design dilemma

[Midnight]

No doubt you've experienced this yourselves.. visitors happen.. cast praising verbage over a completed project and ask "could you build one similar to that for me??"..

project in question is a coffee / storage table lurking in the living room...

umm.... how similar...??

maybe a wee bit shorter.. a wee bit narrower... no drawers (as opposed to 20), and cupboard doors just on one side???? Que Mk1 eyelash flutter and semi persuasive smile...

Like an eejit I agreed to this..

Anyway... months later I've started roughing out the stock to build the damn thing; plan is to make 3 sides using frame and panel construction... and there's the dilemma.. how best to join the 3 sides together??

The over-riding rule for this thing is to keep the weight down which means a totally different construction method to the original... I need to keep this one real lightweight cos it needs to be humped up 4 flights o stairs. Last time I tried something like this, the project was a blanket chest.. panels connected to each other by mitering the outer edges of each panel (long grain mitres).. Result was a nice tidy looking joint but the glue up was an absolute bear...
Using corner posts with M&T construction would be a whole lot simpler, but the design of the front of the thing won't work with corner posts... Try as I might I can't quite picture the obvious solution... Any suggestions...??

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Could you just paint it on a cardboard box?

Since the two rear corners won't really be visible on the inside, could you make an L-shaped stile of solid wood that would receive the rails for both the side and the back? Maybe a drawing would be easier to understand.

Anyway, that would let you use a flat stile at the front corners.

 

[Chris Knight]

Mike,
You can easily join the three frames with biscuits or just glue the adjoining frame stiles together.

A variation on Dave's suggestion, use a post/panel construction and rebate the legs to receive panels directly.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Like this?

 

[Midnight]

Cardboard box ehhh...?? <chucklin.>... if only life were that simple... Still.. might be worth thinking about in future..

Chris, I used biscuits with the long mitres for the blanket box project; while the pre-glue up dry assembly ran like a swiss watch, the glue up itself went to hell in a handbasket... I'm not in a situation where I need to glue all 4 sides together in one go this time around (I think part of the prob last time was taking too long / biscuits swelling) but I'm still a little gun-shy of using the same technique...

Dave... excellent sketch... proportions are out but that don't matter; you've captured the core of the prob right there.. more importantly, you've nailed the finished look that I'm trying to get; seamless intersection at each corner...

secret mitred dovetails...???? <shaking head t reboot>... thoughts like that without finish fumes as an excuse are kinda worrying..!!

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Mike, I think you're right on the reboot. Keep it simple with straightforward mortise and tenons. Or even pocket screws on the inside of the rails.

I drew it with short rails so I could show the whole thing easily.

 

[Midnight]

post reboot... (an hour with the shop vac)... I reckon Chris might be right... with only 2 corners to do, mitred corners (c/w biscuits) has only half the glue up gremlins... oodles of surface area gives a bomb proof joint too...

I'm still head scratching with the 4th side (full width cupboard doors) but it looks a lot more straight forward...

 

[Chris Knight]

Mike,
If mitres are a problem you could use square corners and just scratch a small quirk along the joint line and a corresponding (ie matching) one on the non-jointed face - then it will look like a decorative design feature rather than a cop-out! Heck you could inlay a nice stripe..

 

[Philly]

Mike
Why not just butt them together and glue them up?? With all that long grain you'll have a very strong joint (put them biscuits away!) and with your skills an invisible glue joint shouldn't be a problem.
Only my 2p worth,
Philly

 

[Midnight]

:shock:

inlay..?? Steady Chris... yer scaring me...

Joking aside, inlay'd be totally out of charactor with the design and its intended surroundings.. With 2 extablished tazmanian devils in the house and another up-n-coming, the design needs to err more towards birck outhaus rather than fancy...


Philly... the biscuits are intended simply as an alignment aid during glue-up... it's one thing to have a bullet-proof long grain joint... it's something else making sure it ends up in exactly the right place... The biscuits will help control the amount of slip in the joint...

00's... just a couple of em... purely functional, nothing too excessive..

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Anathema to you Mike being of the handtool persuasion, but have you thought about knock down fittings, such as Häfele's Minifix system?

Carry the parts up in bits and assemble on site. Easy-peasy-- lemon-squeezy. Slainte.

 

[Midnight]

Sgian... that's an interesting looking system... Thing is, between kids giving this thing a work-out and the oak structure eating anything ferrous, I canna see any klanky bits surviving too long.. I gotta play safe and make it solid.. Other than that, construction of the 4th side won't let me use knock down bits... going back to auld school joints..

That said.. with the doors off and top removed, the basic box shouldn't weigh too much... 2 man lift, nae bother. (provided there's O2 on every landing).

pipper that ye are.. ya got me thinkin about mini tusk tenons now.. right after I've just finished cutting my stock to length too... So far that's been the first electron sacrifice on the job...