"tiredofspam" nospam.nospam.com wrote in message ...
Whenever I tape legs I always have to cleanup one side to get the
beginning of the taper perpendicular to the leg.

I am curious why? This leg that was squared in the planer has pencil
marks for clarity.

Are you sure that the leg is square? A planer will make opposite sides
parallel. However a planer does not ensure that adjacent sides are
at 90 degrees.

If your saw blade is slightly off of 90 degrees then you can have this
sort of problem. For example if your saw blade is at 89 degrees and
use the saw to 'square' the leg, then one corner will be at 89 and the
next corner will be at 91 degrees. When you then use the saw to cut the
tapers you will have the effect that you see. When the saw cuts a taper
along the 89 degree corner, it will produce a square end to the taper.
When the saw cuts a taper along the 91 degree corner, there will be
a 2 degree difference (89 vs 91) between the side of the leg and
the saw blade. This difference will be magnified by the slope of the
taper. For instance, if your taper is 1/2 inch in a 10 inch length, you
will have a 20 : 1 slope. The 2 degree difference between the side
and the blade will be multiplied by the 20:1 factor. The result will be
a 40 degree angle at the end of the taper.