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There are some amazing specialty clamps for gluing miters, and we’re also amazed by some of the prices. It’s no trick to spend $40 apiece for mitered corner clamps. And because most frames have four corners, you can spend $160 very easily. By stealing some much less expensive hardware from a commercial application, we’ve come up with a much cheaper miter clamp that works great for picture frames. Tight-joint fasteners, often called “dog bones” in the trade, are commonly used to pull countertops together, but by shortening the length of the bolt and making a routered cut-out on the back of the frame corners you can make a pretty simple corner clamp for less than a buck.
The routing template is the only bit of difficulty, but once that template is made it’s simple to clamp up the corner until the glue is dry. Then release the dog bone clamps and they’re ready to use the next time you need to glue up your next set of miters.
<a href=”mailto:steve.shanesy@fwmedia.com”><em>– Steve Shanesy</em></a>
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
