Filling mitre gaps in camphor laurel wood

[Zebt]

Hi,

Newbie here. See attached pics of an entertainment unit i'm very slowly making. Started with rough slabs now down to this. Turned out there was a bit more cupping than I thought so struggled a bit to get the mitres good. What would be the best solution to sort out the slight gaps etc? I intend to finish with Polyurethane satin clear finish.

Many thanks

Zeb

 

[chewy]

I'd refit the joints to be honest. A smoothing plane and an hour or so should sort it.

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[ART at WORK]

I would remove the filler and insert some pieces of the same wood if you have some with the grane going in the same direction as the planks. Thin slithers and little wood glue, a small hammer and patience.
Belt sander with a fine grit when everything has dried. You might have to repeat as you sand down and find a hole.
Good luck. Those are big slabs which are going to want to do there own thing.

 

[nickao]

Forget the miters. Re cut them and make a nice perfectly square butt joint. Re-cutting into miters may not get you anything better.
The nice thing about a simple butt joint is you can get is so perfectly tight you may not even see the joint lines.

As it is now all that miter does is draw attention to it.

It appears that is not kiln dried and if it was it was way to wet at the time you cut it. That wood, as great as it is for smaller projects,  is prone to seasonal changes for a long miter joint like that. And you being a newb, well that's a tough joint to make furniture quality for the best of us, even with a full shop and 30 years experience. I  more than likely would of used a spline if I was dead set on a miter for that.

I am betting you could recut and assemble with butt joints faster than trying to repair that. The main issue is if you can live with the reduced dimensions this will cause.

All these things point to a butt joint as best for this situation. You will get it done much faster and when its all said in done no one will ever miss that little miter line you were going for.

I do have other ideas on  how to repair it, but it is a lot of work no matter the method if you need to keep the same dimensions you have now. Cutting the pointed edge off flat lengthwise across the joint and gluing on a new  corner is one method, And doing that would mean there would not be any joint to open up as the 90° angle corner would be the corner of a solid piece of wood, not two parts coming together. It's s tricky repair method though.

 

[Svar]

I would recut and refit the joint. I've done plenty of such solid wood casework with track saw. It appears that your cuts are not 45 deg. Check whether two adjacent  pieces form 90 deg. after every cut. If you have difficulty assembling the whole thing at once,  do it one joint at a time ensuring that corners come to 90 deg. Online you'll find plenty of tricks to clamp wide miters for glueing. All stock has to be of the same thickness and flat (properly milled).

If you don't want to redo it, use wood to fill larger gaps. You could even cut filler pieces to match grain orientation.

Nice wood. Miters look good on it.