Thread: How to do a long, endgrain mitre joint?

I am also very late to this thread. If you look at my thread Mid-century Modern sideboard build you will see that I used such a long endgrain mitre joint with Dominos for reinforcement. But, I have big sliding table saw and a Domino machine.

For you there is a much easier solution to achieve a similar look (from the front and rear anyway) by planting narrow boards with mitred ends on both faces. Yes, the end grain of the top and bottom boards will be visible from the end-on view, but most people will not notice, especially if you fill the end grain with a coloured filler to match the face of the board. Timbermate make a good range of fillers and you can mix the colours together to get the required colour.

For some interest you could even make the face boards in a different timber (darker or lighter in colour) and therefore make a feature of the approach.

Simply make the majority of the width of the cabinet using a reinforced butt joint - end grain to side grain - as you are now proposing. You will need to reinforce that join with dowels, biscuits or dominos to make it solid, or else you could, at a pinch, screw into the end-grain (not the best solution but will add strength) and recess the screw heads, fill with plugs or coloured filler. Pocket hole screws from the inside would be neater but you would need a pocket hole gadget to do it neatly.

It isn't a perfect solution, more of a work around, but it may help.

David

The other alternative is to use a rebated but joint. That way only a small area of end grain will be visible.

There may be an obvious reason why it isn't possible but...

Can you do each board seperately rather than gluing the panel first? Do the mitres so you have multiple 3/4 rectangles and then glue them together?

A good way to do splines is doing what woodpixel posted earlier in the year. New Tip: internal mitre splines on corners

Have done a number of these- over a metre wide and about 80mm thick, but that was with a panel saw & not that easy then. on a smaller scale can see it being done carefully with a circular on a GOOD guide- with a bit of touch up during fitting.
Biscuits will help as would a spline with the grain running with the grain of the wood. Either way might want a bit of a grind here or there & some decent clamping.