Best ways of clamping difficult mouldings in place on Morso while cutting.

[Not your average framer]

I have started using an obeche moulding which is problematic when cutting it on the Morso. This appears to be due the the waste from each cut building up behind the M\orso blades and becoming compressed. The waste all falls clear at the end of the Morso's cutting stroke, but it starts to compress the obeche where below where the blade has reached cause cracks to appear in the obeche before the blades can get that far. This does not help to produce a nice smooth face to the cut, also there does appear to be some distortion in the moulding causing the ends of the two pieces of moulding to lift slightly as the cut is made. This problem only occurs with this particular moulding and other mouldings cut perfectly.

I am guessing that clamping the moulding to the fences on the Morso, might be helpful. Alternatively I might have to consider pre-cutting the required lengths on my electric sliding mitre saw, slightly over size and then trimming the ends down to size on the Morso as a final operation. I am a bit mistified why this should be happening, as it does not happen with larger pine mouldings at all. I would like to avoid taking full lengths of this moulding out in to my back yard to cut them on the electric mitre saw, but the full lengths are very un-weildy and I have great difficult managing them after my stroke affecting the strencth in the right hand side of my body and my ability to balance properly.

I take anything I wish to cut with my table saw, or my sliding miitre saw out in to my back yard, so that I don't have to worry about creating lots of saw dust in the shop. Unfortunately, I cannot do this when it is raining and it does rain rather a lot in this part of the country. Also long lengths of moulding are very difficult to support, when the electric saw is standing on top of my Workmate. There is not enough space in my little shop to cut longer length of mouldings, except on the morso. I'm not joking it is a tiny shop and manovering, full lengths of moulding around the shop is very difficult for me, as I need to hang on to things as I move around the shop to help my balance problems due to my stroke.

[fusionframer]

Which obeche moulding is it? I cut all the widest ones rose and hollis or wessex do. One of the rose and hollis ones, PP301 at 86mm is one i use a lot and there are a couple of others around the same width and they all cut fine, although i don't think you can cut much wider on the morso.

Nick

[vintage frames]

The only reliable way to cut wide mouldings, even with a double mitre saw, is to pre-cut the 4 sides a few mm oversize and shave to the final cut. This is especially relevant if only using a morso. That way you don't have to fight with the moulding to prevent it twisting and to hold it flat.
I use a double mitre saw and will always use a final shaving cut.

[Not your average framer]

Hi Nick,

It's Rose & Hollis A219, it's a really useful moulding and I've bought quite a bit of it. My blades are not exactly blunt, so I'm not thinking that it's a problem with the blades, I might re-sharpen them just to be sure, but they are cutting cleanly on everything else.

[Not your average framer]

Hi Dermot,

I think that we are both thinking along the same lines. I have difficulties using a hand saw since my stroke, as my right hand is not very co-ordinated and tires far too easily, so I am mostly using power saws these days. I still have a Nobex Proman 110 hand operated mitre saw, but my right hand is not very effective any more and I'm not sure about how to support the ends of the moulding, while doing this. I may be able to turn the moulding on to it's side and cut it on the Morso and then turn it back to the right way round to cut it down to proper length. It will involve more waste, but it may be worth all the extra bother.

[Steve N]

What you need to do is cut further back on the blades where there is space to clear the waste , the way to fo it is double side (tape) on to some 3 or 5mm thick MDF to the fence on the Morso, also a bit where you measure the width of the moulding and another of the same thickness where the measuring stop is, so the moulding is running straight, cut the moulding and you should find a nice clean cut. I'm using this most days when cutting mouldng, I remeber way back in the 90's at the Spring Fair at the NEC, there was a company selling these pacers, they were made machined cast ally with maginets on to stick to the fences , not seen them for years, so I made my own from MDF

[Not your average framer]

Thanks Steve,

I have some bits of 6mm MDF, so it's worth giving it a try.

Thanks,
Mark.