# Keyed Miter Joints



## jimc (Mar 6, 2008)

Some time back, I found this article on Keepsake Boxes at American Woodworker's website. It's a good article and fairly comprehensive. However, if you view the stack of boxes in the image included, below, the builder used some rather unusual keyed miter joints. Nowhere in the article was there any mention of anything except normal keyed miter joints and I have absolutely no clue as to how these were made. I have identiified the two items of interest as A & B in the image (the 5th & 6th boxes from the top also have unusual keys).

If anyone can explain the procedure, I'd surely appreciate it.

Thanks,

Jim


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## patron (Apr 2, 2009)

A - i think he used a router table and corner sled and a v bit , inset 1 piece , the did it again with smaller piece ?

B - same deal but with a 2 different size straight bits .
or it could be done on the tablesaw with different dado widths ?

interesting look .


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Interesting. I think David is on the money as usual with the how too.


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## jimc (Mar 6, 2008)

I think so, too. Never thought of using a V bit to accomplish this. I may have to glue up some corners and experiment with this. Must be a real pain cutting the inserts to fit, though!

Jim


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## chriswright (Nov 13, 2008)

I've done these a few times. It's not to difficult. I haven't done the two different types of wood in the spline, I've don't mine with a dove tailing bit.


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## patron (Apr 2, 2009)

looking again ,
A - has three pieces in it , make a corner L with ist piece , put another smaler L (other color to it ) ,
then fill with 3rd color . make this into a log then v grove the corner in a sled , and cut little blocks 
to glue into them and saw/sand smooth .
B - take a square strip and dado and insert other color to it , and grove corner on sled ,
and insert little block to it , saw/sand .
this way , you can make all the stock you want , and just cut off what you need .


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

Some nice joints. When you guys get it all figured out let me know.


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## chriswright (Nov 13, 2008)

This is the jig I use to do my dove tail splines. I'm sure you can use a similar jig to cut all of those recesses, just depends on what tool you want to use for the type of cut, i.e. table saw, router table.



and this is the result


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## Bovine (Apr 15, 2009)

When I first saw that, I was thinking it was done as Chris explained above. Then the splines are simply two colors of wood sandwiched/laminated together to get the outline effect.

Regardless, it's darned nice to look at!


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## patron (Apr 2, 2009)

jim ,

in response to this ,
.
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/20829
.








.
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/20832
.


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