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I'm not a carpenter, so forgive me if this is obvious. Also, I'm Brazilian so forgive my English.

I want to build a table with only 3 MDF plates, but I want the corners to have "45 degree grooves", like this:

enter image description here

Because it's a table, the top plate must be resistant to heavy load, so I came-up with this design:

enter image description here enter image description here

I want to know if there is another design that has simpler cut, or some kind of steel screws, bolts or whatever steel parts, or some glue that allows me to simply cut the edges in 45 degrees, make some fixing holes and safely attach the top and wall plates together.

It's important to me that externally, both the side and corner cut lines be as thin as possible.

Please provide pictures or hyperlinks. If there is some sort of online manual to do these kind of things, I would appreciate!

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    Just look at the possibility of it being able to rack side to side if you don't use more support or a stretcher. The way you are treating the angle is very good. It has a lot of glue surface and that makes a strong joint.
    – lqlarry
    Feb 5, 2012 at 22:52
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    This is called a "miter joint". You will have better luck searching with those terms.
    – JayL
    Feb 6, 2012 at 5:44

1 Answer 1

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A more typical way to strengthen a miter joint is to use either splines or biscuits. Splines can be oriented in one of two ways. It's probably easier to show pictures than to explain in words:

a) Spline running the entire miter. With this method you can also make the grooves stopped so the spline would not be visible at the edges. If you are working with MDF you can cut the spline so the grain is running the length of the spline, as opposed to the way it is shown in the example.

enter image description here

b) Reinforcing with biscuits. This is similar to (a) except that it requires that you have the biscuit joiner to cut the pockets for the manufactured biscuits. This is definitely the easiest and fastest of these three options.

enter image description here

c) Multiple splines cut through the miter. The third method can be made into a decorative element if the splines are made from a contrasting color of wood.

enter image description here

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