A suggestion for the new woodworkers

Square…it aint as easy as it sounds.

I have learned that Mitering is one of the hardest woodworking jobs to make work. Just a little off and someone can see it. Welcome to Woodworking fellow Termite!

-- look Ma! I still got all eleven of my fingers! - http://www.lepelstatcrafts.etsy.com - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCppWfrYGXCr5lm9uW-Fpqqw

I you can build a truly square box, you can build most anything ;-)

-- Bob in WW ~ "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence

Square Boxes? I guess I’ll never be a real craftsman! I still can’t get the bloody USPS Flat Rate boxes put together square. sigh

-- Improvise.... Adapt...... Overcome!

@Bill White, Only took me a few tries, but I finally got it right…... You mean it only took you a FEW tries, Bill…? I’ve been doing this for 25+ years, and I ain’t got it right yet…...But I’ll keep at it until I do…..SQUARE….humm..that’s what kids used to call other kids who wern’t cool when I was a kid…..!!!!!!!! Today is my 65th birthday, and I can’t remember back that far….I guess I’m just too SQUARE for my grandkids, anyway…

-- " There's a better way.....find it"...... Thomas Edison.

Yes you are right about starting with boxes. Plenty of angles to get right, plenty of ways things can go wrong. Never mind the mitre, even butt joints can be tough when you are talking about getting something truly square. I rarely get every corner square on anything, but I have overcome my need for perfection.

-- Don, Royersford, PA

Very nice tip, My first project was a small box, and until today, I didn’t even have the proper tools to check for square…
since I have them now though, I did, and it is dang near perfect. mind you, that is on the sides, top and bottom were not square at all, and without a little trick (small piece of leather glued to one corner), the lid would wobble bad. I also routed the corners with a 5/8 round over so it wasn’t so obvious that I was off. guess if you can’t get it right, it should at least look like you can :P
Today I was able to pick up some accurate tools to measure and mark for square, and bought a small set of right angle clamps, to help with clamping a mitre together and know it is going to be square. Now I can also check to see if my mitre is set up right before cutting!
guess I need to make another box to see how I have improved since last time.
(going to make a jewelry box for my wife for Christmas shhhhhhhhhh)

-- Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. -Mark Twain

Agreed. I often find myself humbled by the basics even when I dive into something more advanced.

Neight, an easy way to check for square, accurately is to measure from corner to corner diagonally. Then measure the opposite diagonal. A 6” box that’s off by 1/32” is way out of square.
It doesn’t matter if it’s square or rectangle or a parallelogram…

For big boxes…. like houses, the 3,4,5 method is fun to impress the local math teacher with, LOL.

-- Improvise.... Adapt...... Overcome!

In Frank Clausz’ video on dovetailing he says “if you think about, we’re really just boxologists” That always made me laugh…

I agree. There are a lot of fundamental skills that need to come together to make a good box.

-- I may have lost my marbles, but I still have my love of woodworking

Any CNC jock can make a box square. And yes that is important, but, the mark of the craft is the infusion of soul, or originality or whatever you want to call it. Somehow I can’t see Sam Maloof obsessed with engineering squares. They are a guide not the ultimate goal. Practice, strive for perfecting your work, but make the work your own, make your work reflect your personality.

I’ve been at this since sometime back in the early 50’s (school wood shop) but I’m beginning to get better. Square is less of a challenge now but only because I have learned that “getting it right” begins long before you make the first cut. Equipment condition and alignment are critically important unless “close enough” is good enough.

-- Making Sawdust Safely

I had a machinist friend who had gone through the Navy as a machinist in WWII and when he got out he went to work at Caterpillar as a machinist but he had to go through their training program. He told me his first project was to file a solid cube out of a hunk of steel using nothing but hand files. The sides had to be flat and square and everything had to be within just few thousandths.

helluvawreck

https://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

-- helluvawreck aka Charles, http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but one of the first projects for us in the apprentice training workshop 55 years ago was to make a steel plate like this:

And with it a solid piece that exactly fit all three holes

Can you visualise the solid piece ?

You can check here: http://www.donjohnson24.co.uk/Testpiece2.jpg

-- Don, Somerset UK, http://www.donjohnson24.co.uk