How To Mitre

TIME SCALE 2 Hours

SKILL LEVEL

The mitre is the neat joint sandwiched between two skirting boards, picture frames or dado rails in the corner of a room. In other words, it's created using the slanted cut made from two pieces of wood. To calculate the correct mitre, always remember that each piece of wood should be cut in half of the total angle involved. For instance, most rooms in houses—and even modern buildings—are square, so you get a ninety degree corner angle more often than not. You'll need to cut the wood in a forty-five degree angle, then. If it's eighty degrees, you need a forty degree angle, seventy degrees, a thirty-five degree angle, and so on and so forth. Just adjust that ratio accordingly for other corner values when beveling, or have a professional carpenter help you out if it's too much trouble. Mitres are also measured by the length of one side of the wall; that is, mitres at each end with turn the contrasting way. It's because most regular cutting tools (like hand circular saws and table saws) have angular limitations, so you can only use a single angle to cut one piece in one direction, and the other piece in another direction, or else risk having an uneven fit. Aside from that one particularly sticky stipulation, mitres can easily be cut with a mitre saw, although you also use a tenon saw to smoothly cut through the timber without "tearing" it apart. When trying out to make your own mitre, it is best that you make use of an off-cut of wood to practice on first before sawing off actual skirtings or dado rails. Indeed, instead of wasting precious raw materials in order to learn how to make mitre joints through trial and error, why not buy an extra length of wood to practice on. Once you're used to the process—if you aren't used to it already—go ahead and start making those mitre joints; they're fairly easy to create once you get the hang of it. Just remember to clamp the wood tightly when using a mitre saw, because even a slight nudge can result in a roughshod joint. Even if you're no mitre-cutting expert, there's no need to throw away all the fruits of your inexperienced labor into the trash bin; if your joints are just slightly off (and they probably will if you're a novice carpenter), you can always seal them with some flexible filler or decorators caulk to hide the imperfections. The seamlessness of your mitre joint depends mostly on how proficient you are at caulking and the extent of the two arms' evenness. You can always purchase angle finders in the NuStock website to further streamline the mitre-making process, but for those who are in a hurry (or want to literally do everything by themselves), here's an uncomplicated method to make sure if you've gotten precisely half of the room angle. First, put a piece of paper into a corner of the room so both sides of the paper each touch the wall. Afterwards, fold the paper in half to align it to its sides. The angle formed by this approach can be used to indicate how the wood will be cut. Once they're cut and joined, the two pieces of wood should follow the angle the unfolded paper possesses. Keep in mind that this method should only be used as a rule-of-thumb guide, and it's recommended for you to practice on several other extra wood pieces to make sure that you did get the angle right. Furthermore, if you have a mountain of mitre joints to create, an electric mitre or chop saw (and goggles) will be a good investment to look into.