What is the hand equivalent of a crosscut sled?

[Alan Lightstone]

I do have a tablesaw with a sliding table, and this would be used for crosscutting panels. However, when it comes to joining mitres and fine tuning square edges, then handsaws and handplanes are the tools of choice.

A mitrebox will do the rough cut, and a shooting board will clean the edges for a precision fit.

I have a large Miller's Falls 74C mitre box and 28" saw, but rarely use it. It is really a carpenter's tool and overkill for the small work in the furniture I build. Recently I restored a Miller's Falls 15 1/2 and built a 16" saw for it. This is ideal for the size mitres needed ...



Shooting boards do not need to be fancy to work well, but it does add enjoyment when they are as nice to look at as they are to use. Build yourself something special, and add a low angle plane for the best performance.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Wow, I'm jealous. Makes my restored Miller's Fall miter box look like trash.

Works well, though, but boy yours is pretty.

[Patrick Chase]

Derek always has the best toys...

Derek, our of curiosity where did you get the spine for that saw? It looks like a milled one a la Bad Axe as opposed to traditional folded brass. It looks very nice, and very well paired to the MF box.

[Jerry Thompson]

This may be a Neander answer but I use a shooting board. I use is for 90d and 45d. It is dead on every time.

[Patrick Chase]

This may be a Neander answer but I use a shooting board. I use is for 90d and 45d. It is dead on every time.

Shooting is a pretty tedious way to get there if you're not already close, though. That's where the miter boxes come in handy.

[Derek Cohen]

While none of these fixtures are necessary - just to reassure those without them - they do well well, and are a good pairing together. Using Neanderthal methods does not be a masochistic experience.

Mike, mine is a 15 1/2. I looked for one for years and years. The link to the restoration is here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolRes...oxRebuild.html

The saw back did not fit as snuggly as it appears in the photo above. However, I added nylon pads as shims/runners, and this had the effect of adding precision and smoothness ...



Patrick, the brass back (and plate) came from Isaac Smith (Blackburn Tools). He does excellent work and I recommend him highly.

The saw is filed 13 tpi crosscut, but as nicely as it works, the finish off the saw is improved by shooting.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dave Lehnert]

I'm looking for some jig where I can use a miter saw to get dead accurate perpendicular crosscut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTYHynhDA1M

[Kees Heiden]

For me the equivalence of the cross cut sled is a square, a pencil and a handsaw. When more precision is needed I use a shooting board also.

I do have a miter box (Ulmia) but almost never use it. Maybe time to sell.

[Jim Koepke]

For me the equivalence of the cross cut sled is a square, a pencil and a handsaw. When more precision is needed I use a shooting board also.

I do have a miter box (Ulmia) but almost never use it. Maybe time to sell.

+1 more for this method for a square end. Even when my saw work has cut perfectly square, the piece is usually run through the shooting board just to smooth the end grain.

My miter box is used for off square cuts. Even those get their turn on the shooting board.

If there were a table saw in my shop and the end grain was going to be visible it would be treated to a few passes on a shooting board.

jtk

[Lenore Epstein]

For me the equivalence of the cross cut sled is a square, a pencil and a handsaw. When more precision is needed I use a shooting board also.

I do have a miter box (Ulmia) but almost never use it. Maybe time to sell.

...recognizing, of course, that sawing straight and square is a skill that takes a fair amount of skill and practice, especially if you don't have someone to give you tips, and that you need straight and square material to make a shooting board and a plane with square sides and a sharp blade to use it.

For the OP: here's a great thread about learning how to use a saw.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...=Sawing+square

Even if you start off with a miter box, it's well worth learning how to make a good cut without one if you are going to do much woodworking.

[Kees Heiden]

Sure, and my sawcuts are rarely perfect. They don't need to be perfect a lot of times of course. But after a couple of years of practice, they ain't too bad most of the times.

[Robert Engel]

For off the saw perfection, a high quality saw like some you've seen, or a miter sled.

Otherwise, it is easy to make your own then fine tune with shooting board.

Notice no one mentioned their power miter saw?

[Warren Mickley]

I'm looking for some jig where I can use a miter saw to get dead accurate perpendicular crosscut.

I think you are looking for a machine tool answer to a hand tool question. In hand tool work we rely on skill, not so much jigs. Jigs are old fashioned 20th century thinking. I remember back in the day, the 1950's and 1960's, craftsmanship was just pitiful. Even old guys, trained fifty years earlier had no idea how to get the quality of 1800.

In 2009 I found myself at a show in front of John Economaki and his Jointmaster "pro". He wanted to show me how good it was for dovetails. I said, "I make eight dovetail cuts in 25 seconds, I'm not really interested." However, he insisted so I watched him fiddle with the machine. After 25 seconds I said "I'm done". After 3 minutes and 35 seconds he had managed to make four cuts, randomly placed, all the same slant. He told me that the machine was worthwhile if you were making fifty drawers at a time. I have gotten orders for one or two dozen dovetailed drawers at a time, but not fifty. I remember when Economaki was a cabinetmaker. My guess is that if he were getting orders for fifty drawers at a shot he would never have given up and become a tool monger.

Here is a traditional approach: true a face side and an edge and use a square and a knife to mark all around, working from the reference surfaces. Then saw to the line. Alternatively, saw about 1/64 away from the line, put the board in the vise and plane to the lines.

[Brian Holcombe]

As Warren notes, if you put some real time on your saws you'll find your accuracy and speed to be quite good. I was contemplating a band saw a few years ago but finally decided I would rather devote some time toward practice and learn how to saw well.

I enjoy the freedom that hands swing offers, in fact I'm more accurate now by hand than by comparison to my fathers bandsaw.

On a big panel I will do what he suggests, knife the line saw then plane.

[Derek Cohen]

...recognizing, of course, that sawing straight and square is a skill that takes a fair amount of skill and practice, especially if you don't have someone to give you tips, and that you need straight and square material to make a shooting board and a plane with square sides and a sharp blade to use it. ...

Most of the important saw cuts are short, such as dovetails, mitres and tenon shoulders. Dovetailing is just sawing to a line. It requires practice. With tenon shoulders and mitres, score a line and add a chisel wall. That is usually all the reference one needs. It is difficult - impossible - to do this with mouldings, which is where a mitre box comes in. It is not needed for common garden saw cuts.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kirby Krieger]

Here is a traditional approach: true a face side and an edge and use a square and a knife to mark all around, working from the reference surfaces. Then saw to the line. Alternatively, saw about 1/64 away from the line, put the board in the vise and plane to the lines.

Excellent summary of the best of the thread and, imho, current knowledge — though I recommend replacing "traditional approach" with "a widely-applicable process that generally produces fine results".

A few further refinements:
- Tools matter. One needs a square square, planes that shave smoothly, marking tools of a precision that matches the results one wants, and saws that enable one to make flat cuts.
- Techniques matter. One must have the skill (and the tools) to flatten faces of boards, to square those faces to each other, and to saw to a line marked on two sides of a board.
- The board need not be fixed in a vise to "plane to the lines".
- Planing end-grain requires special approaches that should be mentioned.

I think you are looking for a machine tool answer to a hand tool question. In hand tool work we rely on skill, not so much jigs.

This is well said and should be held in mind.

I'd like to add a comment about "skill". In _my_ experience with _my_ body, skill is _not_ learning how to mimic a machine. Skill is giving my body a problem and allowing it to solve it. My process for learning a skill:
- set a clear objective
- use reliable feedback (apropos to the OP's question: Tom Fidgen states that hand-tool woodworkers should check every cut they make for square)
- start with known best practices
- simplify constantly
- practice consciously (and better: practice consciousness)

In hand tool work, we rely on our bodies. This woodworking is distinct for its humanism.