"John Grossbohlin" wrote in message
nk.net...

"steve" wrote in message
...
snip

I second the hand plane and shooting board approach. My sons, then ages 8
and 11, made picture frames for their grandmother for Christmas and put
their school pictures in the frames. They started out with skip planed
walnut and using only hand tools ended up with perfect miters and frames
with square corners. They used rip and cross cut panel saws and hand
planes to prepare the stock and then, using the 45 degree shooting board
jig as a guide cut the miters with a back saw. The miters were then trued
up using a plane and the shooting board.

I posted a detail of corners of both frames on ABPW and a picture of 8
year old Joshua shooting a miter.

BTW, the boys won a second place ribbon for these frames at Woodworkers
Showcase. Garrett Hack, Beth Ireland, John Fox and Adam Kropinski were the
judges... the technique works and rather than owning a specialty purpose
guillotine trimmer you have a bench plane that can be used for other
projects.

John

Besides. a shooting board gives you an excuse to buy a Veritas bevel up
jack plane. Paul Sellers states in his article (Popular Woodworking) that
the low angle planes take the shooting boards to the next level. I use a
Bailey in mine.

Is that a #4 Bailey your son is using?