Mitre corner on boxes.

[Roxie]

Greetings to you all
I am about to make a jewellery box with mitred corners. My problem is that height of the box is 6" and my mitre guillotine's capacity is only 4". I do not have a table saw, but do have a router table and planer/thicknesser.
My question is; do I buy a 45deg. chamfer router bit or set my planer to 45deg?
Thank you for your replies (should I get any!!)
John

 

[marcros]

i did one once with a chamfer cutter in the router table (well woodrat). It did work, but the joint wasnt as perfect as I had expected- user error most likely. If I were to do another, i would use the planer, or would make a quick shooting board.

One tool that I did buy was the veritas shooting sander, which I really like. I dont see why you couldnt make something similar from scraps.

If you use the chamfer cutter, you will need quite a big one.

If you have a guillotine, can you refine the design, so that it fits- perhaps make the lid as a separate piece rather than separate afterwards. I have never seen mitres done as well as a when guillotined. If you had a 4" box and a suitable sized lid, it wouldnt be far off the 6". If it looked a little short, you could put it on feet. etc.

 

[SteveF]

as above
could you design a contrasting strip of timber into it so only 3" each part (or less)

Steve

 

[marcros]

i have just realised- this will be end grain, so I wouldnt use the planer on it. You may be able to if you take the absolute lightest of passes, but the once that I tried to do so (not as a mitre) it was a disaster.

 

[Racers]

Make a mitre shooting board like this.

Shooting the miters by Pete Maddex, on Flickr


And you can also use it like this.

Shooting board miter attachment by Pete Maddex, on Flickr

It will leave you with no tear out and nice tight joints.

Pete

 

[Glynne]

I predominately make boxes and for anything too large for my guilliotine, I will rough cut 45 degrees (table saw or hand saw) and then use a mitre shooting board to refine the edge.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=m...=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=-2b5o_mZ0ccrmM:
I have tried rough cutting and then sanding using a circular sander but the problem is the differential speed of the sanding disc which can take more wood off one end of your joint than the other.
It's a bit of a faff to make a decent mitre shooting board but you only likely to do it once and they a great addition to your workshop.
I always use some form of keys with mitre joints as they aren't the strongest and boxes tend to get handled a lot.

 

[JJ1]

Hi,

I faced the same dilemma very recently and asked for advice on the forum, just a few weeks ago. You can view the thread here http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/mitre-joint-advice-needed-t100632.html

The advice given was a Donkey's Ear Shooting Board was the way to go. I set about making one and it's first use was to mitre the edges on some pieces of Maple for a box I'm making. I've just literally glued the box together yesterday and I couldn't be happier with the results thanks to the shooting board. I'm very pleased I didn't spend the money on a new router bit for the task as I found the whole shooting board method extremely enjoyable and satisfying and very easy to get spot on mitres. A couple of photos of the shooting board I made below.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

shooting board made out of 18mm ply is what I'm about to make for this very task.

 

[Roxie]

Thank you form your replies on this subject. I have now made a mitre shooting board which looks promising. This maybe a dumb question (and probably answered way back); should the throat gap (I think that's what is called) be as small/tight as possible now that I am cutting end grain? I have sharpened (let's not get into a sharpening debate!!!) the iron but I am still having to put a great deal of effort into shooting the work-piece.
Thank you for any replies

John

 

[YorkshireMartin]

What plane are you using?

 

[Roxie]

Record 5 1/2

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Record 5 1/2

Thats plenty of heft then. Just take a very fine shaving per pass, if you're sure your blade is sharp. Should require very little effort. Set throat as normal for a fine shaving, so reasonably close. 1 to 1.5mm or so.

Don't forget on the initial passes you're also creating a channel on the fence for the blade to pass through, so the first few shavings will require more effort.

 

[Roxie]

Thank you YM, I think the throat is greater than 1.5mm will check tomorrow.
John

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Thank you YM, I think the throat is greater than 1.5mm will check tomorrow.
John

The throat isn't going to affect the amount of effort required unless it's so narrow as to prevent the shavings from being channeled away. I'd be looking to the sharpness of the blade and what it's cutting.

If the shooting board is made of birch ply or mdf and you've only done a few passes, that would explain why it's so hard to make the cut. If I'm wrong, I hope someone will correct me, but if I use my straight shooting board, then I never even bother adjusting the throat, unless it's wide open from using a toothed blade etc.

Can you shave your arm with the plane iron?

My guess is you're trying to take too much in a single pass. You need to nibble, not chomp.