Alignment Jig for Face to Face
Gluing
When gluing
two or more pieces face to face (like making a set of thick legs for a project),
they tend to slip out of alignment as you tighten the clamps.
 One solution is to drive a couple
short brads in one piece and snip off the heads as shown in the drawing at right.
These cutoff brads stick into the mating piece and keep it from shifting.
But sometimes this solution "back
fires." The brads grab too soon - before the pieces are properly positioned. This
makes it even more difficult (or impossible) to align the pieces. And if you've
already spread glue on the pieces, you've got a gluey mess.
So before gluing up the pieces,
I use a simple jig along with the brads to align the pieces.
 As
you can see in the drawing at right, the jig consists of a base and two sides
that are screwed together to form a 90° corner. The idea here is to add the
brads to one of the pieces and set it in the corner of the jig. Then you simply
hold the mating piece against the sides of the jig and press it onto the brads.
This forms two tiny indentations
that are easy to "find" when you glue up the pieces. And you can be sure the pieces
will be perfectly aligned. |
