Advice for clamping a mitered door...

[Michael Donahue]

I'm going to be making 6 doors about 1'x2' for an upcoming built-in project. Because of the look I'm going for, I'm going to miter the corners and reinforce them with biscuits or splines. My question then is what do you find to be the best way to clamp something like this? I have a band clamp but it always seems to be a pain in the neck to keep everything together and on the same plane as I'm assembling it. Woodcraft has 2 clamps for picture framing that look promising here .....

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=3087

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=3086

Anyone have experience with either of these? Advice is certainly welcome! :)

Also one more quick related question.. The panels in these doors are going to be flat so I'm going to use MDF. How shallow of a groove can I get away with while still holding the panel in place? 1/4" maybe?

Thanks for the help!

[Steve Jenkins]

By far the best way i have found for clamping mitered doors is to use 4 bessey k body clamps and the clamp blocks thay make just for that purpose. i can't remeber what they are called.
I used to use regular bar clamps which work ok. put two clamps on your table, the door parts next then two more clamps at right angles on top of the door. the clamp pads should be around halfway out the miter or closer to the tip. by playing with the pressure on all the clamps you can square it up perfectly.

[David DeCristoforo]

"I used to use regular bar clamps which work ok...etc"

We have used the method described by Steve J. to assemble thousands (literally) of mitered doors and continue to use it. K body clamps, at forty bucks a pop, are just too expensive. "Corner" clamps and "frame" clamps like the ones in the Woodcraft link are too lightweight for most door work although they may be fine for smaller picture frames. Clamping setups like Bessey's "KP Framing System" at $160 (+/-) per are simply not a practical solution for more than one or two doors "now and then". We have tons of inexpensive pipe clamps.

[Nissim Avrahami]

I use home-made corners and car strap.

The frame is 24" x 24"

98477

[Bob Ross]

Hi Michael,

If your panels are plywood or MDF, use the panel as a "jig". Glue everthing around the panel and put one clamp in each direction. If the groove depth and panel size match, your corners will have to be square.

[Bill Huber]

If you have cut your miters spot on, which they should be I use a band on the ones I made.

When I cut the miters I cut one on one side of a 90 and the other on the other side of the 90 and this way they were a perfect match.

I used one of these bands it worked very well and do a good job.

http://www.adjustableclamp.com/bc-1225.htm

[Frank Drew]

An easy and inexpensive method is to glue the offcuts to edge of the mitered pieces, right up at the miter, using brown paper between the offcut and the work to make removal easy when you're done. If you've oriented the offcuts correctly they'll have parallel faces that you can clamp with c-clamps or small f-clamps, neatly bringing the miters together. [This procedure is much easier to show than to explain in words.]

[Phil Thien]

I've got the clamps Bill refers to above. I have found the nylon stretches a little bit with clamping pressure. You can only get it "so tight."

A number of people have suggested the Merle clamps from MLCS and others. They have a steel band that is probably less prone to stretching.

http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/merle_clamp.html

I think you can get them (or similar steel banded clamps) elsewhere for less.

[Kevin Lucas]

I made my own set of clamps like the top pic from pre cut borg stock and 1/4 inch carriage bolts and a longer one for the center and it worked really well. A note on the corner part I drilled a small hole there just in case of squeeze out. That and wax paper worked well for me. Cheap, easy and a nice project jig.