Long mitre joint, without mitre table/saw.

[Macker]

Hey guys/girls,

I'm new both here and to woodworking. Have literally zero experience but work in architecture/3D modelling so have a fairly decent idea on the design side of things, but I would like to create some storage boxes for some vinyl records, and would like to use plywood that I'll eventually paint in different colours, but leave the end grain exposed.

I'd ideally like to mitre the corners but don't have the necessary equipment (or space for the equipment, as I live in an apartment). I would most likely be using a tenon saw and miter box. Obviously a box that is a foot deep is going to have a mitre that is a foot long, so is there any way of making this kind of cut accurately without a table/mitre saw?

As a follow up question, provided that the above is possible, what would the best way of strengthening the joint be? Splines?

Many thanks in advance,

Chris.

 

[kinsella]

Hi Macker
it sounds like your confined to hand tools, so maybe a shooting board with a plane may be your only option. As a newbie to woodworking trying to cut a long mitre as you describe is like running before you learn to walk in my view. Won't a simple butt joint suffice or even a smaller face applied strip that is mitred might be a little easier to achieve.

 

[marcros]

I would be tempted to butt joint it and dowel for strength. If you are showing end grain on top, carry the feature through on front and back.

 

[Peter Sefton]

Hard work on plywood by hand, your planes won't want to plane the ply. You may be able to get the ply cut for you Severn plywoods in Stonehouse.
http://www.timbmetdepot.com/#
You may be able to glue up with masking tape and Titebond glue.
Happy woodworking and welcome to the forum.
Cheers Peter

 

[RobinBHM]

Thats quite a tricky joint to get right even with the right gear and difficult to assemble.

 

[Stormer1940]

Butt joint. If you use birch faced ply the end grain will look alot better than standard ply and will look more of a feature.

 

[Kalimna]

Just a thought - and still bearing in mind 'workshop' location etc, but would using a 45 degree chamfer bit in a router be a reasonable suggestion? I have never done it, but it just popped into the noggin as a 'maybe'.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[nicguthrie]

If you *Really* want to stick with the idea of mitre joint, it'll be hard, but you could try this. I may be preaching to the choir here, but I'm just trying to help a self confessed newbie with a couple tips I learned from an old pro while a total newbie myself.

Mark it precisely as you can with a ballpoint, or better on top of that, with a knife. As a beginner, pencil marks tend to get smudged., and on ply the knife mark cuts the surface splinters to stop them getting in the way.

Cut it as cleanly as you can, close to that line, but without touching it, leave the wood on the edge after the line and concentrate on keeping your cut vertical, don't worry about arrow straight, just don't cross the line.

Now make yourself a couple of sanding boards, 6 inch+ long, thick and totally straight, (just glue good sandpaper to a solid, straight backing) a couple in coarse grit, and one finer. Take the fine grit one over the edge lightly, almost flat to the top surface, but tilted off the edge, and brush away any splintery edges, they make it hard to see things clearly on ply. Do this any time these start to get in the way as you progress.

Use the coarse sanding boards to sand the edge back to the line you marked, making sure you keep them vertical, just work away at the high spots. The closer you managed to get your cut, the less sanding there is. The longer and stiffer the sanding boards are, the straighter they'll keep your work.

It's a dodge, rather than using a plane (which is all but impossible even for a pro on Ply) or expensive power tools as a beginner. Just requires patience and a bit of elbow grease.

I'd suggest using simply pins and good glue (titebond II is my personal favourite).

Oh, damn.

I've just realised what you meant. The above is worded as a guide for mitre jointing two flat boards together as you would for each corner on a lid, not the edges of a box. That's gonna be a lot harder to do, but you could in theory do it the same way, just working to 45 degrees with the sanding, rather than vertical.

I'd *heartily* recommend doing as the others say tho, and butt jointing (use the sandpaper thing to make the edges flat) then attach with pins/dowel and glue, and reinforce by gluing and pinning a square section or some 45degree cut beading into the inside of each corner for added strength.

Sorry for the wall of text, I feel like a twit, but there may be some useful thoughts there.

Nic.

 

[glynster]

A cheap and cheerful handheld circular saw (properly set up - and tested with some test cuts) can be adjusted to set its angle of cut and so will cut you a perfect 90 or 45 degree edge - set it up in conjunction with a decent angle measure (digital bevel is perfect - like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003 ... UTF8&psc=1) because you will need to test its cuts and NOT rely on the angle markings on your saw which are seldom right. Use some quickgrip clamps to hold your work and a decent clamped on guide fence and you will get a spot on result - done it many times.

In general, a handheld circular saw is an ideal tool for confined spaces - with a clamping guide fence ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000 ... UTF8&psc=1 ) and a folding workbench you can do some pretty good cuts without a table saw and still fit the lot into a wardrobe when you;re done. Just dont even plug it in until you've read up on safety - what CAN go wrong and how to prevent it.

 

[marcros]

Just a thought - and still bearing in mind 'workshop' location etc, but would using a 45 degree chamfer bit in a router be a reasonable suggestion? I have never done it, but it just popped into the noggin as a 'maybe'.

Cheers,
Adam

I have done this, but only over 4" length, and on something like 15mm thickness. It worked ok, but I held it in the woodrat which isnt an option here. you also need a large chamfer cutter, which isnt cheap.

 

[Racers]

Hi Chris

Welcome to the forum.

I would look at getting the plywood cut to size and then screw them together no mitres just butt joints., fill the screw holes and paint.

I can't see any other way of making them due to you living in an apartment.

Nice to see another vinyl lover on here, vinyl is much better than CD.

Pete

Pete

 

[houtslager]

if you want too and can bring your bits over too for a beer I'll do the mitre cuts for you.
Will be back in Chippy for the weekend

K

 

[JohnPW]

Are people saying this cannot be done with hand tools? Why can't you just mark the wood, saw close to the line and then finish off with a plane? One problem is how to hold the workpiece, ideally it should be held at 45 degrees so that you can plane horizontally.

 

[dickm]

have a look in one of Robert Wearing's books (Resourceful woodworker?). There's a very neat design in one of them for a mitre shooting board that can be made as wide as you want, and will hold the board firmly for planing exactly to fit after you've cut nearly to size.
Nice and quiet for the flat - no screaming router

 

[sdjp]

Oddly, and I don't know how many other will agree with me here, but I think that dovetail joints might be a better option here?

There are, indeed, questions of precision with those too - but if you are planning to paint it, then any gaps can be filled, without worrying about it affecting the final appearance. It's a lot stronger than butt joints, or mitre joints, and is amenable to a purely hand tool approach. The bit thing about the precision is that each section is reasonably independent, so you're less likely to end up with errors cascading into a bit problem (instead, just have lots of little issues, and wood filler can mitigate the most common of those).

The down sides are you'll need a coping saw (or fret saw, piercing saw or some other way to cut out the tails), and given it's plywood, paring out neatly with a chisel will be a bit tricky (but see above, re: filling any gaps with wood filler). I've not done dovetails on plywood, so there might be further problems I'm not familiar with - anyone got any experience with that?

That might seem a bit much for a first project, but worth considering as an option (even if the response is an emphatic, No!).

 

[custard]

Oddly, and I don't know how many other will agree with me here, but I think that dovetail joints might be a better option here?

I've not done dovetails on plywood, so there might be further problems I'm not familiar with - anyone got any experience with that?

Dovetailing ply is not a happy experience. It's bad with hand tools, it's even worse with a router and a dovetail jig. Finger jointing ply on a spindle moulder is possible, but that's not remotely practical for a kitchen table woodworker.

And that's no disrespect to kitchen table woodworkers!

A carefully set up plunge saw on a track, with a fine toothed blade, could give decent mitred results. But realistically a butt joint is probably the cheaper, better solution. If you really want a painted carcass with visible ply veneered edges then you could butt joint the carcass and apply mitred ply edging end-on to the front edges, you'd have to do quite a bit of filling to cover up all the joints before painting, but with some care it could produce a convincing result.