mitre boxes

[marcros]

I was just having a look for a way of cutting a few mitres by hand, and specifically the accuracy of one of the Stanley plastic mitre boxes. I googled "Stanley Mitre Box accuracy", and landed on a couple of American fora- Sawmill Creek et al. They were discussing old mitre boxes, specifically the Stanley 358.

That looked interesting, so i wondered what one would cost me. Every example is in the USA. I cant even find anything similar here.

What did people use back in the day, before the days of Nobex? It must have been a common enough task, and yet examples of non powered mitre saws, non plastic mitre boxes etc are noted by their absence on ebay.

 

[bugbear]

Old mitre boxes (as you've found) were made, but are rather rare.

It seems likely (therefore) people were probably using DIY simple mitre boxes made from 3 pieces of wood, like this one:

http://www.tooled-up.com/product/faithf ... x-12/3263/

If high accuracy was needed, I suspect near-enough sawing (even freehand) followed by a mitre shooting board was the way.

BugBear

 

[marcros]

i suppose the compound dovetail was probably an easier one from a stock prep perspective because it was just square ended stock. Maybe the compound mitre wasn't made popular until powered compound mitre saws became popular/common place.

I cant think where it may have been used other than mouldings and decorative items like trays/boxes. I think that Derek Cohen's justification for making his smaller steampunked version was because the stanleys were very large for mouldings (sledgehammer to crack a nut), so you could have hit the nail on the head with your suggestions. 3 pieces of offcut would be easy enough to join together when required.

 

[Mr_P]

Guess they are rare due to full time carpenters just not needing one.

I guess in the good old days before powertools and in the days of long apprenticeships marking and cutting to a straight line would be year one stuff and repeated failure would result in the apprentice being asked to find a new career. Think my argument is backed up by the quantity of sliding bevels on ebay.

 

[marcros]

ah, so only ever a diy tool?

 

[bugbear]

Guess they are rare due to full time carpenters just not needing one.

I guess in the good old days before powertools and in the days of long apprenticeships marking and cutting to a straight line would be year one stuff and repeated failure would result in the apprentice being asked to find a new career. Think my argument is backed up by the quantity of sliding bevels on ebay.

Agreed. Since most of the mitre boxes made (Langdon, Miller Fall, Stanley) used back saws, they were never used for the sort of big stuff carpenters handled, and in any case most early boxes can't do the compound cuts used for roofing. These tools were clearly never designed to be used by carpenters,

So a followup question is - who was using all the mitre boxes (and indeed mitre trimmers)? There was a wide range of both over an extended period of time, so the manufacturers were clearly finding some customers.

I think pattern makers (lots of coopered fabrication) were heavy users of the trimmers, some of which were massive.

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

Overhere in Europe you can get the Ulmia ones. There is also a modern Swedish interpretatoin (Novex?).

I have a nice Ulmia mitersaw. It is rediculously precise, but I haven't really found a use for it yet. Maybe if I would be into picture frame making? It is precise enough and the cut is very smooth, so you don't need to use a shootingboard.