Used to eyeball every miter joint, now I check it twice with a $12 plastic gauge

Kevin Wells · 2026-10-24T22:35:04.164506+00:00

For years I cut miters by eye and just nudged the saw until the gap looked tight enough. Then last month I built 6 window casings for a porch job in Dayton and the corners opened up on almost every one after two weeks of sun. A guy on the crew handed me a cheap plastic angle gauge and showed me how to mark the actual wall angle before cutting, and it caught a 2 degree slant I never would have seen. Now I check every corner with that little gauge first and cut to the number instead of guessing. My scrap pile of re-cut trim has shrunk a lot since then. What do you all use to catch out of square walls before you start cutting?

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Used to eyeball every miter joint, now I check it twice with a $12 plastic gauge | Carpenters - Guest Forum