Hi all,

Yesterday I tried to put the new melamine countertop (Kober) to my kitchen
with awful results: I should buy a new one and redo everything. The
principal problem was to cut the 45degree to make the two pieces to meet in
the vertice of the "L" I could not make the two pieces to join in an
acceptable (not only for my wife but for myself) way. After recutting and
strightening both angled cuts some times I ended with one of the pieces
shorter than planned for more than 2 inches, but the worse of all was that
the length of the two cuts were different. I mean when you try to align the
two pieces in the "L" vertex, if you make the front of the counter to match,
then the back of one of the pieces was longer by a half inch than the other
piece. My answer is the angle is not 45 degree exactly. One of the pieces
have an angle greather than the other. Even I make both to get aligned, the
difference in angle makes one of the cuts to be longer than the other. To
make the things worse (or better?) I make an error cutting the sink so I
should throw away one of the pieces. Then I'm facing the same problem for
the next weekend: How to cut a perfect 45 angle for the countertop?
The available tools a a circular saw, a jigsaw, a small 1hp router, a
miter saw. I marked the 45 degree by using a scholar rule (such that have
the shape of a rectangle triangle, sorry, I don't know how to spell this in
english) Then I fixed a fence to the bottom side of the counter and make the
first cut with the circular saw. There where many problems: The bottom side
of the counter is not flat. It has a protuberance at the leading edge. Other
problem is the trailing edge that forms the back of thr counter is too high
to be cutted by the circular saw so I should finish the cut with a hand saw.
Other problem I identify is that after make the angled cut I made the other
side cuts (I mean the stright angle cuts) on the other extreme of the
pieces. I wanted to test the angled cuts by putting the pieces right over
the base cabinets, and to do that I needed to size both pieces to fit into
the kitchen. It was an error: The angled cuts were not good enought to fit
on the first shoot, so I needed to recut and restright resulting in
shortening the length of both pieces.
My plan for the next attempt is to make a replica of the angled walls of the
kitchen. Then first cut the 45 degrees angles and redo that cut up to fit.
Then after that cut both pieces to the right length. To cut the 45 degrees
may be I use the mitter saw. Just to be able to cut the extra height of the
counter back, and to mark the right angle for cutting the rest with the
circular saw or by using first the jigsaw and strighten after that with the
router. Other ideas?

Any suggestion for well doing this job is welcomed.
Thanks for your patience for reading this looooooong post
Sammy