Clamping a hair's breadth

[Billyo]

Next weekend I'm gonna start biscuiting, clamping and gluing my first cabinet together

I want the edge of the MDF to stand a little proud of the butting surface so I can route it completely flush, like what has been suggested here.

So I need to offset the biscuit on the butting surface a "hair's breadth" shallower from the biscuit on the edge and then be able to clamp it in 90 degree clamps without that hair's breadth causing a slight skew in the join.

I figured a thin sheet of sheet metal could be used to lay the biscuit joiner on when doing one of the two biscuits, and that same sheet could be inserted between the clamp jaws and the butting surface of the MDF when clamping.

Does that sound like a sensible way to approach this, or is there a better trick of the trade?

[Cal Weldon]

Use cleats instead of buscuits?

[kevinahcc20]

Your approach will work well...you can select your shim material depending on how much you want to leave to trim. If you have some scraps of "Formica" (high pressure laminate) around you will find they are around 0.04" (1 mm) thick which should be plenty to give you a nice clean trim after glue-up. Also it is good practice after machining is done to do a complete dry fit clamp-up. That way you identify any issues before slathering on the glue and you can have the clamps at hand and set to size so the actual glue-up goes smoothly and without drama. Good luck!

[Billyo]

Thanks Kevin!

[Billyo]

Worked like a charm! ended up using the little sample squares of laminate that came from the same place that I bought the MDF. The top of the MDF stood what looked like .75 mm proud of the adjoining face, that was then easily flush trimmed off with a router.

[kevinahcc20]

Nice!!!