Delta Miter Saw Help

[Danno30008]

Hey:
I have a Delta 10" miter saw and am having a problem with the miters.:mad:
When I cut a miter for a picture frame using a board that is 3/4" thick, I have no problems at all. The four miters glue up real nice, no gaps in the joint.
Well, today I cut some miters and stood the board upright so I was cutting a 3 1/2" miter cut. When I went to glue them up, the first two joints were just fine. The last two were way out of wack! The top edge was just fine, but there was a taper from top to bottom.
I held the boards tight up against the fence while cutting and I have two "Mac-Daddy" miter clamps which you can see here:
http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=815-268&search=Miter%20Clamp
I checked the blade and it is square at 90 degrees.
So, what do I do?
1. Melt the clamps and turn them in for scrap iron?
2. Kill the guy that sold me the clamps?
3. Trash the Miter saw and build a miter sled for my new table saw?
4. Start painting dasies?
5. Check into te nut farm and forget about it!

Any help would be appreciated.
Take care
Dan

[Don]

Hey, Dan. It's very possible to have a blade that reads square to the fence but the "swing" of the blade, i.e. it's arc through the wood is out of line. This is one aspect of mitre saws that can be real confusing. The easiest way to check for this is to simply set the saw to 90 (in crosscut and bevel) stand your 3-1/2" (or higher) wood up against the fence and hold tight, make the cut. Then, without moving the left piece, flip the right piece over and but it up against it, still holding tight to the fences. You should (may) see a gap which will represent twice the error in your saw. You will have to study your mechanism to see if that can be adjusted out.

Now, with that being said, what you are doing can give the illusion of a saw problem. If your wood is not completly "flat" (not twisted) you will see this problem as well. If you are cutting small pieces, say to make a small box, you are asking for issues cutting this way. If your saw is a compound, square the saw to 90 and lay the head over 45 (or slightly more) and try your cuts this way. If there is an error in your saw, the bevel cut will not show it as much and there is more of chance that your crosscut is on the mark.

Long mitres are almost always better accomplished on the table saw for four sided and repeatable work.

The clamps you have are better suited to picture framing - clamping up the tall sides of a box is sometimes better accomplished with something like band clamps. If I had to do what you are trying - table saw on the end cuts, stand the material up and run a spline cut on the end, the joints just about fall together - you can assemble the whole thing at once using masking tape.

Study the pictures on the thread for making the dodecahedrons, here; http://www.woodworkingbuzz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234



all the best, Don

[BiscuitSlayer]

Danno30008 -

This is my first post on the site and I am glad I found this forum. I am a total newb when it comes to this stuff, so forgive me if I am out of my league.

I know it is a bit late on a reply to your question, but I thought I would share some information that I found valuable. I recently watched a woodworking show on TV that showed the use of various sleds that can be used on a table saw. One of the sleds was a miter sled that was very easy to use. Basically, you just set up a crosscut sled for your table saw and then you attach a couple of pieces of straight wood on a 45 degree angle to the saw blade.

If you don't have a table saw, this isn't going to help you much, but I thought I would throw it out there. I haven't built my miter sled yet, but I bought the materials to do it. There is a Rockler woodworking shop on the north side of Atlanta (Sandy Springs) that has an over abundance of miter bars:

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=1464&filter=miter%20pole

The guy sold two of them to me for $11.99 each. I figure if my sled(s) wear out, my miter bars will last a lifetime.