Cutting Tight Bevel Cuts                                            

We have those times when we want to do a bevel cut and get the cutout to drop into the outside frame part of the work. But making tight corners and points there seems to be a big problem. The blade will just not make the tight radius that we want. Here is an example cutting for a moon, I just cut in from the edge, but you would drill the hole on an angle to start your cut. From the hole the cut would be done with the same theory.

Smaller blades are easier to use for this trick. This is difficult to explain , but if you get a piece of scrap and try what you think I mean, you will soon figure out how it is done.

This trick is good for those places you want that nice sharp tip to a portion of a cutout, the rest of the cutout with bigger radius can be cut in the normal way.

Cut into 1/4" thick wood the right moon is what we want it to look like, but the left moon is what we usually get as we try to cut it the normal way.

How did we do it ! On the left moon we started cutting on the edge of the wood into the moon and then just followed the line around the pattern. That gave us the big rounded tip.

On the right moon we started the cut on the edge and cut into the tip of the moon, but from the tip instead of cutting around like normal, turn the wood in the opposite direction to make the corner. Normally when we get to the tip we would turn the wood clockwise to follow around the tip. But instead turn the wood counterclockwise, keeping the blade on the tip, which will cut out the area on the bottom side. Then cut back into the inside cut line of the moon. This gives you the pointed tip you wanted on the moon in the first place.

On the bottom of the wood you will see where you cut away an area of the blade to turn in during that backward turn at the tip.

This is harder to do in thicker wood so you may want to do a little more practicing on some scrap of the actual wood species and thickness you are using for the final project.

Notice that the far left moon has big curves at the tips. That is what the cut will normally do in 3/4" thick wood. Notice the other two at the right have a sharper tip to them.  The thicker wood is more difficult , so practice the technique on some scrap.

Notice how nice the moon looks on the two right attempts, but the one on the left has rounded tips that just don't seem to look right on the picture.

This is what the back side will look like making the cuts as described.  At the tips there will be another big wedge cut out, to get the blade to turn on the front.