In article , James Harris
writes
Any general recommendations on tools for cutting skirting boards? Skirting
can be taller than most things we might want to mitre. For skirting the
three options I can think of, along with their problems, are

* Buy a mitre box. Unfortunately the mitre boxes I have seen do not seem
tall enough, being only about 90mm high so too short even for 120mm
skirting.

* Buy a manual mitre saw. An OK piece of meccano but specialised and bulky.

* Buy an electric mitre saw. Might come in handy for other work and I may
well need to buy one of these at some point but they do tend to be big and
heavy. Space is the main problem.

I use the last one because I have one[1] and it is incredibly quick. Old
houses in particular can have compound angles from various vertical and
horizontal angles together that just don't fit in with a conventional
mitre box.

The ability to run a trial joint on a couple of pieces of scrap quickly
means that you can get perfect joints every time. Note that the skirting
always lies flat when using an SCMS.

eg. cut a pure vertical 45deg for the first part of an internal corner
on a test piece and offer up against the corner. Ooops the meeting wall
isn't vertical at all so adjust the cut on the scrap and you get a
perfect first piece in real material. Then cut a trial mating half on a
scrap end and find that the two walls aren't meeting exactly at 90degs.
No problem, adjust the mitre on the scrap until you get a perfect mate
and then cut on the real material.

Yes, you can meticulously measure, calculate, mark and cut to get the
same effect working manually but when you have a lot to do then it can
save a lot of time to use the above method. When re-fitting an office
with many weird angles and deliberately slant partitions I was gauging
initial angles by eye and getting a fit very quickly because I could
re-cut and adjust pieces so quickly.

Also, find an interlocking piece between multiple joints is just a mm
too long, just run the saw again and it is perfect in seconds. In fact,
cut just over deliberately and then second cut for a perfect fit.


[1] SCMS Sliding Compound Mitre Saw
--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .