How To Make Square Slot In Wood
- How To Make Square Slot In Wood Dowels
- How To Make Square Slot In Wood Lathe
- How To Make Square Slot In Wooden
In woodworking a slot is a channel usually made to receive another piece. It is either designed to be a tight fit to hold something together like shelving or T&G flooring, or a sliding fit to permit things to move. A little research on vocabulary will tell us that a dado is a slot cut across the grain of the wood whereas a groove is a slot cut with the grain.Wood on wood sliding fits often. Place the wood in the miter box with the cut mark lined up with the appropriate slot for the angle, or for a straight cut. Place the saw blade in the slots and line it up with the mark. I was worried the exotic hardwood trim might start to crack off if the square was dropped too many times. So I cut a slot in the end and glued in a spline to tie the trim to the main body of the square. Clamping squares A few years ago I made some clamping squares (you can see one of the old ones on the table saw in this shot). You can make square holes in wood with an ordinary chisel. Square holes can be used as the counterpart for the traditional mortise and tenon joint, for a craft project or to reproduce an old-fashioned technique found in turn-of-the-century woodworking. An alternative is to install a strip of scrap wood—3/4-in. Square pine would work nicely—between the fence and the workpiece and let the router chew it up. Or simply replace or rotate the 3/4-in. To use the jig, make sure your fence is set flush with the cutter bearing. Position the workpiece on the sled.
Miters are not the strongest joints, but we use them all the time for joining picture frames together. One method for strengthening this connection is to add a spline, a thin sliver of wood into a slot where the two miters join together. A common way to make these is to cut a slot about halfway through the corner after gluing the frame together and slide in the spline.
Standard spline that goes halfway through the miter.
A better method for making splines
In this method, the picture frame and the splines are glued up all at the same time. These splines are stronger because they run all the way through the width of the miter and the grain is positioned to run perpendicular to the miter.
Making the slot-cutting jig is simple. It’s basically the opposite of my regular spline jig.
Regular slot cutting jig (left) and alternative jig.
Making the slot-cutting jig
Glue together two scraps of plywood. One a little taller than your rip fence, and the other piece square. I added a couple screws so I wouldn’t have to wait for the glue to dry.
Next, square this assembly up by cutting off the bottom triangle of the square, shaving off a little of the rectangle at the same time.
It should stand square to the table top and fence.
Using the jig
After cutting your picture frame pieces with their 45 degree miters. Line up one end with the triangle so that the end is flush with the table. To keep this from slipping, clamp the board to the upper part of the jig and cut out a slot.
To make the slot on the opposite end, keep the same side toward the fence and cut the slot using the other side of the triangle.
How To Make Square Slot In Wood Dowels
Making the splines
How To Make Square Slot In Wood Lathe
The grain direction of these splines if what helps give these miters their strength, You want the grain to be running perpendicular to the miters, not the same direction. To make these, select a board that is wider than the length of the miter joint.
How To Make Square Slot In Wooden
Then resaw a board to the thickness of your slots.
Then crosscut this thin board into the widths of your miter slots. I used a thicker board to hold down the thin splines and keep them from flying away when I cut them
Gluing up
The nice thing about these splines is that they help with the corner alignment of the picture frame and prevent them from sliding apart. Glue them into the slots and glue the miters together all at one. One the glue is dry, cut off the excess and sane the frames smooth.