VirTERM said:
I dont recall if i used 4mm or 5mm in this project
How were you able to cut such acute angles on the boards?
With some planning, the glue bond only on plywood will equal half the thickness on solid lumber. The grain goes at 90 degrees for each layer of ply. So if you don’t flip the boards, you can get (from a 3/4” thick sheet) 3/8” face grain to face grain, and 3/8” end grain to end grain.
So a better bond than most people give plywood credit for, and miter joints will be stronger than butt joints if you are only using glue and an 18 gage nailer.
I’m not a Domino user, I mostly use dowels. But for miters, I would probably dig out my biscuit joiner. The real strength of the domino will be in tensile (pull out), and biscuits are pretty good for that.
I should expand on what I wrote above. If you assemble a miter with a domino, the main strength is gained if you try to pull the miter angle to a larger angle. You will have little gained from the domino if you try to squeeze the miter angle to a smaller angle. It is the pull out that will give the strength. The domino itself will add very little to the resistance to bending.
I don’t give much thought to what joinery I use. I am comfortable with dowels (and Domino users are comfortable with Dominoes). I should consider all of my joinery options (I will try to remember to do so).
1. Dowels (4 different types of jigs)
2. Pocket holes
3. Biscuits
4. 23 gage, 18 gage & 15 gage nailers
5. Glue only
I recently made a medicine cabinet (wall mounted) using butt joints, nails and glue only. It was an experiment to see if that was a viable construction method. I had recently demo-ed a site built vanity cabinet that was nailed only (no glue). It fought me the entire way.
For a cabinet box that gets wall mounted, I have every confidence that the glue and nail only assembly will last 20 or more years with no issues. I would normally dowel the joints. I see a lot of people use pocket holes for this type of work. The nail and glue only makes a tidier joint. And pocket hole screws add very little to the structure of a cabinet.
