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Adam Throat plates
December 14th, 2005 04:44 AM
December 14, 2005 Throat plates


This is a fairly individual operator oriented subject.

The Craftsman plastic plates give the operator the capability of doing a "zero-clearance" cut through their work.

Splintering happens when the wood being cut is either being cut too aggressively (number of teeth on blade, combined with feed rate of the blade) or the back of the cut is not adequately backed up.

If you give the wood fibers on the bottom of the cut space to go, they WILL go.

So, in theory the zero clearance plates are a great idea.

Here are some real world complications.

The factory made the first initial cut in your brand new plate. No doubt to verify complete functionality of the saw. Which is great.

But, are you planning on using the factory supplied blade?

That blade is a general purpose blade that has to be fine enough to cut molding, but coarse enough to make it through the advertised 2 by material the saw could also be cutting for a Carpenter.

If you swap out the factory blade for any other blade, the width of cut is almost guaranteed to not be the same as the first blade's width.

But, when you are using the compound angle feature of the Mitre Saw to cut your Crown molding, you are coming into the plate at an angle. You just lost your zero-clearance.

Some manufacturers, mostly of the 12 inch size saws, simply assume you are a professional and give up all hope of zero clearance plates.

Backing plates of MDF or Masonite would probably serve a multi-project user to greater advantage.

If you are just doing cut-off work, with the one blade, the zero clearance plated saw is absolutely one of the best, no hassle ways to go.

Once you start actually using the compound angle feature of the Mitre Saw, zero clearance throat plates are just not going to meet any operator's needs.
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