When you must use hardware instead of glue.
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- This topic has 8 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 4 months ago by Marilyn Moreno.
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After years of joinery classes and the use of handtools, you come to realize: some projects are too big to use glued joints. How do I plan a big project? How do I balance the use of joinery and hardware?
It is true, some old furniture had to come in my apartment through the window, like the piano, a big table and a big bar But I also want to be able to make furniture I can take apart. One idea is knock-off joinery, the other is to use hardware.
For starter I just want to make a simple nice looking bed that I dont have to break the wall if I want to move it between rooms. How would you go about it? (I will be very happy to get some projects ideas for a queen size bed that I can follow the traditional methods!!!)
What projects did you use hardware? What are your inputs?Nothing is too big for joinery, at least at any reasonable scale this side of skyscrapers. The Japanese have made entire temples, which have stood for centuries, using nothing but wooden joints. Timber frames have raised big lodges and gathering halls.
Hardware is sometimes a fine and proper option to pursue, but I don’t see that it is necessarily a requirement.
I haven’t tried it myself, but I like this approach: https://youtu.be/hrwBmzmknwU
He uses bolts and then plugs up the holes without glueing, so you can take it apart later.
Wesley
I dont’t think you got the point. Not too big as too big to be able to build it, but too big to go through the door… Even a bed, if it has a headboard/footboard, I don’t know how to get it in the room….
I feel that my answer still applies. Joints can be made to work just fine in the absence of glue, at least in a great many cases. Wedges and tusks and such have yielded knockdown furniture for centuries, probably millennia. And heck, you could use hyde glue, but let’s pretend that’s not an option.
Here’s a video of a bed, made entirely by hand and entirely with knockdown joints:
Now I’m not saying “This is the only way!” Again, hardware, imho, is often a wonderful thing, and if you want to use it, then I say two thumbs up and post pix when you’re done! However, I still maintain and haven’t seen anything which disproves my initial position that hardware is not necessary.
Whatever happened to using Wedges? Even the Egyptians used them to break stones apart. You can build bunkbeds with wedges and tear them down in 5 minutes so I agree with Shaker style. My Roubo will not have any metal in it when I’m through, will use wood wedges and offset dowels.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by karle ham.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.5 December 2017 at 4:26 pm #394325Hi,
I know this an older post, but I was skimming through it and thought I’d share a link from Lumberjocks.
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/22165
Others on the that website have made variations on this bed project.
It’s made in the same fashion as Paul Seller’s Assembly Table, which he mentions can be made as a bed and such.
This is one of those projects which I hope to make one day. -
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