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Clam
Clamps

1-800-96Miter
(1-800-966-4837 )
P.O. Box 812
Holden, Maine 04429

 

 

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Miter Clamps
for
Perfect Miters ...... Fast

An Article
"Perfect Miters Every Time"
by Jim Chestnut

Article First Published in "Fine Homebuilding Magazine"
issue #164, July 2004

Edited by Jim Chestnut for web site publication.

All pictures are courtesy of "Fine Homebuilding Magazine", though most were not used in the orignial publication. Any inaccuracies, omissions, advertising, or inappropriate verbiage that may appear in THIS article did NOT appear in "Fine Homebuilding" and are solely the result of my own ineptitude and/or megalomania, greed, perversity, or any other of a wide range of diverse character defects.

Page 6
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We now have all the upstairs measurements on the story pole. We put it close enough to the chop saw to easily read the measurements written on it. So now we can shove our mitered (and possibly already slotted) casing end to the stop, read #1X = +6, mark the casing at 6/16ths to the right of center off the rule on the saw fence, slide the casing a few inches to the right, and whack it square at the mark. We then label the leg 1X, and check it off on the list of legs before proceeding to the next.

 

 

This method of marking lengths from a stop ensures that your apprentice never mistakes a 6 for a 9 when reading the tape upside down, nor sees 1/16th over 85" as 1/16th under 85". Nor can he hook the miter with the tape rivet instead of the hook. Though we would never do these things ourselves, our apprentices, helpers and the guy out sick do that routinely - and you‘ve probably even heard of it happening to some experienced men as well.

 

 

That said, you can always still use a conventional tape for the initial measurements, and stick a Quick Rule on your saw fence registering it to a specific long point measurement such as 84 inches to the center of the tape from the stop. The net result will be the same – very fast, very accurate marking of stock to length; and, consequently, production speed cutting of variable lengths.

 

 

That stick of casing illustrates how we cut a bunch of right legs out of long sticks. To square off the bottom is counter productive until we have the exact measurements. The cutoff from this piece is likewise a right leg with the miter already on it. Both pieces stay this way until they are cut to the final length. There is no reason to change the saw angle until all the right door leg miters, right window leg miters, left door head miters, and left window head miters have been cut for,say, the whole upstairs. At any time, these miters can be slotted for biscuits.

 

Chuck Bickford, my editor at "Fine Homebuilding", refused to allow me a smoke until after he had taken a picture of my "Hunchback of Notre Dame" impression shown below.

 

 

I am in the process of marking the same leg as in the picture above for the final cut to length.

Head casings on both windows and doors of the same nominal widths are usually able to be mass cut to final length. We use welding clamps without screws to speed up stop moves for different width doors and windows. If there are only a few of one kind, we mark them traditionally - with the hook, not the rivet.

 

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