Sunday, December 21, 2014

Handle those miters

A small box is a great project to tackle. It uses little wood, yet pushes your skills to the limit. It can be as simple or as complex as you would want to make it.

Just think about something as basic as corner joinery. Do you want to try your hand at cutting some dovetails? Maybe finger joints are more your speed.


For this project, I was going for splined miter joints. They are plenty strong for a small box, yet look very slick. One of the questions I get a lot at my blog is how do you clamp miters and keep them tight. I mean, it's not easy to get a clamp on them, and they want to slide all over the place when they are covered with glue.



Fortunately, the answer is something as simple as reaching for a little bit of Gorilla packing tape. As this video shows, you can use the tape to capture the miter joints for the glue up, and with the tape still in place after the glue dries, cut the miter slots on your table saw with just a few passes.

It's a simple yet totally awesome technique for getting even the trickiest miters to close up tightly and it works like a champ.


7 comments:

  1. Doesn't cutting the spline slots while the glue is wet get glue on your blade and squeeze out on your spline sled ?

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  2. I waited until the glue dried enough so it wouldn't get all over the place... The tape is just there to help reinforce the joint until the splines are in to reinforce it

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  3. Making a few little woodshop projects on the weekend can make your router a better tool in your garage.

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  4. I don't have a table saw but just a miter saw. Will it work? Please let me know.

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  5. Thanks for sharing your tips. I love wood working and I often do some simple thing for my family. I'll try to do something like your box next time.

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