Ah, summertime perfect for swimming pools picnics and running barefoot through a field of...
Microjig maker of the gripper. Work safer, work smarter.
A common method Reinforcing the corners of picture frames is to insert some splines, like these.
My typical method is to cut slots in the corners and insert the splines after gluing the frame together.
But there's another method that lets you glue up the frame and the splines all at once.
This jig is sort of the reverse of the other one but it's just as easy to make.
I'm going to make this out of three quarter inch or eighteen millimeter plywood.
MDF is also a good choice because it's inexpensive and it has some extra weight to it.
This piece only needs to be a little higher than my rip fence, so I'll cut it down a little.
And I need this little piece to be square.
Align the corners of the square piece up against the edge at the longer piece and glue it in place.
And I think I'll put a couple of screws in there, so I don't have to wait for the glue to completely dry.
Now I can raise my blade and square up this whole assembly.
Using this jig is simple.
First, I'm going to line it up alongside my rip fence
to where it cuts through about the halfway point on that plywood triangle.
I've cut all the pieces for my picture frame with 45-degree miters on each end.
I'll just clamp that flush to that triangle piece.
Okay, so here's the important part, to make sure that all of the slots
line up you don't want to flip the board but instead you want to keep the board running the same direction
and make the cut on this back side.
There are any number of ways you can cut the splines
I'm going to show you the way that I think is the strongest.
And it starts by a grabbing a scrap piece of lumber and resawing it to determine the thickness of the spline.
I've got a zero clearance insert plate in my saw and I'll set my fence up to what looks like
about the right thickness of the spline.
And I've got a feather board to help keep this pressed against the fence.
So that gives me a pretty snug fit.
If you want you can just cut the splines down so they fit in this way.
But they're not strong in that direction.
So if you really want the strongest splines you want to put them in this way
with the grain going perpendicular.
So you want to make sure you choose a board that's wider than the diagonal of your miter.
Now I can cut the splines to their final width since this board is so thin I'm going to hold it down
with a thicker board.
And I'll glue this up like any other picture frame but first I'll glue the splines into those slots.
And once this is dry I can trim off the excess splines.
And that's all there is to making this alternative type of spline.
These are way stronger than my usual type of spline that only goes about halfway through the miter.
And you can customize these however you like if you want to make them wider or whatever.
The jig is super simple to use and to build.
I hope you'll give it a shot.
And I want to thank Casper for sponsoring this week's video
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I can't help wondering if these Casper spots aren't having another effect on him.
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Everybody. I really appreciate you spending a few minutes of your time with me today.
If you found this spline cutting method useful please leave a like and if you haven't already done
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If you really like picture frames and really who doesn't?
Check out my picture frame playlist with lots more ideas and inspiration.
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Links down in the description. Thanks for watching everybody.