but the run/rise system will give you more precision. For instance, if you go 1 foot -- of more precisely 12.00" from your blade along the fence and then 12.00" out [perpendicular], then you will have formed an exact 45º angle. I think you are looking for tangents here.
More practical uses are slight modifications to achieve 89.7º. At 12.00" you place a thin shim of [____] which will result in your desired cut angle. You will have to cut your workpiece to within 1/8" or so first.
A radial arm saw is good for this type of precision work because it gives you a base fence of about 2' [24.00"] to work with.
~Peter
If you live near a HD you may be able to rent a saw and see if you like the settings for the quality of work you are doing.
Most all carpenters miter their joints and you will find that the exact degree is not as important as you might think.
Bill
Outside joints get mitered, inside joints get coped. Personally, I like the DeWalt miter scale better than any I've ever used. The 1/4° marks make it a whole bunch easier to repeat cuts...still haven't seen the perfect saw, though<G> Don't worry, we can fix that later!
still haven't seen the perfect saw, though<G>
Yes you have BB...it had an amazing ability to feed rodents while it cut wood!
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. According to him I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
I just put vodka and soda through my nose!LOL Don't worry, we can fix that later!
even though i have compound miter saws, i rarelly use the bevel at all
as you point out the bevel adjustment is tricky to set compared to to the miter scale
with a 12 inch saw there will be little that you cant cut using the miter detents
for cutting crown and other large trim pieces, i hold the crown on the table at the correct spring angle so that i just need to use the miter settings
caulking is not a piece of trim
Let's see.........old house.....trim cut to within 1/32 ".........3-5years ..........DANG! (if ya know what I mean!)..........pass the vodka!
Edited 1/7/2005 7:25 pm ET by JerryHill