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PERFECT MITER JOINTS - Watch Detailed Tutorial and Learn How to Cut Them
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Feb 22, 2024
Watch cabinetmaker Steve Maxwell demonstrate all the tricks for cutting perfect miter joints on inside trim using a knife and a chopsaw. READ MY POPULAR ARTICLES ABOUT: Polyurethane Finish - https://bit.ly/powerbuffing DIY Hoop House Plans - https://bit.ly/hoophouseplans Submersible Pump Installation - https://bit.ly/pumpinstallation Air-Drying Wood Tips - https://bit.ly/wooddrying How to Build a Table - https://bit.ly/tablebuilding How to Stain a Deck - https://bit.ly/deckstain Choosing Waterproof Outdoor Glue - https://bit.ly/exterioradhesives How To Build A Wheelchair Ramp - https://bit.ly/wheelchairrampplans SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/BLRchannel WATCH MY POPULAR VIDEO: How to Kill Household Mold https://youtu.be/mj1WJFqos6Y WATCH MORE BAILEY LINE ROAD: Winter Tips - https://bit.ly/2rpnUcm
View Video Transcript
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Lately I've been working on some box newels for a stair railing I'm working on
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That's what these are here. They essentially act as a post for the handrail to connect to
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during final installation. There'll be some spindles underneath. I've made all this
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starting with rough cherry. But this video is all about the installation
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of these pieces of trim in the panel area. There's a lot of trim to go in and the joints
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have to be quite nice because they're going to be prominent. So I'm going to be showing you how
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I do this both accurately and in large enough quantity to get the job done
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So these are some of the pieces of trim I made. I just used the scraps left over from the
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construction of the newels themselves. So it was a good use of materials. Made them on the router
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table and the first step in mitering is to cut one miter on the ends of all of the pieces of trim
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The trim turned out pretty well but as with homemade trim sometimes the ends are a little bit
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chattery as the bit starts to stabilize. So I'm looking for that. I don't want to include that
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that roughness. But the first step is really very simple. If my end is good
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it's good up to about here in this case, I'm just going to make the first miter for each piece
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So this next step is all about marking and you don't use a pencil. A pencil is not precise
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enough. Even a sharp pencil. You need to use some kind of a utility knife and you always mark each
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piece to fit a specific spot. So theoretically the length of this edge here where I'm going to
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be putting the trim is the same as the length of this here. But in practice there's going to be
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several thousandths of an inch difference and that's too much. So each piece is custom cut
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and I set the piece in this way touching the the outside edge and I make my mark
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Now let me show you what doesn't work as well. I could put it in this way and I'd still be
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registered against the edge of the opening but now it's just a whole lot harder to mark
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See because I don't have as neat access with the knife. So do it this way, put it in tight
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put the trim against the edge and now you've got everything held nice and solid
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Put the blade here and just make a little mark. It doesn't have to be too big but
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there's the mark there and that's all we need. Now in the interests of efficiency
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I always mark at least two pieces before I go back to the saw. You can waste a lot of time
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walking back and forth with a saw if you don't do at least two at a time. So I'm registering the
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far end against the opening and now I'm marking it here with the knife and we've got another mark
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So that one's a little light. I'm just going to make it a bit more prominent and now it's
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back to the saw. Now this is the piece that's closest to me so I'm going to keep that in my
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left hand and I'm going to keep this in my right hand so I can remember where they go
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Now one of the things I like about this saw is that the position of the blade is
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evident on the workpiece because of the shadow that it casts. So this is much better than the
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laser blade devices because it shows exactly where the blade is because the blade makes the
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shadow. Now I need to to swivel this over because my last cut establishing the first miter was in
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this direction so now I need to swivel the saw over make sure I hit that 45 degree stop
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Now this is where the precision comes in. I'm going to do this just by talking
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but can you see there's the there's the saw but there's the knife mark and then there's
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the shadow of the blade. Now the shadow of the blade is not very distinct right now because it's
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not spinning. I'm going to start it spinning and when you do I want you to notice how
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this far corner of the knife mark I'm going to align it just on the edge of the shadow of the
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blade. So pay close attention to that and that's how I get a precise cut. So here we go
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So that's one done. I don't want to waste my trip over to the saw so I'm going to do that again
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Now I know from experience that if anything these pieces might be slightly too long
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Very a few thousandths of an inch too long. My goal is to get them on the right on the first cut
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to get a perfect fit. I definitely don't want to cut them too short because then my piece is ruined
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at least for long lengths. So let's go over and see how they fit
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They should just slip in. I would say that was just about perfect
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And another one just about perfect. So I'm not going to fasten these down yet because I know
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from experience that I want to make sure that the other pieces are going to fit perfectly before I
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nail anything down. Fasten it permanently. Occasionally it might happen that you didn't
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set the saw correctly. You didn't hit the right detent and so you don't actually have a 45 there
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You don't want to have to wrestle this piece out after it's more securely installed. So
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next step it's just like the first step. I'm not going to mark it this way
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Because that's clumsy I'm going to turn it around this way so it nestles right in
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It's right in there tight. I have to push this down a bit more. Push this tight and
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mark it. So we got a mark. We're going to do the same thing
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on the other side because I never go to the saw with less than two pieces to cut
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So there it's tight. And the knife mark. Now since it all comes down to the knife mark I just want to before I take
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the piece away I'm going to make sure that knife mark is in the right place. This one's a bit light
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so I'm going to to make it a little more firm. And now we go back to the saw
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So I've cut these two short pieces now and none of these longer ones are in permanently. They're
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not even pushed down all the way. I just want to get a sense that they are going to fit finally
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And when I put this one in I'd say that's a little on the tight side but I'll be able to
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tap that in later so I'm not going to worry about that. And then this one here
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that's a smidge too tight. As I said, going back to the saw isn't the greatest thing but it's a
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lot better than making the piece too short. So I always err a little bit on the side of
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too long and I have a trick to show you for cutting off just a little bit because it's very
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easy to go too far and to ruin this piece and all the work that you've invested in it. But
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this technique ensures that you don't cut it too short and it has to do with the kerf of the blade
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So the teeth on a blade like this are just a little bit wider than the body of the blade
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So what I do is without the blade running I push the blade all the way down and then
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push the piece tight to the body of the blade. It's kind of dark in there but it's touching the body of the blade not any of the teeth
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I'm not pushing really hard I'm just snugging it up to the body of the blade
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Then I'm going to raise the blade and start it spinning and you'll see that it takes off just
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the slightest little smidge. So now we should go back and find that this little piece fits just
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fine. I've never had it overshoot. It just takes the slightest little bit off so yeah it's actually
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just perfect. This is a perfect fit. Occasionally if it's too long for one cut I'll just go back
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and give it another cut. Now I know these pieces are going to fit. This one actually that's kind
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of tight. I think no I guess we can we can tap that in. We can tap that in. So now it comes time
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for installation. What I do here with these longer pieces in a longer panel opening like this
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is I apply a little bit of glue but only to the bottom edge. I don't want to apply glue here
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on the the side because when I put the trim in and push it down that glue is going to smear and
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come up and just make a big mess that's going to be visible. But if I put the glue on the bottom
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like this then the glue is only going to contact the wood of the panel when it's fully
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Sorry about that. That was the compressor kicking in. Compressor for the pin nailer that I'm going to be using to secure this
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so I don't strictly speaking the glue is not completely necessary but I prefer to use as few metal fasteners as possible and
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the pin nailer helps to hold things while the glue dries. Now I can't push that down any further
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with my hand but I've just got a little block of wood here and if I align it correctly
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it lets me drive that trim down nice and tight with everything. So all I've got now is my last
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piece and I just want to double check yeah that's going to be a really nice fit. Just a nice
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sort of just the right level of snugness so I can confidently put some glue on
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slip it in place. Remember once again no glue back here because that would smear
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all across the side and it would be visible on this little edge that that remains open so
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so just probably don't strictly speaking don't need to tap this in but
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I'm gonna do it anyway just to be sure. So there we have it
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now there's only one thing left to do as I said I'm going to secure these with 23 gauge pins
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They're very small they're the diameter of a sewing needle they have no head so they don't
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leave much of a mark but they do leave a tiny mark and I find it best if that tiny mark is
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symmetrical. So I'm going to make small marks two inches from each end of the long piece of trim
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and then one in the middle. It's a little thing but keeping the fasteners symmetrical just helps to
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raise the quality a little bit. So here we've got this now if you've never seen 23 gauge pins this is what they look like they're
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very small I mean this is a whole strip of them and it fires off one at a time. In the right kind
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of gun you can even shoot two inch long pins in hardwood and they don't buckle so we don't need
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two inches this for this job but I'm going to do the middle one first because the middle one has
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has always has a little bit of flex in it. I can't really do too much to push the ends in
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but I can push the middle in and I'm going to center this pull the trigger
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Now that probably looks more prominent on the camera than it will in real life when everything's
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all finished and this cherry has darkened up. Cherry darkens really nicely on its own in exposure
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to light and when that happens the holes from these pins are going to be pretty well embedded
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So there you have it. Trim work done precisely and fairly quickly with hardwood
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