Don’t Cut Corners… Without a Mitre Box

Posted By Ibropalic on May 27, 2017 | 0 comments

We are all guilty of thinking we can cut a straight line.

If that were true, the old adage of “measure twice and cut once” wouldn’t be an adage at all. Humans have evolved in all sorts of ways during our time on this planet, but one thing we remain guilty of is our arrogance when it comes to being handy and having a do-it-ourselves kind of mentality. We think that we can just hammer a nail and stick some glue on the problem and everything will be better. Not all of us. But enough of us that the rest of the human race gets a bad rap.

It’s important to have the right tools for any job.

You wouldn’t try to fry an egg in a saucepan…I mean, you might, but it would be pretty hard to flip that egg with your spatula given the high sides of the saucepan, right? Right. So why do we think that we can just cut wood and other materials without the proper measuring tools? Let’s stop thinking we are smarter than the measuring tools.

Enter the mitre box: this little doohickey of a contraption can help you save lots of time and energy when you are cutting wood on an angle. Any angle really. The most common angle being cut during any home improvement job is a 45-degree angle. It’s what your corner45-degree. So if you are going to hang some crown moulding, or if you want to add some fancy chair rails, you’ll need to know how to cut a 45-degree angle. But if you have a mitre box, you won’t have to work so hard to achieve the perfect 45-degree angle.

If you choose to try to cut the piece of wood on your own, you’ll likely end up with mismatched ends that will stick out like a sore thumb on your walls. Or, and let’s be honest here, it will stick out like a poorly cut piece of wood on your walls. No one wants that.

How to make a mitre box

You can make a mitre box pretty easily, or you can purchase one from your local hardware store. It is just a simple rectangular shape box that is either plastic or made of the wood itself, and it has a series of lines cut deep into the sides of the box. There is a space for you to insert the piece of wood, or pipe, or whatever it is that you want to cut, and you simply line up the cuts you want to make with your handsaw and start cutting.

The linear system of the mitre box guarantees a perfect cut every time. If you’ve ever tried to cut a 45 degree angle on your own, you know that sometimes you can cut wood backward. The mitre box is a pretty handy tool that must be part of any mancave garage. This handy tool will save you time and saves you from wasting materials.

So whatever it is you need to cut, make sure you use the right tools. You don’t want to have to go back to the hardware store and tell them you need more wood because you were too stubborn to use the proper tools the first time, right? No, no one wants that.