Is there a better way to glue up? Starting over....

First, accuracy in your initial cuts is vital. Same as your miter cuts.

If you use frame clamps that hold the wood at a perfect 90 degree angle like you would use at a picture frame shop or the following devices, you can get better control of your work.

CORNER CLAMPS

There are a great variety of devices to help and they are not too expensive.

I like biscuits on my mitered corners, but If you do the glue up properly, you can also use splines. They are beautiful especially if you use a contrasting wood.

-- making sawdust....

Practice on cheap wood first. Small boxes require extreme precision. Miters are tough. Close, tight joints don’t require as much glue.

Learing is fun, huh?

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

Keen, if your miters are off it just goes downhill from there, only you don’t know it until you get there.
For what it’s worth, I prefer to cut miters on the table saw whenever possible.
Also, make sure the wood is dead flat, no bows, cups, oopsies..

On a personal note, where did you get the Bloodwood?

-- .

Keen – the first cuts are vital. Make sure your blade (or miter guage if you go that route) are exactly at 45 degrees. A little one way or the other makes a huge difference. Make a cut on scrap wood then flip one side over and match the angles. This will tell you if your degrees are off and, if so, you can fix it before you move onto your good project wood.

As to clamping 90 degree angles—- it’s not that hard just got to be patient. I don’t have any fancy clamps and I do it all the time. On the smaller projects like jewlery boxes you can tape the corner together and roll the project up into one piece. The Woodwhisper’s video on making pencil boxes shows this technique very well. I use it quite a lot. If you are sloppy with the glue you will get squeeze out under the tape. I generally use the blue painter’s tape as a protective layer on my corners before I put on the packing tape. This helps greatly if you have used to much glue. I favor keys on miter joints so I don’t generally have the advantage of splines or biscuits for alignment.

Another trick for the smaller boxes is using the larger rubber bands to act as clamps. These work great, and are an inexpensive and easily stored clamping system.

On larger projects – I use tape also, but just as a “get it together to get clamps on it” assistant. After that I simply use my regular clamps tightening them a little at a time until the joints are secure. Then I check my diagonal measurements to be sure I’m square.

Picture frames can be tricky—- because they are so thin and not much to clamp. There is a video on YouTube that shows using wedges to put frames together. I’ll try to find it for you and post it – it’s pretty good. (I’m on lunch break at work and not much time left – but will get it later tonight.)

As to the routing issue. It depends on the particular project, but on boxes and things of that nature, I generally wait until after all the joinery is done to rout.

Hope this helps a little.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

Good info Betsy. This is why I love this site.

-- Maplewood, MN

Here’s the link to the picture frame clamping video I told you about. http://youtube.com/watch?v=C2trWWHH9dg

Hope this helps a little.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

A miter sled is a good jig to make. By cutting the mating miters, one on one side of the fence, and the other on the opposite side, any error in achieving the exact 45° cut is canceled out by the mating cut. The link to Iowawoodcrafter’s project has addition tips on construction.

Anyone else out there have a good link for one of these?

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Thanks for all the advice. Mot, the corner clamps you had on the link were the ones I was using. But the rounded edges wouldn’t allow for them clamp.

BroDave – I can’t remember where I bought the bloodwood. I ordered it online about two years ago. Finally decided to build this Frame/Shadowbox about a year and a half ago.

Initial miters were made with with an old cheap miter saw. I finally broke it and bought a good one and then a good blade. I’ve done a little (picture) framing and I had manual, razor-sharp guillotine that cuts perfect miters. However, it would just barely knick the bloodwood. Even just trying to shave off small slices. Put a good cut in my thumb trying though.

I’m wondering about the best glue too. I used regular wood glue before. I believe I’ve seen some forums on glue so I’ll go check them out.

Doug – Is there an advantage to using the miter sled over a sliding compound miter saw? Seems like I get better cuts from my miter saw. Of course that probably has a lot to do with the fact it is much better quality tool than my contractor style table saw. Plus I’ve never made a true fence for the miter guage. Usually just clamp on the closest piece of scrap. I only do that when the piece is too big for my miter saw.

Thanks again

-- Dad to 5, Son of The One