Miter saw is an important tool for wood workers and its effective use can make you efficient in your field.
But do you know how to adjust a miter saw effectively? This is a versatile tool used to cut different materials.
However, many people don’t know How to use this device effectively and make your work accurate with less effort.
Another important step to become pro carpenter and use miter saw effectively is to learn how to effectively adjust your miter saw?
If you love to work with wood and you are a DIY lover Then having a miters saw in your workshop will be quite helpful.
This handy tool is designed to create a variety of cuts on different materials or on wood.
To ensure you get the best results from your miter saw this article focuses on giving detailed explanation on how to adjust a miter saw effectively.
By following the given instruction, you can effectively learn how to adjust your miter saw for accurate cuts?
What Is Power Miter Saw
A power miter saw has an overhead blade mounted and it is interchangeable rotating saw blade.
The piece of wood that you need to cut is placed on the table and against the fence.
The saw blade is then lowered to make the cut and then release to return to its original position. The default miter saw angle is set for a 90-degree crosscut.
The table features a handle that allows you to change the angle to common present angles like 45 degrees or angle anywhere in between.
The present angles feature a detent that prevent the table from moving during the cut. Angle without a detent are held in place by tightening the handle.
This miter saw allows you to cut variety of cuts like molding, molding around the windows and door, crown molding and the project for designing furniture or home decoration projects or wall decorations.
Types of Miter Saw Cuts
-
Cross Cuts
A crosscut is typically referred as a cut when you made cut across the grain of the wood.
-
Bevel Cuts
This type of cut is an angle cut made on the edge of a piece of wood. This type of cut changes the profile of the wood.
-
Compound Miter Cut
Compound miter cut combines both miter cut and bevel cut. This Type of cuts are needed for crown molding.
Types Of Miter Saw
-
Compound Miter Saw
A compound miter saw is a versatile tool used to make cross cuts, miter cuts, bevel cuts and compound cuts.
A single compound miter saw cuts in one direction only whereas a dual compound miter saw can cuts bevel in both directions.
-
Sliding Miter Saw
Sliding miter saw just like a compound miter saw which can make cross cuts, miter cuts, bevel cut and compound cuts.
The only difference is the saw blade sits on sliding rail which allows the saw to cut much wider width of wood then compound miter saw.
-
Standard Miter Saw
This is the simplest form of miter saw. These miter saw miter or rotate at the side so, you can cut the board from the top at an angle.
This allows you to easily create corner pieces for a variety of projects.
Safety Precautions
- Whenever you are using a tool, it is necessary to take safety precautions to protect yourself from any uncertain incident.
- Whenever you are using a machine for the first time you must read its user manual first.
- Ensure you study, understand and carefully follow the instructions before you use the miter saw or any other tool in fact.
- Always plug out the miter saw or any other machine from power source before making any adjustment or in case if you are not using the machine.
- It is also wise to consult your manual for safe guidelines on how you should go about adjusting the saw. Each saw has specific directions on how to use and adjust it and you will find all these in the manual that comes with your saw.
- Before starting your work where protective goggles to protect your eyes from saw dust.
- Also use hearing aid it to protect your ear from the intense noise and a respirator for your lungs
- Properly cover your feet with shoes to avoid any injury and wear proper fitting dress before working with miter saw any other machine.
Steps To Follow How To Adjust A Miter Saw
-
Start With Cleaning
If you are using the miter saw for long time without cleaning, it forms clamps of sawdust which tempers the adjustment of miter saw.
So, you should start of things with cleaning. Use air compressor with air nozzle to blow off the sawdust.
Once you are done using the air compressor wipe the miter saw and miter saw bench with a clean cotton cloth.
Look out for rust and use anti-rust spray in case of rust formation on blade.
-
Proper Blade Combination
When trying to adjust a miter saw, it might seem unimportant but looking for appropriate blade is necessary before adjustment.
The kind of miter saw you own, and its size determines the cut it will make. Before start adjusting, you must choose the right combination of blade to do your work effectively.
-
The Blade And Fence Alignment
It is necessary for your blade and fence to be in proper alignment.
To do this saw must be plugged out of power source and you are able to hold the blade guard directly.
Once you have disconnected the blade, place it at 90-degrees to your table.
Adjust the square so it encountered the blade and your adjustment is done at this point. If still the gap is remaining adjust to get desired result.
How To Adjust Your Blade?
- Lose the bevel handle and adjust the blade until it encounters square.
- Once the blade and square come in contact tighten the bevel handle to secure it from moving.
- This ensures that when the bevel gets changed and brought back to zero degrees, the bolt stop the making it 90-degrees or square to the table.
- Confirm the fence is positioned at 90` degree toward the blade and lower the saw and push the blade to encounter square.
How To Adjust Your Fence?
- Find the bolt or screw that hold the fence on left and loosen them.
- Adjust the fence to encounter blade.
- Now loosen the right side’s bolt or screw and find the correct alignment of fence with 3’level.
- Adjust until both right and left sides are aligned properly.
- Tighten the bolts again.
- Once the fence and blade are aligned properly. You need to adjust the miter angle.
- Adjust the miter angle to 0-degree after adjusting the bevel angle and try out the accuracy of miter saw.
How To Adjust A Miter Saw For Accurate Cuts Beginners Guide 2021
It is necessary to check the accuracy of miter saw before buying and if you have brought it online then check its accuracy as soon as it arrives to your place.
Saws are properly aligned at factory before shipment but sometimes it gets tempered and don’t give proper accurate cuts.
To get proper accurate cuts you must know the adjustment of miter saw.
Is Miter Saw Blade Square To The Table?
- Disconnect your miter saw from power source and hold the blade guard to check the fitting of blade and table.
- Place the speed square flat on the miter saw table and lower the saw blade towards the table. Move the speed square against the blade avoiding the blade teeth.
- If the blade is properly adjusted then by slightly lowering down the blade, the edge of speed square makes complete contact with side of blade.
Is Miter Saw Fence Square To The Blade
- Now, next step is to check the fence alignment with saw blade. Â Check if the fence is square to the blade by disconnecting the saw from power source.
- The blade is properly adjusted when we slide down the blade and if the edge of the speed square makes complete contact with blade then it is adjusted.
Other Reason For Crooked Miter Saw Cuts
After making the crosscut, check if it’s accurate using your square. If you notice any inaccuracies, you need to go back to re-adjusting again.
Do this until you get satisfactory results. Do a close examination of the saw parts to fish out the cause of the inaccuracies.
Some other factors also contribute for crooked cuts. Sometimes kickback happen when wood knot is hit by the saw and tempers your miter saw’s adjustment.
In that case disconnect the power and carefully spin the blade with your fingers.
If your blade is likely to bent and will need to be replaced. Uneven or rough cutting indicates dull blade and it need to be changed.
If you’ve adjusted and re-adjusted yet you’re still not satisfied with your saw’s performance, check for other issues.
It might be due to the sharpness level of the saw; it could also be because your blade is loose or bent
How To Change The Blade Of Miter Saw?
How to change the blade on a miter saw is something every DIY lover needs to know. Here’s a quick overview of the 3 easy steps needed to replace a blade.
- Disconnect the miter saw plug from the outlet
- Press the spindle lock and loosen the bolt
- Remove the miter saw blade
- Install the new miter saw blade
- Press the spindle lock and tighten the bolt
Please refer to your owner’s manual for how to change the blade on your specific miter saw.
DIY Lover Tips For Using Miter Saw
Now that we’ve replaced our miter saw blade and tuned up our miter saw let’s learn some new skills.
Skills like why you should trim the ends of your boards, why you should “leave the line” and why you should let the miter saw come to a full stop.
Replace The Stock Saw Blade
Saw blades with more teeth produce cleaner cuts and blades with fewer teeth produce rough, choppy cuts.
Blades with more teeth are great for cutting pieces for our DIY furniture projects.
Blades with fewer teeth are good for cutting work pieces where we don’t care what the cut looks like. For instance, if we were cutting studs to build a house.
Unfortunately for us DIY furniture builders, most miter saws come equipped with a saw blade that is better for cutting studs than pieces for our furniture projects.
Trim The Ends
Wood from the factory isn’t perfect. If we hold a speed square across the end of a board, very rarely will we find a board that is perfectly square.
To improve the quality of our DIY projects we should always square the end of a board before cutting our pieces to length. Just simply make a cut on the end of the board
Leaving The Line
Leaving the pencil line when we make miter saw cuts allows us to fine-tune the cut if we need the board to be a little shorter.
Let The Blade Come To A Complete Stop
Remember, we want to leave the line, so we need to let the blade come to a complete stop when we make any cut with our miter saw.
 Set A Stop for Repetitive Cuts
One of the things you can do the most with my miter saw, besides making cuts, is make repetitive cuts.
The stop is a piece of scrap wood clamped with miter saw stand with a Quick-Grip spring clamp.
Once installed the stop allows you to slide a work piece up to the stop and cut multiple pieces of wood to the same length.
This ensures a proper fit for all the project pieces and is a HUGE time saver.
Use The Miter Saw Blade To Make Laser Accurate Cuts
The secret for making laser accurate miter saw cuts is using the saw blade to make micro adjustments to the length of our work pieces.
- Trim the End of the Board. First, we’ll use our miter saw to square one end of the board.
- Measure the Work piece. Working from the end of the board we just squared, we’ll measure the length we need our work pieceand make a pencil mark.
- Set a Miter Saw Stop and Leave the Pencil Line. Next, we’ll position our work piece, so that we’ll leave the pencil line when we make our cut.
- Many times, making repetitive cuts for our projects, so we’ll set a stop at the end of the work piece. We don’t need to set a stop if we’re only cutting one work piece. Now, we can make our cut.
Conclusion
Now you knowhow to adjust a miter saw properly for making accurate and proper cuts.
However, cleaning your device time to time is the best option to avoid any difficulty in operations.
Proper care of device enhances its durability and saves your time from adjusting. It’s easy to fix a miter saw that isn’t cutting straight.
Simple adjustments to the saw blade and the fence will guarantee straight and accurate cuts every time.