Make a Perfect Miter Articulation

Take your woodworking upward a notch with these smashing tips

Introduction

In pursuit of the perfect miter articulation? These tips for tighter miters comprehend common situations y'all'll undoubtedly encounter in your workshop.

Tools Required

Materials Required

  • Accelerator for cyanoacrylate glue
  • Biscuits
  • Cyanoacrylate glue
  • Masking tape
  • Ho-hum-setting woods glue
  • Gummy notes
  • Wood glue

Project step-by-step (13)

Step 1

Apply flake wood guides for a perfect fit

Lock your piece into position

It's dang near impossible to get the length and position of a mitered office correct unless you lot can butt it upwards against the bordering miters. To provide a guide, tape or clamp mitered scraps in place. Remove the scraps every bit before long as yous glue the part in place—otherwise, stray gum might make those temporary guides permanent.

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Step 2

Match forest grain

Make miter joints less visible

Whether yous're banding a tabletop or making a picture frame, make certain the forest colour and the grain design match at the miters. Selecting matching wood at the lumberyard takes just a few extra seconds and gives y'all much better-looking miters.

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Step three

Marshal with biscuits

Lock corners together perfectly

It's non easy to align and clench miters, especially when they're lubricated with a coat of slippery mucilage. That's why woodworkers often use biscuits on miter joints even where extra strength isn't needed. Cutting beige slots is a minor task that provides major aid at glue-up time.

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Pace 4

Square up with corner clamps

Get 90 degree corners every time

With some miter-clamping methods, yous demand to grab a square and brand sure the corner is exactly 90 degrees. Non and then with corner clamps; they automatically hold parts perfectly foursquare. They're available at home centers or online.

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Step v

Miter, get together, then rout

Create sharp, perfectly aligned corners

Shaped moldings tin can be tough to miter, align and clench. So make life easier by starting with apparently square stock. And so, after assembly, grab your router and shape the edges. The risk with this method is that you'll gouge or splinter parts that are already in place. The all-time way to avoid disaster is to make a series of shallow passes instead of one full-depth cut.

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Step 6

Slow downwards your glue

Give yourself actress time

It's hard enough to align and clench miters without rushing to go it done before the glue begins to set (in five to 10 minutes, and fifty-fifty faster in warm, dry conditions). That's why in that location are tedious-setting wood glues, which give you an extra 10 minutes or so. If you can't find a irksome version at your favorite home heart, make your own. If you add one part h2o to 20 parts woods gum, you'll proceeds about 5 minutes of working fourth dimension. The water will also weaken the bond very slightly. So if strength is critical, order tiresome-setting glue online. Titebond Extend is ane common brand.

Rehearse Before You Glue

A dry out run—consummate assembly with clamps but without glue—is the best manner to ensure a smooth, successful mucilage-up, whether you lot're assembling miters or anything else.

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Step 7

Clamp with your easily

Easier associates for hard-to-clamp parts

When you're dealing with pocket-sized or other hard-to-clamp parts, your hands make the best clamps. Simply rub the glued surfaces together and hold them tightly on a flat surface for nigh a infinitesimal. Let go and permit the joint to gear up for 30 minutes earlier handling it.

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Step eight

Micro-accommodate with paper shims

Fine-tune miter cuts

If you've ever tried to adjust the angle of your miter saw by i-10th of a degree, you lot already know how hard micro-adjustments are. Here's an easier style: Slap a few sticky notes on the fence, make test cuts and add or remove sheets until yous get exactly the angle yous want.

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Step 9

Experience the departure

Use your sense of bear on

When you're edifice a box or frame, the contrary sides have to be exactly the same length. To make sure they are, do the touch test: Set up the parts side past side and run your finger over the mitered ends. You may not be able to encounter a slight length divergence, simply you'll experience it.

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Stride 10

Close ugly gaps

Pro trick

You can shut a small miter gap by rubbing information technology with a screwdriver shank or whatever hard, polish tool. Nosotros used the stop of a utility pocketknife. That crushes the woods fibers inwards to make the gap disappear. Even professional person woodworkers sometimes resort to this crude trick.

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Step 11

Make your own corner clamps

Put extra pressure on miter joints

This is an old favorite among woodworkers: Clench on notched blocks, and then add a bar clench or ii to squeeze the joint. This allows you to put a lot of pressure on the articulation without buying whatsoever special clamps. If you're assembling a four-sided project such as a picture show frame, join two corners starting time. So, afterward the glue has fix, join the 2 halves of the frame.

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Footstep 12

"Lengthen" a board

Snatch victory from the jaws of defeat

E'er cut that terminal part just a bit besides short? There'south a solution for that: First, trim off the within border of the too-brusque function. By cutting off the short border, you finer make the mitered office longer. Then trim the same amount off the outer edges of the other iii sides. Your edging volition be a little thinner than y'all had planned, but nobody will discover.

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Stride 13

Bond joints instantly

Become ameliorate results when yous mucilage small pieces


Trim carpenters have used this system for years: Utilize a few dabs of cyanoacrylate agglutinative (aka "superglue") to one surface and apply activator (or "accelerator") to the other. Immediately press the parts together and they'll bond in seconds. No waiting, no complicated clamping setup. Activator is sometimes sold separately ($5 and upwardly), sometimes with the glue. Look for information technology at home centers or store online; rockler.com carries a practiced selection of glues and activators.

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