Squareness impaired

[went_postal]

I don't care what I do... I can tune the saw, use stop blocks to replicate cuts, tape stuff together, etc. It doesn't matter. I rarely get my stuff to come out square and it drives me nuts.

You see all the shows tell you to measure on the diagonals but rarely show you how to fix if out. I think Marc did in one video though.

I don't have one if those nifty right angle clamp doodads that tickler sells. Is that the trick?

I thought my cabinet carcas was pretty good. Then I made the face frame. The face frame is rock solid square. It shows that the cabinet itself us fudged 1/16 in places. Am I making too big a deal out of this? I expect it to be dead on but it rarely is.

[DeanJackson]

I don't care what I do... I can tune the saw, use stop blocks to replicate cuts, tape stuff together, etc. It doesn't matter. I rarely get my stuff to come out square and it drives me nuts.

You see all the shows tell you to measure on the diagonals but rarely show you how to fix if out. I think Marc did in one video though.

I don't have one if those nifty right angle clamp doodads that tickler sells. Is that the trick?

I thought my cabinet carcas was pretty good. Then I made the face frame. The face frame is rock solid square. It shows that the cabinet itself us fudged 1/16 in places. Am I making too big a deal out of this? I expect it to be dead on but it rarely is.

When you cut a panel to square, check all four corners before you start to cut. Take the corner that's closest to 90 degrees, and start there. To cut the panel to size, you're going to need to make two more cuts. When you make those cuts, the corner that was closest to 90 should be against the fence for both of them.

That way, the squareness of the panel is only off by the best of the four corners you start with.

[Guest Mahoganus]

To get objects exactly square is difficult for me to and of coarse the bigger the object the harder it is. My eye can see .010 my table saw at best will cut +/- .015 Like my buddy keeps telling me too,, Im being to picky, but I like stuff exact.

[went_postal]

To get objects exactly square is difficult for me to and of coarse the bigger the object the harder it is. My eye can see .010 my table saw at best will cut +/- .015 Like my buddy keeps telling me too,, Im being to picky, but I like stuff exact.

Yeah... My neighbor stopped by earlier and couldn't figure out what I was complaining about.

At this point I don't think it's my cuts that aren't square... I think it is something in my assembly process.

[dryhter]

---

Hey Postal,

I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill, you are being to picky, don't sweat the little stuff, because there are just too many things that are involved with perfection that are out of your control. A cabinet is three dimensional and even if you get the top or bottom and the sides perfect the thickness of the sheet goods may be off by .005 -.015 in. and that will throw the cabinet out of square. Get a micrometer and mic. up the thickness of a sheet of plywood as you cut it up for a cabinet you will be surprised how much it can vary. If the sheet goods have any kind of bow or warp to them that will throw off squareness.

And finally , I don't know what you are using to check for square other than diagonal, but a square only checks as much as it touches, don't ass ume that the whole is square just because what is under the square is, once you move the square to check the other side the original reference point is lost.. Also if you check while the cabinet is on it's back,it will change once you change the cabinets position. So don't sweat the little stuff, wait till you cut all your pieces too short because you forgot to add something ;>0.

---

[RenaissanceWW]

I completely agree with dryhter, don't sweat it. You will never get it completely square and it doesn't hurt to try, but give your self a break. Go visit a museum and take a square with you. You will be shocked! Don't even get me started on the caliber of the joinery in most antiques. That doesn't mean that gives us an excuse to slack off, but it will make you feel better. You are probably right that something is happening during your assembly. I can only recommend that you do a thorough dry fit and check for square. Do it a couple times to rehearse if you are worried. Rushing and worry about glue set time often make us clamp something out of square. You may also be using too much clamping power. Modern parallel clamps will apply orders of magnitude more pressure than a good fitting joint needs. If you have to move mountains to close a joint then you need to refine the fit because applying that much pressure if bound to move a piece a little and knock it out of square.

[went_postal]

I completely agree with dryhter, don't sweat it. You will never get it completely square and it doesn't hurt to try, but give your self a break. Go visit a museum and take a square with you. You will be shocked! Don't even get me started on the caliber of the joinery in most antiques. That doesn't mean that gives us an excuse to slack off, but it will make you feel better. You are probably right that something is happening during your assembly. I can only recommend that you do a thorough dry fit and check for square. Do it a couple times to rehearse if you are worried. Rushing and worry about glue set time often make us clamp something out of square. You may also be using too much clamping power. Modern parallel clamps will apply orders of magnitude more pressure than a good fitting joint needs. If you have to move mountains to close a joint then you need to refine the fit because applying that much pressure if bound to move a piece a little and knock it out of square.

Well... the recent project exceeded the size of any clamps I have/had at the time. So... Clamps in this case were glue and screws. =)

I also thing I suffered from making the dadoes too tight. had to beat the tar of of the thing to get everything where it belonged.

I have a LOT of trouble with that sorta thing for some reason. I did the mortis and tenon door assembly yesterday and probably spent a good 2 hours messing with the fit so that they were tight but not too tight. And then of course about half a million cuts later of "sneaking up on it" I was more or less happy. I guess I expect too much out of plywood... My wood wood comes out okay... seems like everytime I work with ply something goes wrong.

[PaulMarcel]

Something that helps with inserting ply into a dado is to lightly chamfer the two edges of the ply before inserting it. Since you won't want the chamfer to show from the front, start the chamfers an inch back from the front. It also gives the glue somewhere to go if you have excess.

[went_postal]

Something that helps with inserting ply into a dado is to lightly chamfer the two edges of the ply before inserting it. Since you won't want the chamfer to show from the front, start the chamfers an inch back from the front. It also gives the glue somewhere to go if you have excess.

Yeah... I actually always do that. I just had the dado cut too small.

Normally I would actually use my router.... and I have bought from these guys before and used 23/32 like crazy... this was not 23/32 this time so I didn't have the right bit. =(