Need Some Help

[TOL Woodworks]

I am building my countertops in the kitchen out of cherry and I have two places where the countertops turn 90 degrees. I am joining the two countertops at a 45 in these locations but I am having great difficulty cutting those 45's accurately. Does anybody have a sliding table saw or anything else that could do this for me? I am willing to pay for your time of course. I live in Sylva but am willing to travel, certainly to Asheville at least. Two lengths of countertop are around 66 inches long, one is 44 inches long, and the other is 30 inches. All are 25 1/4 wide. Thanks for any help,
David Nestler
Tree of Life Woodworks

 

[joec]

I recently had a similar issue and ended up dropping the height of one of the cabinets to do away with the need for the mitre and create a more appealing (to me) visual effect.

 

[mkepke]

David - just wrt cutting an accurate miter, have you tried using using a router with a spiral bit and a homemade guide board ? That way you don't have to move the material at all.

-Mark

 

[Jeff]

That's a tough nut to crack.

How have you tried to cut them accurately and what did you observe? Miter cuts have to be complementary so (45.1 + 44.9 = 90).

This technique, called mirror cutting, appears to accomplish that in one cut using a router and guide to cut both pieces simultaneously.

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/skill-builder/0,,20164654,00.html

In the ideal world it should be like this with both boards overlapping for that single cut.

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And voila!

​

 

[KenOfCary]

A track saw could be used with Jeff's suggestion as well. And add some support under the free part of the top board so it doesn't wobble during the cut. But you knew that.

 

[SubGuy]

Just a thought....Check your wall to make sure it is a true 90. When I used to do finish work in houses, I found a few corners that weren't exactly 90. I can't normally blame the framing crew either as I was generally a member of that as well. Adapt and overcome. I also found it more helpful in large angle cuts to use a precision tape measure and measure the lengths of the triangles to form a more perfect joint. When working with angles, the distance between two points become greater the further you move away from the Vertex. The angle remains the same. At a certain point, using inches is more accurate than using degrees when cutting angles.