Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)
Hello everyone. I'm a novice woodworker and LumberJocks lurker (until now). I work out of a super-small shop—I have about 40 sq ft of storage, and work out of a single car garage after moving the car out. Portability and organization are huge deals for me, but I'm slowly learning how to make the most out of my space and how to be smart about tool purchases.Two things I've struggled to achieve have been square and repeatability. I've been okay at making one-off pieces, but it took me some time to get to a point where I could make two things of a kind and have them match up pretty nicely. As an exercise, I decided to try to make a pair of miter clamps based on the Woodpeckers design (https://www.woodpeck.com/mct-miter-clamp-tool.html).My goals for this project were to have all of the pieces line up as closely as possible, to have the angles be as precise as possible, and to have two pieces with matching dimensions. I also wanted to gain more experience and familiarity with my table saw and biscuit joiner.I started by cutting three 2” x 5” pieces of 3/4” plywood and glued them using biscuits. After the glue set, I used my table saw to rip the piece down the middle at a 45 degree angle. I set the flat edge of each remaining piece against my fence and then cut the pointed ends off. Finally I used a crosscut sled to cut the sides down and to bring it to its final dimension. The two pieces ended up mating pretty nicely. There was one dimension where I was off by about 1/32”, but everything else looked flush to my eye.I decided to use a red spray paint for the finish. I only had a minimal amount of sanding to do. I put some tape on the bottom surface of each piece and then gave them piece several coats of paint. After the paint cured I put some clear tape on the top to prevent any red pigment from rubbing off on my clamps. I also put some adhesive 220 grit sandpaper along the bottom to help it grip to the work piece. I wish I had applied some filler to the surface to get a smooth surface. Instead, you can see the fibers through the paint. Oh well, lesson learned. I'm still pleased with the result.