enough to maintain accuracy even when moved around. Because they cut from above it is not necessary to adjust blade depth for different thicknesses of work piece and, like any bench machine, repeat cuts are very easy. Most saws have an adjustable scale plate for table swiveling, with positive stops at commonly used angles. Also, there are usually adjustable stops at 90 and 45 degrees for tilting the head, allowing easy and very accurate adjustment of the saw. Table swiveling in both directions is universal but most saws allow head tilting only in one direction (counter-clockwise), although some saws allow head tilting in both directions. Normally the work piece is held flat on the table and so table swiveling will produce a miter cut (blade vertical and angled across work piece), head rotation a bevel cut (blade angled from vertical and square across work piece), and in combination a compound cut. One of the main disadvantages is relatively poor wood chip and dust extraction, as so much of the blade is exposed when cutting, especially in bevel cuts; consequently there is a tendency for chips to fly about. Miter saw blades Miter saws commonly come in blade size configurations and are commonly made of carbon steel and may come with a coating to make the cut easier. While the blade sizes are interchangeable with table saws, a miter blade is optimized for short cuts across the grain of the wood with little pull, where as table saws are optimized for long rip cuts with the grain and pulling the material into the blade. Blades are marked with their number of teeth, kerf and hook angle. Tooth counts ranges vary from 24 to 100 teeth per inch (about 1 mm to 0.25 mm between each tooth). Blades with larger tooth counts results in finer but slower cuts. The kerf thickness denotes how much material is removed when making the cut. The standard being a kerf with thinner options for working finer wood. The hook angle denotes how aggressively the blade will pull the material in. A low hook angle or even a negative hook angle is designed to cause little board movement during cutting of unclamped boards. Teeth design comes in many variations: ATB (alternating top bevel), FTG (flat top grind) and TCG (triple chip grind) are the most common. Each design is optimized for a specific material and edge treatment.