Ok, I'm thinking of using small finishing nails as dowels as follows:
1. Hammer small finishing nails in to one side of the 45 miter.
2. Carefully press the joining piece down on the nail heads to create small dents in the adjoining piece of wood as markers.
3. Drill holes where the dents were created and use a rubber mallet to tap the pieces together.
4. Gently tap all the pieces apart, apply glue and hammer them all together (after letting the 1st coat of glue dry for 10 min or so).
5. Use 2 band clamps that have 4-90 degree corner brackets to clamp it all together.
Does this sound practical in terms of putting a handle on the head box and having it stay together?
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With some careful aligning, you could join those 45 degree cuts with glued in wood "biscuits". It'll never be as strong as dovetails, but close enough.
you could always 45 the corners etc. and glue it together, then when its dry drill small holes both vertically and horizontally and dowel it with small dowels and glue. its not very hard and it is pretty strong.
Nice looking cabinet. I plan on trying a miter joint cabinet soon and it is nice to see other members work to plan my venture. I like the idea of biscuits.
How many total did you use?
For the chassis holes, I didn't have any clear plastic so I did this:
1. Made a cardboard template
2. Slid in the chassis and pencil marked the front edge
3. Took out the chassis and put the template in
4. Marked the back 2 screw holes
5. Meaured where the 2 back screw holes were on the chassis
6. Flipped the cab upside and pencil X'd the back 2 holes from my measurement
7. Set the template (upside down) on my 2 back screw hole marks
8. Marked the front holes
9. Double checked the hole spacing by measuring it on the chassis
10. Drilled
Miter the top. Biscuit joinery is great way to add strength and aid in alignment (which can be tricky!) of miter joints. Make your 45-degree cuts to form the joint, and then set your biscuit joiner’s fence to 45-degrees (or 135-degrees if your biscuit joiner has this feature). Perform a test on scrap to ensure that your setup is right. Be sure that the biscuit slot does not blow out the side of the material, and if it does, use a smaller biscuit. Once your test setup is proven, mill the slots on your cabinet members. Again, positioning as many biscuits as you can in these joints.