My dad told me I was using the miter saw wrong for 10 years

Growing up my dad always cut baseboards with the finished side facing up on the miter saw. I just copied him without thinking about it. Then a few years ago an older trim carpenter I was working with on a house in Sherwood Park stopped me and said hey flip that board over, face down. I thought he was crazy at first. But he explained that the saw blade cuts upward so the bottom edge gets the tearout, not the top where people actually see it. I tried it on a piece of poplar and the difference was night and day. Now I never cut trim face up anymore. Has anyone else had a basic reno habit they unlearned after getting called out?

2 comments

2 Comments

wendy97810d ago

Wait, has nobody mentioned how this could've been a safety thing too? I mean, cutting with the finished side up means your hands are way closer to the blade if you're holding the board steady. Flipping it face down puts your hands further from the spinning blade. Also, the blade's rotation actually pulls the board down against the fence when you cut face down, so it's less likely to kick back at you. I've seen dudes get their fingers banged up from not respecting that. Plus, if you're cutting real cheap baseboard that's got a thin veneer, the tearout isn't just cosmetic - it can actually peel the whole laminate layer off and ruin the piece. So really your dad might've been wrong for a decade but at least you figured it out before you did a whole house and had to redo it.

beth_ward8010d ago

Four guys I know in the framing crew all cut baseboard face down now after one of them lost half a fingernail to a kickback. They swear by it and say the finish is actually cleaner because the blade pushes the chipped pieces into the waste side instead of up into the face.