2022 Product Showcase/MiterSet

Paul, how do you feel about setting your Miter gauge to very precise angles? It's not one of my top 10 favorite things to do. In fact, I would say it's probably one of my top 10 things to avoid because I don't have the confidence in it. And I know when we were gettin' ready for this and we talked about the MiterSet, that this was kind of an epiphany for you that - Yeah. what this provides and its ability to take that angst out of Yup. setting your Miter gauge. What we're looking at here - it's such a brilliant idea - is a block. And in this one, there are a number of stops that provide stops for the angle at which you want to set your Miter gauge. So this slot is for the bar of your Miter gauge and then we can put pins wherever we want it in order to get the angle that we want. So it's easy-peasy stuff. Loosen the head of the Miter gauge, do this, do this, just push against those pins, and there you are. Got two different blocks here. This one is for setting to angles. This one is for setting to number of sides. So this is the one that we used in the video that you're about to see. The example was: I wanna make somethin' with 10 sides. You don't have to do any angular math in your head. All you have to do is put the pins zero and 10 and it's gonna automatically set you to the right angle. This one, if you wanna hit degrees in between the hold numbers - it shows you there - that's what that bar is for. That bar is gonna let you hit half-degree increments. Let's have a look at using this to make a - what is a 10-sided thing? A tenagon? Tenagon. Or somethin'. It's a tenagon. Let's look at makin' a tenagon. Part of the challenge with makin' a frame is getting the miters cut accurately so that when you bring the frame together, everything closes like it's supposed to. MiterSet provides a really, really good solution to this problem in that this is a very accurately machined piece we can use to set your Miter gauge. So here's how this works: You find the angle you wanna set your Miter gauge to. So let's say we wanna use 30 degrees. One pin goes at zero, one pin goes at 30, and then, with the head of your Miter gauge loose, you slide up against those pins. Boom, boom. Lock that down. It's at a perfect 30 degrees. Now a good question would be, "What if I want an in-between kind of an angle?" If I wanna hit 22-and-a-half, there's no mark on here for 22-and-a-half. That's what this bar is for. So that bar is gonna let us do something like this and this and this and hit angles that are the in-between angles in half-degree increments. So the concept is the same. Just follow the instructions in the owner's manual. And that's gonna get you to incremental settings in between what you're seein' here. So that MiterSet Standard is a very cool thing for setting your Miter gauge in those applications. Now, let's go a step further. When you look at this, what do you see? Maybe see a 10-sided thingy. I am a pretty avid bowl turner, and I see this as the beginning of a segmented bowl with 10 components to that segment, walnut and cherry. So there's another product. That's this guy. This is based on - the numbers here are based on how many segments do you wanna incorporate into your work. So in this case, when we wanna do 10, we start in the same spot: zero, 10. You don't have to do any math to figure out what should the angle be for a 10-segment piece. You just use the numbers that are on the MiterSet, set your Miter gauge, and you're ready to go. So let me do - I'm gonna add a sacrificial fence to this and then we'll come back. I'm gonna reset my Miter gauge to make sure I'm in just the right spot. We'll do some cuts so you can see how this all comes together. Gonna do 10 segments again. And like I said, what's cool with this is no math 'cause all the math is included right there. Now what I'm gonna do to get goin' is: I'm gonna cut just an end on my cherry and walnut pieces so that I can then put that end against a stop block in order to make my subsequent cuts. At this stage of the game, I'm just gonna do a bunch of cuttin' to get ready for actually makin' the segments we need. The other important thing to get the frame to come together correctly is to have uniform length on all our parts. I'm gonna use a stop block for that. And we've got a 10-segment ring comin' together. So I need five cherries, five walnuts. Proof is in the puddin'. So what's cool about this is: the more pieces we're cuttin', if there's cumulative air, it's gonna show up because of the number of joints that were cut in this 10-segment piece. So you can see from the joint quality here how accurately we're set up. Now the way this would work for a segmented turning is: glue this together, let that dry, send it through a drum sander to flatten it, same thing here, and then I can start stackin' these in order to create my bowl blank and have that really cool contrasting wood look plus the kinda brick mold pattern that's coming around from doin' the segment like that. So the MiterSet does a really, really good job of takin' the guesswork outta gettin' your Miter gauge set to just the right angle when you're doin' frames like these. So one of the things I talked about in that video is the opportunity to use the MiterSet to cut a bunch of - to make a bunch of rings and make that into a bowl blank. You and I are both avid turners. So after the video, I continued that work and made a laptop stand, apparently, which is actually that. Made a bunch more rings and then stacked 'em up. This is the beginning of a segmented bowl turning which starts with being able to accurately cut angles so that we can glue up the rings, so we can glue the rings together. So to make this into a bowl blank, this will get a bottom glued to it, and then this whole assembly can go on the lathe. And think how cool that's gonna look as a bowl, contrasting colors, lots of neat stuff going on there and you don't have to hollow the inside. You're not puttin' a bunch of shavings Yup. on the floor goin' to waste because the inside is already hollow. I love the way that the MiterSet takes the guesswork out of settin' your Miter gauge to a specific angle and the accuracy of that tool is crazy cool. It's really, really, really dialed in. I wish I had one 25 years ago. You know, one of the most common questions we get is: "How do you determine the angle Yeah. and how do you set up your tools to make cuts like that?" And now I've got an answer. Yep, yep. And so many people wanna make picture frames; it's such a common project. That entry point to bein' able to do that with the Miter gauge on your table saw: great move.