Miter Joint Nightstand Question

[Frank Martin]

I recently made a shoe cabinet with all mitered corners including the drawers. I used dominoes to add strength. Turned out well. When I made our nightstands I used dovetailed corners, but I like the aesthetics of the mitered corners better and now wish I used this joinery back when I made them. Mitered corners leave a lot less room for error though.

[Alex Vessey]

Fantastic information here - thanks to everyone for chiming in. I wound up keeping it fairly simple and doing a simple rabbet on the tops and bottoms. I reinforced this with a couple countersunk screws through the rabbet into the sides which I hid with plugs (which also makes a nice accent). Then I added in some poplar draws and created some tapered legs out of leftover walnut to bring them up to the height I wanted. I'm just about ready to start finishing them so I'll be sure to pop in with some pictures once they're done. They aren't perfect but they still look pretty cool!

[Stew Hagerty]

Sounds great Alex, can't wait for pictures.

[Bob Grier]

I don't mean to hijack this thread from Alex but his thread helped me so much that I felt I should pass back what I got out of it. Thank you everyone.

I like Alex agonized about how I was going to construct a miter joint for floating nightstands. I knew that somehow I had to make the joint so it would not slip and slide when gluing and clamping. My preferred choice was to use dovetail joint but was overruled. I was simply told to figure it out. What I ended up doing was easy for me to do that I decided to pass it along. It was easy to maintain precision and easy to set up.

All I have done so far is make the joints and assemble the case without glue but here is a picture of what I did:

Clamped 2 boards (for example - top and side) together so they were back to back with miter joint aligned and up. Then because some of the boards had slight warps, I clamped boards across the boards near the joint to pull them tightly together before cutting the slots.

Using a 1/8" straight bit in trim router with a little wood fence bolted to the plate, I cut slots in each of the miter faces. Don't ask me why the slots are not continuous. I don't know a reason.

Then I made splines out of white oak on table saw and fit everything together using strap clamps to pull joints together. It worked well but the assemble time will have to be shortened when glue is used. Also, I will put blocks under the straps at the corners with MDPE under the blocks to avoid glue sticking to the blocks. Maybe a few practice runs before gluing will help. If not, I don't know.

I included a picture of the assembled case to show how the joint came together. I am building the drawer and fitting it before finishing the case.

spline miter.jpg
case.jpg

[Stew Hagerty]

I don't mean to hijack this thread from Alex but his thread helped me so much that I felt I should pass back what I got out of it. Thank you everyone.

I like Alex agonized about how I was going to construct a miter joint for floating nightstands. I knew that somehow I had to make the joint so it would not slip and slide when gluing and clamping. My preferred choice was to use dovetail joint but was overruled. I was simply told to figure it out. What I ended up doing was easy for me to do that I decided to pass it along. It was easy to maintain precision and easy to set up.

All I have done so far is make the joints and assemble the case without glue but here is a picture of what I did:

Clamped 2 boards (for example - top and side) together so they were back to back with miter joint aligned and up. Then because some of the boards had slight warps, I clamped boards across the boards near the joint to pull them tightly together before cutting the slots.

Using a 1/8" straight bit in trim router with a little wood fence bolted to the plate, I cut slots in each of the miter faces. Don't ask me why the slots are not continuous. I don't know a reason.

Then I made splines out of white oak on table saw and fit everything together using strap clamps to pull joints together. It worked well but the assemble time will have to be shortened when glue is used. Also, I will put blocks under the straps at the corners with MDPE under the blocks to avoid glue sticking to the blocks. Maybe a few practice runs before gluing will help. If not, I don't know.

I included a picture of the assembled case to show how the joint came together. I am building the drawer and fitting it before finishing the case.

Bob, what you have done and plan to do is an excellent plan. Make sure the grain in your splines run cross grain.

Also, you might try Titebond II Extend. I use it all the time. It gives a significantly longer open time.

[Bob Grier]

The glue up did not go well.

Prior to glue up I assembled and clamped everything including placing the completed drawer in position to make sure everything was lined up and tolerances were good. I used crosscut oak splines that were sized to the slots for very slight friction fit. They would mostly stay in place if turned upside down. Titebond II Extend glue was used. During glue up and assembly, two of the joints did not entirely come together. The oak splines swelled quite rapidly and very shortly I was not able to pull the joints together by hand or with the strap clamps. I don't know for sure what the problem was. I ended up hammering and prying the pieces apart which broke most of the splines because they had either swelled up or the glue was partially set. Probably both.

I believe I can mill the miter joints to remove remains of the protruding splines and glue, re cut the grooves and try again. I am thinking maybe switch to cherry splines cut for a looser fit. I am also considering changing from titebond glue to plastic resin or epoxy glue for longer set time. However, I don't like idea of cleaning up the squeeze out from these glues.

Suggestion other than change the type of joint would be appreciated? It is too late for that.

[John Lankers]

I'm sorry to hear you're having difficulties and I'm glad you were able to salvage the project.
Here is what I do when dealing with complex glueups: I do not rely on strap clamps to pull a complete project together. You could compare your splines with lose tenons, I sometimes cut the lose tenons to fit and then squeeze them in a metal working vise to reduce the thickness a few thousands to give me more wiggle room, works like a charm. Try it on some scrap. Titebond is still a better choice over plastic resin glue IMO.