#83 - Technique - Matching Existing Compound Angles

When stacking up compound cuts to make an octagonal cylinder or other multi-faceted object, the minor error in each cut also compounds making the last piece fit less than well.

A better method I used for the tapered octagonal column ("tapered octagon" for short!) was to glue up the first seven facets then measure the exact part I needed for the eighth. Matching the miter angles of the part is easy, but usually there's confusion on how to measure the associated bevel angles. This short video (no, really! under 7 minutes!) shows how I did the measurement.

I'll also discuss an animation at the end that shows a bit of how the bevel angle relates to the included angle and stock thickness.

No math is used or harmed in this video; safe for all ages :)

[chrisstephens]

When i had to do something similar some years ago i just glued two lots of four and run the two halves across the planer to get two planar surfaces that could glued easily.

[annarboriter]

Transferring points is generally more reliable than measuring and transferring numbers.