Don’t you love when you are watching a woodworking show and the case comes together perfectly square with no adjusting at all? The host always gives tips for how to make it square but their work just always falls in place perfectly.
What world do these people live in? I’m pretty happy with my joinery and milling skills but regardless of the effort I put in, it always seems that my case work needs just a little encouragement towards the magic 90 degree mark. Maybe Karma is trying to tell me to design crazy asymmetrical and curving pieces where 90 degrees doesn’t exist.
Until I start to channel Maloof or Esherick I need a little help. I find the easiest way to correct a case is to insert a known right angle into the inside corners and use clamping pressure to easy the case into alignment. These angles I bought at Rockler years ago have saved my butt more than once but really any shop made angle that is sturdy or even some corner brackets from the home center will do it as long as they scribe a 90 degree angle.
So until your world lines up perfectly and all your joints fits the first time without any adjusting, this tip might make things a little easier.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Ian Mackay // Aug 17, 2010 at 10:02 am
Awesome timing on this one. I hit this more often that I’d like, but the irony is that I just watched Marc’s guild video on the shaker table build, where he puts together the drawer. He does exactly what you said….got it right and square the first time…but showed how you’d fix it if it wasn’t. Of course, Marc is superhuman so I trust that there was no creative editing.
2 Dan S. // Aug 17, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Shannon, you mean you don’t have a magic square button? You need to head down to your local Shangri-La woodworking store and pick one up, I think they’re $19.95.
3 Shannon // Aug 17, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Maybe they have an oil that covers up those mistakes that suddenly show up when you apply the first coat of finish too!
4 Dyami // Aug 17, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Shannon,
I’m with you on square. It is hard. You should see the debauchery my shaker table frame is. I had to angle the drawer slides (relative to the side aprons) in order to get them parallel with each other. I guess I’ll get of the fence and pick up the Rocker angle guides.