Mitre Maker has just released some handy little frame clamps to help with aligning and holding your frame square while gluing.
Unlike many frame clamping arrangements, these clamps don’t use a band and ratchet, or lengths of threaded rod. Instead, they apply pressure to the corners of your frame using traditional wedges and push blocks and are very quick to set up. The frame clamps are CNC-machined with precise 90 degree corners, and apply pressure evenly using sliding wedges for micro-adjustment. They are the perfect precision device for assembling your mitred frames.
They may look simple, but these clamps have been designed with many unique features. Tabs extend out below the 90 degree corner to hold your frame pieces off the workbench. The tabs are separated by a clear space to allow any excess glue to drip through, preventing accidental gluing of your frame to the clamp or workbench. The circular hole in the frame clamp allows you to see and feel the corners to achieve perfect alignment while gluing and also provides enough space for those extra little bits that stick out when gluing interlocking mitres.
The push-blocks used with the frame clamps are pinned to the work surface by a single bolt, and can be easily moved to allow you to clamp up a frame of just about any size. By allowing the push-blocks to pivot, it means that the frame clamps are always perfectly aligned with the frame corners, and with one off-centre bolt per push-block, a great variety of frames can be clamped by simply swivelling the push-block around to make the clamping system smaller or larger.
The Mitre Maker frame clamps now just come in mini size
Check out this video to see the frame clamps in action!
