Need Segmented Help

Re: Need Segmented Help

Lloyd Johnson

>If the compound ring was oval, it means that the joints won't be pointing to the dead center of the ring and when turned round, the spacing of the joints will not be equal. You should be able to lay a straightedge across opposing joints but as you can see from your picture on the right, they don't form a straight line.

It is very difficult to achieve accuracy when you have to both tilt the blade and use a miter angle that is not a preset.

For compound angles, I use the crown molding technique - tilt the board while cutting. You can easily do this by cutting a wedge at an angle that is equal to your desired slope. Double-tape this wedge to your fence and do all your cutting with the board resting on the wedge. With the board tilted, your blade should always be untilted and you get to use the presets on your miter as if you were cutting flat segments.

With this method, I can often glue a compound ring without having to sand half-rings.

Re: Need Segmented Help

Stuart Johnson

>Lloyd, This might be an exception to the "no such thing as stupid question" rule. But, do you cut a new wedge for each blade tilt angle and how do you cut it that accurate? I sure like the idea of setting blade to 90 degrees and leaving it.

For example, the bottom called for an 11.6 miter with 80.42 blade angle and the top (not the cap) 13.06 miter and 82.56 tilt. With the SmartMiter I can end up with miters of 11.5 and 13. I use a tilt gauge for the blade angle and can get reasonably close to the required angles but I'm sure just like the miters they aren't dead on.

Re: Need Segmented Help

Lloyd Johnson

>I cut the wedges on my bandsaw and make them 12" - 18" long. When you cut a wedge for a 40 degree slope (for example), you can also use that same wedge for a 50 degree slope just by changing its orientation to the fence.

If the wedge is off by a degree or two, it makes no difference in how the ring will go together. You can also use the same wedge regardless of how many segments are to be used in the ring - you just change your miter angle.

I've attached a picture of the wedge on the fence.

Thanks for the help

Stuart Johnson

>Lloyd,

Thanks for the help. I need to play around with this and see how it works.

One more thing...

Lloyd Johnson

>Something else I do before cutting compound segments is to rip the edges of the board to accomodate for the slope. This does two things - first, it nearly eliminates the need for planing the top and bottom of the ring after it is assembled and second, it helps position the board on the wedge.

If the slope you are trying to achieve is 40 degrees, the rip angle is 90 - minus 40, giving 50 degrees. You can make this cut on the tablesaw, but I prefer to do it on the bandsaw. You'll rip one long edge and the flip the board over to rip the opposite edge. After ripping, you should be able to look at the end of the board and see a parallelogram as in the picture below.

To cut the segments from one of these boards, position it on the wedge so that it is flat against the wedge and flat against the table of your saw. Make your first miter cut and then flip the board edge-for-edge for the next cut, just as you would do if you were cutting flat segments.

Re: One more thing...

Stuart Johnson

>I picked this up from I think Kevin Neelley's site. I use the tablesaw and of course can only cut 45 degrees. This does make it easy to use the Cole jaws to hold the large end and flatten the smaller. Do you use a wedge to get greater than a 45 degree angle on the bandsaw?

Re: One more thing...

Lloyd Johnson

>It all comes down to what I think I can do safely. If I can make a good bandsaw fence out of a wedge, I'll do that. If not, I'll just rip at 45 degrees and flatten the ring as you describe. If you can accurately make this ripping cut, though, it saves a lot of time.