The sliding compound miter saw tops the list of woodworking tools that can make accurate and smooth angled cuts used in everything from fine cabinet work to house building. Its lesser cousins include cut-off saws, so-called “chop saws” and any miter saw without the slide.

Do you need a 12″ saw or will a 10″ model do? The pros of choosing a 12″ machine over a 10″ unit are greater cutting height and depth and usually more power. The advantage of a 10″ model is lower weight and lower cost. If a 10″ saw will make all the cuts you can envision making in your shop or on the job site, by all means choose the smaller design. Most features and overall quality will be similar or identical within any particular brand.

This month we will be looking at chisels and marking and measuring tools. A few years ago now for another magazine I did a test of all of the brands of chisels available in the cabinet makers bevel edged pattern. The objective was to find the best branded chisel for apprentice cabinet makers. In doing this I found out that although chisels vary enormously in the quality of their grinding, the shape and the quality of the handles. However most of the manufactures are using a very similar grade of steel so the edge holding capacity of certainly European made chisels were very similar. What we did learn at this time was that if you move away from the European kind of chisel to the Japanese chisel it was possible to gain an edge holding capacity that would outlast the European chisel by 4 or 5 times. The disadvantage of going to Japanese is that they are made from a slightly more brittle steel but if one is careful in the way one uses them this wouldn’t seem to be a too great a disadvantage. However a slightly more serious disadvantage is the fact that re-sharpening a Japanese chisel takes a good deal longer than sharpening a European one. This is because the edge was made from a much harder steel and requires much greater care in sharpening.