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I'm a beginner woodworker, but I'm intrigued by these plans for a Modular Wall Unit from Fine Woodworking. They're outside my skill range but could be a fun challenge.

The plans are pretty detailed, but when it comes to making these brackets, it just says "The brackets are two solid-wood pieces that are mitered, reinforced with dominos, and glued together."

How would you approach cutting the angles for these two pieces? Even with a deep miter saw, it seems like there isn't enough wood to hold onto for the final cut for that to be a good idea. Would you do it on a table saw with a miter gauge? Would you build a jig for it? This is probably obvious to the people who wrote these plans, but I don't know what the typical approach would be!

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  • Hi, welcome to Woodworking. Hehe, I was all set to say, "well how does FW say to make them?" and then I read the body text ^_^ So anyway, it seems you have a mitre saw and TS, but please formally state that in the body of the Question in case that isn't the correct inference. Also list other potentially relevant tools you have available to you, like a belt sander, bandsaw. BTW if you don't have a Domino just use dowels; a line of three should be perfectly sufficient here, but go with two staggered lines of two if you want to err on the side of strength.
    – Graphus
    Commented May 15, 2023 at 5:54
  • I'm curious, how many of these are needed? I can't look at the link (I exceeded the max number of free views on both FW and PW sometime recently <sob>) As for me, I'd just mark out, saw by hand, then plane down accurately to my lines. While this is by necessity in my case it is a viable option to mention to anyone who owns the necessary hand tools, because it saves having to make a jig for a one-off project, Not that jigs are bad, I like jigs. But if you'll use one very infrequently there's a strong argument to be made for just doing the task in a more direct manner to "get 'er done".
    – Graphus
    Commented May 15, 2023 at 6:04

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These kinds of long miters are indeed fairly tricky to cut. Some options:

  • Table saw with a jig. The jig would allow you to clamp the wood at an angle and then slide across the fence (toggle clamps are best for this, but you can rig something for f-clamps as well). This allows for long cuts (i.e. shallow angles) and is probably the safest way to do this
  • Table saw with miter gauge, works okay for smaller pieces. Might be better to do the miter first and cut to size after to avoid cutting a piece that is awkward to hold tight against the miter gauge
  • Sliding miter saw that has enough capacity for this. Do note that miter saws typically come with cross cut blades, but in this case it is closer to a rip cut. Cross cut blades will bog down and tend to pull the wood more in this configuration than regular cross cutting
  • Circular saw/jigsaw/handsaw. Mark the line of the cut, clamp the wood to the edge of the workbench so that the cut overhangs and cut it. As suggested, might want to plane/sand the final edge to be straighter

Another alternative is not to cut the edge straight, but instead have a certain decorative pattern. Cutting that with a jigsaw or scroll saw would be fairly easy and wouldn't require as much accuracy as a straight edge.

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  • Great Answer. Toggle clamps FTW for jigs like this; there are now many sophisticated clamps available but for the price of a single one you can get a set of strong toggle clamps for fitting to various jigs.
    – Graphus
    Commented May 15, 2023 at 14:17

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