electric mitre saw

[paige3]

Hi could someone advise me on a good mitre saw to buy, i am limited with space and fairly new to picture framing,
one that has been recommended is, EVOLUTION RAGE 3 + MITRE SAW,
unsure about speeds and blades,
any advice would be greatly received and hopefully this will be the first of many times that i contact you for advise.
regards

[prospero]

Hi and Welcome paige3.

The saw you mention will cut mitres but how accurately is another matter.

This type of saw is fine for general woodwork but for picture framing you need extreme accuracy.
For a start it's got a sliding blade carriage. The more moving parts the more opportunities for wear
and variations in angle. Replacing the blade with an 80-tooth one will give cleaner cuts.

It depends what type of moulding you will mainly be using. Saws are great for wide mouldings, partucularly
ones with undercut backs or very thick coatings. But the wider the moulding the more bad angles are going to
show up as gaps in the mitre.

I built myself a two-saw setup. Each saw is set a different way to cut either end. That way you don't have to swing the head.
And it allows fine tuning of the angles. I use it 99% for large plain woods thought. The angles and cut quality are good but now
and then you get a little 'wiggle' in the blade. That's not a problem as the whole frame is going to be painted and any little glitches
get made good in the process. Different matter on pre-finished moulding.

For a single saw I would think about going for one with a superior build quality. I've heard good things about DeWalts .
Saws of this level don't come cheap though. In fact you could by a used Morso guillotine for the same money which would probably
serve you better.

It's a trade-off. By all means try the saw. It will do the job in a fashion, but be prepared to do a lot of filling a touching up.

[prospero]

This is my home-grown setup. It uses two Makita saws. As you can see it's fixed to a very sturdy bench and
once set never gets disturbed.

[paige3]

Hi thanks for the reply,
i had considered a morso but space and the ability to move items around to create a working area is a factor as my garage is limited.
one item i picked up on was pre-finished moulding, would a better quality mitre saw be the answer, i spoke to black and decker who own dewalt, there reply without naming a particular product was yes it would do the job but would probaly require a sander as well.
i am still unsure what to go for.
thanks again

[poliopete]

Hi paige3 and welcome to the FF.

After years of owning a framing shop and gallery I now work in a much smaller way/space from a double garage . Although space is limited I have a Morso and a "flip over Dewalt table saw". If I was forced to give up one or the other it would be the Dewalt saw. As good as it is for ripping down timber and cutting large mouldings, it creates a lot of sawdust and if I had near neighbours the noise would be an issue.

Because of the sawdust problem I prefer to drag it out side when necessary rather than mess up my work space.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Peter

[GeoSpectrum]

I have an evolution mitre saw and a Morso, the evolution
Is nowhere near accurate enough for mouldings and
I only use it for cross curtting. You might get away with it
If you use only plain wood and are prepared to mess around
With fillers. No good on finished mouldings. A morso
Is the way to go. And then there is the dust...

[Jamesnkr]

there reply without naming a particular product was yes it would do the job but would probaly require a sander as well.

You surely cannot use a sander on a mitre corner. As poor as a joint may be with an electric saw, the moment you run a sander over it surely you will round off the edges further.

[paige3]

Thanks for the replys
looks like i need a morso. it could take a while to find a used morso at a price i can afford
i live in the manchester area,
can anyone help!!
if so contact me
regards
barry

[prospero]

Sanding mitres is quite common in the US. You might want to check out http://www.thegrumble.com/index.php

I help but agree with James on that issue. Seems like boiling your cabbages twice to me.... And by the time you have bought
a saw and a sander you are half-way to a Morso.

Keep an eye on the ads section.

[Not your average framer]

It's not just the saw, but also the blades. As always you must expect to get what you pay for. Not only that, but the size of the blades matters a lot, the best size of blade for the widest choice of really good blades is going to be in the range of 10 inch blades. Why this is so, I'm not sure, but that's just how things seem to be.

I'm told by Axminster power tools, that for accuracy I should be looking to buy a Bosch professional range saw with a 10" blade size. As you have probably guessed the price for one of these is quite pricey. You would need to consider some sort of accurate measurement system as well. At present the cost of a suitable Bosch professional saw, means that I'll probably be waiting a while to afford one myself.

In the meantime, I'm planning on getting an Einhell table saw with a Trend 10" 60 tooth teflon coated blade and I'll probably build an accurate mitre sled for that. Fortunately it is possible to fine tune the angle of the mitre sled with digital calipers and a set of engineering feeler gauges. I does need to be said that engineering feeler gauges are not the type of feeler gauges normally available from car accessory shops.

However a mitre sled may limit the size of frames that are practical to make using this method and some of us who are used to making really massive frames may find this a problem. Sadly it always comes down to spending more money if you must have the best accuracy. I guess that we already knew that!