The time I tried to cut crown molding with a miter box versus a proper saw

My buddy needed help with his living room last month and insisted his old metal miter box was 'just as good' as a power miter saw. We spent four hours on two corners, and every joint had a gap you could fit a nickel in. I finally brought over my 10-inch sliding compound miter saw the next day, set the angles, and had the other six corners done in under an hour with tight fits. The difference was night and day, mostly because the saw's fence and base gave a solid, square reference the flimsy box just couldn't. Has anyone else had a client or friend swear by a hand tool that just made a simple job a huge pain?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_wyatt14d ago

Oh man, that's the truth... @alicec86 nailed it with the square reference thing. It's like trying to draw a straight line with a wobbly ruler. That old metal box just flexes if you even look at it wrong, and then you're fighting the cut the whole time. A good saw base takes all that guesswork out so you can just focus on the cut itself. Some tools are worth the upgrade ten times over.

alicec8614d ago

Yeah, the "solid, square reference" thing is key. I've had guys try to use a dull handsaw in one of those boxes and wonder why everything's off by two degrees.