"Keith nuttle" wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:
"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.







Just a comment, It does not matter how close to perfection the miter cut
is, if the opposite sides of the frame are not absolutely the same length
the miter is not perfect.


I've found the best method for me is to glue up two joints 180 degrees from
each other then trim as needed after the glue dries to get the last two
joints the best you can get then glue them and move on. We woodworkers
inspect things on a level that won't be viewed after the painting and glass
goes in!

YMMV, Rich