MARCHing on... Dewalt Compound Miter Saw

So what if it's April. P'shaw! I MARCH to my own beat, thank you very much!

Hello sweet power tool friend of mine,

Everyone, this is my Dewalt Compound Miter Saw. DCMS, this is everyone. Please excuse the disaster of a garage around him. Keep in mind, I'm still working on my COMPLETE LIQUIDATION of Kung Fu Bambini that will be happening this month and our house is plastered with tubs of chenille bedspreads, vintage linens, trims, fabric, light fixtures from the warehouse/studio AND the store, mannequins, ay ya ya ya ya! It's hard to breathe in here.

 

Justin and I purchased this handy power tool many years ago when we bought our first house. It was one of our first power tool aquisitions. At the time we invested in this bad boy to help us put in all new floor and crown molding in our house and to cut all the snap together flooring that we installed in our great room. The Dewalt has seen many projects. Most, not as artsy crafty as this one I suppose...

Our Dewalt is a "compound" miter saw. This means that it can make compound cuts. In the first pic you can see a dial along the front of the saw. This dial allows you to change your flat angle. It physically pivots the blade and base slot where the saw blade cuts into the wood on a horizontal pivot. You can see me cutting a straight cut through my shims here:

 

What makes it "compound" is that there is another lever on the left hand side (out of frame, sorry!) that allows the blade to tilt from right to left on a vertical access. Tilt your head from left to right... now imagine your blade tilting from left to right. This allows you to make a compound cut. You might be cutting a 30 degree horizontal cut and a 30 degree tilt... this is how you get exact cuts for joining crown molding.

 

For this project I only had to make very simple straight cuts to get the shims to the height that I wanted. Whalah! Shims cut to about 12".