Clamping across a miter joint can be a little bit tricky,
but I've got a cool solution for you that involves a simple-to-make jig that's reusable.
The Wood Whisperer is sponsored by Titebond.
Now if you're not familiar with why this is a difficult
joint to clamp. Just look at the way a clamp would engage with
this. The clamp is meant to go across the joint
and there's just nothing to grip onto because everything is at
an angle. So there's a couple different ways
that I've handled this in the past. One way is to use clamping
blocks. Now you can attach these with double stick tape or something
like CA glue and the key though is you want to use a soft species
of wood. These two by four stock pieces would be great for this
because after the glue dries and you need to pop this off,
you want the weaker would to be in your sacrificial block
and this way you just have a little bit of cleanup to do
and you haven't pulled up any of this walnut,
That's one solution. Another solution requires a lot of planning
and that is before you cut your pieces to final shape,
you might be able to leave a little bit of extra material to put
some kind of a ridge there or a notch that you can set your clamp
into and get the appropriate clamping pressure where you need
it. Now I think the best way to handle this is to use a reusable
jig like this. These are actually two pieces.
They're exactly the same. You have a block on here for clamping
permanently attached to a plywood strip with a little bit of sandpaper
on there for extra grip. So you clamp them to your parts back
here and then you add an extra clamp across the joint,
putting the pressure where you need it. So let me show you how
we make them. I cut two pieces of three quarter inch plywood to
about two inches wide and 24 inches in length.
You can vary the size based on what you most frequently need to
clamp. Now I'm cutting a couple of hard wood blocks with a 45° angle on one end.
On the plywood strip, I'll add 80 grit sandpaper
and you don't absolutely need to do this. But the grippier
this thing is the less clamping pressure. You'll need to secure
it. Some spray adhesive should do the trick
and while I didn't do it here, you might want to apply some sandpaper
to the angled face of the hardwood block. That'll give our clamp
something better to grip on. Once the glue sets up,
just use a sharp knife to trim the sandpaper around the edges.
"Very purpley" The blocks are then diligently pre drilled
and counter sunk for screws except I really wanted the screws
to be on the plywood side. So those holes are now just decoration
and I'll attach the blocks with glue and screws from the correct side.
"I'm a professional" Now using these guys is actually pretty
straightforward, but there's a little bit of subtlety
and nuance to it. So let's go through the process. Now you can make this
a real trial and error process. Just try clamping it up,
keep the joint dry and just see which position gives you the best
clamping pressure or you can just think ahead
and draw some lines that might actually help you out here.
So when the joint is together, I'd like to find the center of
the joint. This is just by eye. You can certainly measure if you
wanted to something like that. And then I'm gonna grab a square
and extend that line. And the reason I'm using a square is
because I want to stay perpendicular to the joint.
I don't care what these angles are, they could really be just
about anything. What I want to know is the perpendicular line
at the center point of the joint and go lightly
because you're probably at a finished surface here.
So we're gonna have to sand this out later.
And of course this is not just a butt joint.
So I'm gonna add my dominoes here, bring that joint together,
okay, like that. And to find the position of our strips.
What we're looking to do is extend this line across to the center
point of the clamp. So wherever this clamp is gonna go
and it's gonna roughly be centered somewhere on this block.
Now, remember these angles were cut at 45 degrees unless this
outside angle is 90 we're not gonna interface perfectly with this
surface, but it's gonna be close enough, so I'm not too concerned
about it, but what I'm aiming for is essentially the center of
where that clamp is going to engage. So all I'm doing now is lining
up my center points with these lines here just by eye,
almost like I continue this line all the way across
and I'm looking forward to engage with that line
and now on each side, I'm just gonna add a small clamp.
That's the joy of using the sandpaper, it grips so well,
you really only need one clamp if you decide to forego the sandpaper,
you may want to put two clamps on there just to be sure it doesn't
slip. And then now all we need to do is add our third clamp across
the joint and try to stay, keep your bar in line with
that center line. The good thing about enough style clamp is this
little do-jobby here that's gonna wiggle and it's gonna find the
angle, this one is flat and it's gonna be,
you know, kind of hitting it at a bit of an angle,
so it won't be perfect, but you don't need a lot of clamping pressure
on miter joints anyway, things are gonna move a little bit,
but again remember we just picked an angle here
and this is to accommodate a bunch of different angles in the
work, anything that we might come across and
that is nicely clamped along the joint, that's success right there.
Now one quick word of warning, I almost forgot when you disassemble
this jig, there's an order. You do not want to loosen these two
before you loosen this one because if you loosen these,
this clamp wins the battle and everything is gonna go nuts
and depending on your work piece, that could be real bad.
So always make sure that you loosen the one on the joint first
and then take the clamps off the rest of the piece.
Now if you make two of these you may as well make four
because even for my glue ups I have two corners to do on each
piece and I have two of these pieces so I kind of could use eight
of them. I don't have eight but if you make a couple it's better just
to make a whole bunch and you got a nice little collection there.
But the best part about this is when I'm done,
I take them off, there's no glue on them, there's no harm done
to them and I could reuse these until they decide to break on
me, which will take a very long time. Alright,
thanks for watching everybody, we'll see you next time.