How to Make Acute Cuts With a Miter Saw
One way to cut an angle beyond the capability of your compound miter saw is to use a 90-degree jig. Here’s how to make one.
The video above was inspired by this smart reader-submitted tip from Issue 55 of Fine Homebuilding magazine:
A couple of years ago I was doing some trim with my friend Marcos Bradley. He was running base around a series of odd angles—angles he couldn’t readily cut with his chop saw. After some thought, he assembled a jig similar to the one shown in the drawing.
Use clamps or screws to secure one of the jig’s fences to the saw’s fence. Clamp the workpiece to the jig (block under the far end of long pieces) and you’re all set to cut accurate acute angles.
—M. Felix Marti, Monroe, OR
Edited and illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #55
View Comments
Acute is angle less than 90 degrees
Obtuse is angle from 90 to 180 , I think you mean obtuse.
The tip is poorly written. It is an acute angle that is being cut.
Mitre saws can only cut + or - about 50 degrees. (Which is actually 90-50=40 degrees on most table saw mitre gauges.) Therefore, if the two walls intersect at less than 80 degrees, one can't cut the mitres without this tip.
I guess it's conceivable that walls might meet at 80 degrees or less, but it would be very unusual.
The real question is why do cuts on a table saw mitre read 90 degrees (correctly), but on a mitre saw, 0 degrees. Both cuts are 90 degrees to the length of the wood being cut. I'm sure that more trim has been wasted because of this inconsistency than can be imagined.
The responses to this tip are amusing. This tip was published September 1989, which is 28 years ago. The author might not even be alive today. Despite this, I do think that it is wonderful that the commenters correct it for today's readers. There are many old tips in this series that are fantastic, even for today's requirements. Bravo.