I love my shooting board for creeping up on a perfect fit. It works great when making 90 degree cuts, both edge grain and end grain. But when trimming 45 degree miters, I can’t get the same results. Even with a freshly sharpened blade, I can’t consistently get the blade to bite into the wood. It just glides across the miter with almost no cutting, more like burnishing.
On the surface it sounds like a sharpening problem, but I keep putting a fresh edge on my blade with mostly poor results. I use a LN #62 Low Angle Jack plane with a primary bevel of 25 degrees and a micro bevel about 27 degrees. Final honing is with a Shapton Ceramic 16000 grit stone, followed by a quick stropping. I use the ruler trick for the back. The blade cuts through paper like butter, and gives great results when face planing and 90 degree end or edge grain.
The current miters that I’m trying to fine tune are not big, just 5/8” square. The wood is Wenge, which is probably more problematic than many species, but I’ve also had this problem with Walnut. I just read that wetting the miter with water or DNA might help, but I’m wondering if there is anything else I can do. Any help is appreciated!
Edit: Sorry, this site decided to rotate my image 90 degrees, can t seem to fix it.
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