How to clamp a mortice & tenoned frame

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RichD1

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As it says, I've jointed everything up ready for gluing but the horns out of the vertical rails prevent the Bessey clamps being positioned central to the horizontal rail. If I do put them above the horn it does not pull the joint out of square.

I had thought about making some slips of wood wider than the protruding horn above and below the horn but this is going to be very difficult to position correctly without gluing them to the rail. Also using PU glue so I don't have much time to fiddle with packing on all four corners.

Any easy suggestions?

Richard
 
glue the wood packers to the rails with superglue/hot glue gun and knock them off after?

or

Glue/double sided tape them to the clamps and knock them off after?
 
As it says, I've jointed everything up ready for gluing but the horns out of the vertical rails prevent the Bessey clamps being positioned central to the horizontal rail. If I do put them above the horn it does not pull the joint out of square.

I had thought about making some slips of wood wider than the protruding horn above and below the horn but this is going to be very difficult to position correctly without gluing them to the rail. Also using PU glue so I don't have much time to fiddle with packing on all four corners.

Any easy suggestions?

Richard
By "horns" do you mean sticking out ends of tenons? It usually means extra length on the stiles.
Either way you just clamp where you can, just below the tenons. Once you've got the wedges in you should be able to remove the clamps but usually they get left a bit longer
 
clamp it up with 4 clamps and use another one to pull it into squareness and make sure you have a dead blow hammer at hand.
 
In your situation I think the easiest thing would be to cut the ends off the tenons so that they are a millimetre below the surface of the frame when assembled, then you can cramp up and plane the outside of the frame and tenon ends when dry. Ian
 
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