"Dick Snyder" wrote in message
. ..
I am making a set of three stacking tables. Each table will have a 2 1/2"
wide piece of mahogany to trim the center rectangle of curly maple (still
deciding on the center). I got my technique down to get nearly perfect
miter cuts on my SCMS but the saw makes a slighly rough end cut that I
would like to be able to smooth off to get the best possible fit.

I tried to clean up the cuts with the sanding disk part of my combination
sanding disk/belt sander. It is a Ryobi I got for $99 at Home Depot a
couple of years ago on sale. Well, now I know why it was only $99. I could
never get the thing to sand the cut perfectly smooth. No matter how I
fiddled around with the (very cheap) miter gauge on the sanding disk, it
always sanded one end of the cut more than the other so I got a slightly
rounded surface. I guess $99 was TOO much to pay or more realistically, I
shouldn't have gotten it just because it was cheap.

The cuts aren't bad but I can't think of any way to sand the rough ends of
the cut to get an even better fit. Have any of you solved this problem?

TIA.

Dick Snyder

Dick, the problem with sanding or trimming a miter cut after cutting to
length on a saw is that it ends up being too short. If you sand, you have
to determine how much to over cut and how much to sand off, it's a crap
shoot at best unless you have a stop to sand to a particular distance.

I suggest a Dubby Miter Sled or the new Rockler Sled.

http://in-lineindustries.com/
or
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=18063

To cut a clean miter you need a sharp and a good quality regular width kerf
blade. The Forrest WWII works well for this purpose. You also need to be
certain that opposite parallel pieces are precisely the same length or they
will never fit together tightly regardless if you are cutting dead on 45 or
not.
Because the pieces have to be precisely the correct "LENGTH" sanding will
almost always change the length of the piece of wood.