# How to glue a box up square



## Woodworkingkid (Jan 8, 2011)

I just got done working an a ammo box i am making and am frustrated because i wasn't able to clamp up the miters so the box was square. I have had this problem before but i just used blue painters tape to hold them together and it worked alright but i thought that this box would be to big for tape to hold it together. What is the best way to glue up a mitered box?


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## Bonka (Mar 24, 2011)

*Clamping*

I use band clamps. They are woven bands that go around the piece and have a ratchet device that you can use a screwdriver/wrench on to tighten them up. I have two of them. If the box is tall one might need three.


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## jigs-n-fixtures (Apr 28, 2012)

The blue tape probably would have worked. 

My back up for irregular things is surgical tubing. 

Nice rectangular things I can usually figure out how to put parallel jaw clamps on.

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## vursenbach (Apr 11, 2012)

There a lot of different types of clamps that you can buy just for this purpose. The big problem is still making sure that the box is square.

I just told my son yesterday to never trust tools that are designed to do one thing, e.g. cut, clamp, etc. to also be accurate in measurements. I told him to always double check the measurement with a tool designed just for that purpose. Just because you use a clamp that is designed to hold mitered corners does not mean that the box will be perfectly square.

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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

You might try putting a piece of scrap wood cut to fit inside the box to hold it square while you clamp it. Then there is nothing wrong with clamping the box together with tape if you have clean well-cut joints. Somewhere in South Carolina there is a airport terminal with probably 100 columns dressed out with cherry plywood clamped in this manor. When we did the millwork there wasn't enough space or clamps to assembly all these columns so it was done with tape.


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## Woodworkingkid (Jan 8, 2011)

Thanks for the help. Next one I make I am going to use painters tape. This one ended up really far out of square but I don't think its that big a deal because its just going to be a ammo box to hold some of my shotgun shells.


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