A miter saw or mitre saw is a saw used to make accurate crosscuts and miters in a workpiece by positioning a mounted blade onto a board. A miter saw in its earliest form was composed of a back saw in a miter box, but in modern implementation consists of a powered circular saw that can be positioned at a variety of angles and lowered onto a board positioned against a backstop called the fence.
Powered miter saws also cut bevels into a work piece by adjusting the vertical tilt axis of upper portion of the machine while the table lays flat horizontally. A miter saw for which the axis can be tilted in a single direction is known as a single compound miter saw. If the axis can tilt both left and right, it is known as a double bevel compound miter saw. Some are equipped with a sliding rail system or have a pivot arm to cut wider work pieces when laid flat on the table of the saw and flush against the fence. This is known as a sliding compound miter saw.
They are primarily used for cutting wood trim and molding, but also can be used to cut metal, masonry, and plastics, provided the appropriate type of blade is used for the material being cut.
Miter saws come in a variety of sizes. The most common sizes are 180,250 and 300mm (7+1⁄4,10 and 12in) size blades, each of which has its own cutting capacity.
Both corded and cordless versions of the saw are available from several different manufacturers.[citation needed]
A common misnomer that is sometimes used to refer to a miter saw is the chop saw. Although somewhat similar in their cutting action, they are two entirely different types of saw. A chop saw is specifically meant to cut metal and is typically operated while laid flat on the ground with the blade fixed at 90° vertical. A chop saw cannot make a miter cut unless manipulated by the operator as opposed to the function of the machine itself.
Power miter saw
A power miter saw, also known as a drop saw, is a power tool used to make a quick, accurate crosscut in a workpiece at a selected angle. It is commonly used for cutting of molding and trim. Most miter saws are relatively small and portable, with common blade sizes ranging from 200 to 300mm (8 to 12in).[1]
The power miter saw was invented by Ed Niehaus, the Chief Engineer in the Power Tool Division for Rockwell International, in 1964. The miter saw showcased several innovations still found today: radial arc spring action, blade braking and dust collection. Rockwell did not patent the design, leading to a large number of manufacturers and innovation improvements.[2]
The power miter saw makes cuts by pulling a spinning circular saw blade down onto a workpiece in a short, controlled motion. The workpiece is typically held against a fence, which provides a precise cutting angle between the plane of the blade and the plane of the longest workpiece edge. In standard position, this angle is fixed at 90°.
A primary distinguishing feature of the miter saw is the miter index that allows the angle of the blade to be changed relative to the fence. While most miter saws enable precise one-degree incremental changes to the miter index, many also provide "stops" that allow the miter index to be quickly set to common angles (such as 15°, 22.5°, 30°, and 45°).
Types
A compound-miter saw
There are several types of miter saws:
Original miter box and saw - The first miter saws usually consisted of a wooden or plastic three-sided box with 90° and 45° slits to guide a hand or back saw to make miter cuts in a piece of work.
Power/Standard miter saw - A powered version designed generally for making straight cross cuts on a piece of work at a wide range of angles (unlike an abrasive saw which can only cut 90 degrees to the board). They are commonly used to create 45° degree straight cuts for framing.
Compound-miter saw - Compound miter saws have the added benefit of tilting the blade and head at various angles to the workpiece. This makes bevel cuts possible. A bevel cut is an angled ramp cut into the side of the wood. This type is commonly used in trim work for homes. A compound cut is a combination of a miter and bevel cut.
Compound miter saws are suitable for more complex woodworking projects, as they offer the versatility of being able to make both miter and bevel cuts. They typically have a tilting blade that can pivot to the desired angle for the bevel cut, and can also be adjusted to make precise cuts at various angles for the miter cut.
Dual compound-miter saw - Dual or double compound saws allow the head to rotate when angled on both the left and right-hand sides. This means all angles are achievable without repositioning the workpiece.
Sliding compound-miter saw - Sliding miter saws are able to move the saw head back and forth on a sliding rail, similar to a radial arm saw. This increases the size capacity of which a board can be cut. This type of saw can also allow for the locking of the rails to use for straight, pull down cuts (like chop saws). With the sliding feature engaged, the user pulls the head forward, turns on the saw and pushes the blade backwards into the lumber.
Laser/LED miter-saws - Some saws have a laser guide for more precise cutting. The laser is made up of a disc-shaped washer that attaches to the saw blade and illuminates a line where the blade will cut. Some saws also have an LED feature to better illuminate the work area.
Features
Miter saws are dedicated cross cut saws; long rip cuts (in line with the grain) are not possible.
A laser guide provides a precise visual indication of where the cut will be positioned on the workpiece in the current configuration. Some models provide a single reference line for one side of the kerf, while others provide two lines to reflect the total kerf width. A blade guard is a cover for the teeth of the cutting blade. Most modern miter saws have self-retracting blade guards, which automatically retract when the saw is lowered onto a workpiece and re-cover the blade when the saw is raised. It is very dangerous to use the saw if these guards are removed or damaged. A dust bag connects directly to the saw, and helps to collect sawdust away from the workpiece during cutting. Optionally, many manufacturers sell adapters to connect an industrial vacuum cleaner in lieu of a bag to capture more of the dust and simplify disposal. Dust removal with these saws is notoriously poor. A safety clamp helps to lock a workpiece into position prior to making a cut. This is an especially important feature when cutting smaller workpieces (200mm (8in) or smaller). The miter table is typically less than 610mm (24in) in diameter.[3] Typically, the work needs to be supported on the far end to stabilize the piece while cutting.
Miter saws are inherently low-hazard as the work piece is held stationary against a fence while the saw head moves, making kick-back almost impossible, and normally allowing hands to be kept clear of the blade. Also the saw head is usually drawn back, then lowered and fed forward through the material so that binding is unlikely.
Sliding compound miter saws are relatively portable, easy to set up, and robust enough to maintain accuracy even when moved around. Because they cut from above it is not necessary to adjust blade depth for different thicknesses of work piece and, like any bench machine, repeat cuts are very easy. Most saws have an adjustable scale plate for table swiveling, with positive stops at commonly used angles. Also, there are usually adjustable stops at 90 and 45 degrees for tilting the head, allowing easy and very accurate adjustment of the saw.[4]
Table swiveling in both directions is universal but most saws allow head tilting only in one direction (counter-clockwise), although some saws allow head tilting in both directions. Normally the work piece is held flat on the table and so table swiveling will produce a miter cut (blade vertical and angled across work piece), head rotation a bevel cut (blade angled from vertical and square across work piece), and in combination a compound cut.
One of the main disadvantages is relatively poor wood chip and dust extraction, as so much of the blade is exposed when cutting, especially in bevel cuts; consequently there is a tendency for chips to fly about.
Miter saw blades
Miter saws commonly come in 250 and 300mm (10 and 12in) blade size configurations and are commonly made of carbon steel and may come with a coating to make the cut easier.
While the blade sizes are interchangeable with table saws, a miter blade is optimized for short cuts across the grain of the wood with little pull, where as table saws are optimized for long rip cuts with the grain and pulling the material into the blade.
Blades are marked with their number of teeth, kerf and hook angle. Tooth counts ranges vary from 24 to 100 teeth per inch (about 1mm to 0.25mm between each tooth). Blades with larger tooth counts results in finer but slower cuts. The kerf thickness denotes how much material is removed when making the cut. The standard being a 3.2mm (1⁄8in) kerf with thinner options for working finer wood. The hook angle denotes how aggressively the blade will pull the material in. A low hook angle or even a negative hook angle is designed to cause little board movement during cutting of unclamped boards.
Teeth design comes in many variations: ATB (alternating top bevel), FTG (flat top grind) and TCG (triple chip grind) are the most common. Each design is optimized for a specific material and edge treatment.
An arbor bolt holds the blade to the saw rotor and its diameter must match the blade hole size in order to properly secure the blade (300mm (12in) blades commonly use 25mm (1in) arbor holes and 250mm (10in) blades favor 16mm (5⁄8in)). To prevent the saw from loosening the arbor bolt, the threads are reverse-threaded, the rotational spin of the saw blade exerts a tightening pressure on the blade.
Development
Power miter saws have been available in various forms since the 1970s as specialized cross cut saws but with limited width of cut, especially compared to radial arm saws. Simple miter saws allowed the saw table to pivot allowing miters to be cut in one plane. Compound miter saws also provided saw head tilting allowing compound miters to be cut. Miter saws with abrasive cutting wheels are often used in metal work where they are known as "drop saws" or more commonly "chop saws".
Because the blade assembly could only pivot, not translate, these initial designs were limited by blade radius in how wide and deep a board they could cut. However, because their capacities were adequate for handling common sizes of dimensional lumber, and because they were more compact and portable than arm and table saws, chop saws quickly became ubiquitous in construction.
Around 1982, the sliding compound miter saw was introduced. This innovation combined all the best features of the compound miter saw with sliding tubes, allowing the cutter head to traverse for a much wider cut. Since then it has become the primary cross cut saw for woodworking, largely supplanting the radial arm saw.
Manufacturers warn of possible electrocution when used near water, or other related saws in close proximity.
A circular saw or a buzz saw, is a power-saw using a toothed or abrasive disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use a rotary motion but are different from a circular saw. Circular saws may also be loosely used for the blade itself. Circular saws were invented in the late 18th century and were in common use in sawmills in the United States by the middle of the 19th century.
A lathe is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about that axis.
A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws.
A table saw is a woodworking tool, consisting of a circular saw blade, mounted on an arbor, that is driven by an electric motor. The drive mechanism is mounted below a table that provides support for the material, usually wood, being cut, with the blade protruding up through the table into the material.
In woodworking, a rip-cut is a type of cut that severs or divides a piece of wood parallel to the grain. The other typical type of cut is a cross-cut, a cut perpendicular to the grain. Unlike cross-cutting, which shears the wood fibers, a rip saw works more like a series of chisels, lifting off small splinters of wood. The nature of the wood grain requires the shape of the saw teeth to be different, thus the need for both rip saws and crosscut saws; however, some circular saw blades are combination blades and can make both types of cuts. A rip cut is the fundamental type of cut made at a sawmill.
Machining is a manufacturing process whereby a desired shape or part is achieved by the controlled removal of material from a larger piece of raw material by cutting; it is most often performed with metal material. These processes are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes machine tools, in contrast to additive manufacturing, which uses controlled addition of material.
A hand plane is a tool for shaping wood using muscle power to force the cutting blade over the wood surface. Some rotary power planers are motorized power tools used for the same types of larger tasks, but are unsuitable for fine-scale planing, where a miniature hand plane is used.
A Japanese kitchen knife is a type of a knife used for food preparation. These knives come in many different varieties and are often made using traditional Japanese blacksmithing techniques. They can be made from stainless steel, or hagane, which is the same kind of steel used to make Japanese swords. Most knives are referred to as hōchō or the variation -bōchō in compound words but can have other names including -kiri. There are four general categories used to distinguish the Japanese knife designs: handle, blade grind, steel, and construction.
A radial arm saw is a cutting machine consisting of a circular saw mounted on a sliding horizontal arm. Invented by Raymond DeWalt in 1922, the radial arm saw was the primary tool used for cutting long pieces of stock to length until the introduction of the power miter saw in the 1970s.
A bandsaw is a power saw with a long, sharp blade consisting of a continuous band of toothed metal stretched between two or more wheels to cut material. They are used principally in woodworking, metalworking, and lumbering, but may cut a variety of materials. Advantages include uniform cutting action as a result of an evenly distributed tooth load, and the ability to cut irregular or curved shapes like a jigsaw. The minimum radius of a curve is determined by the width of the band and its kerf. Most bandsaws have two wheels rotating in the same plane, one of which is powered, although some may have three or four to distribute the load. The blade itself can come in a variety of sizes and tooth pitches, which enables the machine to be highly versatile and able to cut a wide variety of materials including wood, metal and plastic.
A hacksaw is a fine-toothed saw, originally and mainly made for cutting metal. The equivalent saw for cutting wood is usually called a bow saw.
A biscuit joiner or biscuit jointer is a woodworking tool used to join two pieces of wood together. A biscuit joiner uses a small circular saw blade to cut a crescent-shaped hole in the opposite edges of two pieces of wood or wood composite panels. An oval-shaped, highly dried and compressed wooden biscuit is covered with glue, or glue is applied in the slot. The biscuit is immediately placed in the slot, and the two boards are clamped together. The wet glue expands the biscuit, further improving the bond.
A scroll saw is a small electric or pedal-operated saw used to cut intricate curves in wood, metal, or other materials. The fineness of its blade allows it to cut more delicately than a power jigsaw, and more easily than a hand coping saw or fretsaw. Like those tools, it is capable of creating curved cuts with angled edges, by tilting its table along the axis of the cut.
A mitre box or miter box is a wood working appliance used to guide a hand saw for making precise cuts, usually 45° mitre cuts. Traditional mitre boxes are simple in construction and made of wood, while adjustable mitre boxes are made of metal and can be adjusted for cutting any angle from 45° to 90°.
A hole saw, also known as a hole cutter, is a saw blade of annular (ring) shape, whose annular kerf creates a hole in the workpiece without having to cut up the core material. It is used in a drill. Hole saws typically have a pilot drill bit (arbor) at their center to keep the saw teeth from walking. The fact that a hole saw creates the hole without needing to cut up the core often makes it preferable to twist drills or spade drills for relatively large holes (especially those larger than 25 millimetres. The same hole can be made faster and using less power.
This glossary of woodworking lists a number of specialized terms and concepts used in woodworking, carpentry, and related disciplines.
A riving knife is a safety device installed on a table saw, circular saw, or radial arm saw used for woodworking. Attached to the saw's arbor, it is fixed relative to the blade and moves with it as blade depth is adjusted.
Grinding is a type of abrasive machining process which uses a grinding wheel as cutting tool.
There are many types of shears used to shear or cut sheet metal.
A jigsaw is a saw which uses a reciprocating blade to cut irregular curves, such as stenciled designs, in wood, metal, or other materials.
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