Tips For Woodworking Joinery

Here are a few golden woodworking joinery tips that every woodworker should follow.

Avoid working with freshly cut lumber, as it will shrink after the joint is assembled. Use wood that has dried to a moisture content approximating the level of the environment in which the finished piece will be used.

Visit woodworking joinery basics for more info about woodwork joinery...

When designing a piece of furniture that will bear a heavy load, use larger joints or joints with larger structural members, such as twin mortise-and-tenons. This will distribute the load over a wider area and reduce stress on the joint. If the design of a piece prohibits the use of large joints, use a number of smaller joints to spread the load and reduce stress.

Make sure the elements of a joint are properly proportioned. If a tenon in a mortise-and-tenon joint is too thick, the mortise member will be weakened.

When arranging the mating boards of a joint, always take into account the grain direction of the elements, and orient the pieces to compensate for wood movement.

Cut the elements of a joint parallel to the grain. A tenon cut across the grain, for example, will not withstand shear and racking stress.

For some joints, such as dovetails, use the completed part of the joint (the pins) to lay out the mating part (the tails) to reduce inaccuracies.

If a joint requires reinforcement, use glue along with fasteners, dowels, biscuits, or splines.Visit woodworking joinery basics for more info about woodwork joinery...

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When joining wood for woodworking projects, use different types of wood joints, such as dovetail joints, lap joints, 45-degree miter joints and tendon joints. Discover how to join wood with these different types of joints in this free video from an award-winning woodworker on basic carpentry. Expert: Kent Perdue Bio: Kent Perdue is a senior in the furniture-making program at VCU, and has received many scholarships and awards for his work. Perdue sells his work at various furniture stores in Richmond, Va. Filmmaker: nate thompson
Video Rating: 3 / 5

Woodworking Tips - Furniture Fittings

The usefulness of veneered and melamine-faced chipboard has been revolutionised by the wide range of fit¬tings available for joining it together and for making furniture, such as fitted cup¬boards and wardrobes.

All the fittings described on this article are sold separately in do-it-yourself shops and by mail order, but the fittings supplied with bought furniture (particularly kitchen units) are identical. Many of the fittings are known as KD (knockdown) because they have the characteristic (unlike conventional woodworking joints) that the furniture can be taken apart once it has been assembled.

Chipboard screws and plugs
Ordinary woodscrews do not take well in chipboard, and special chipboard screws have been developed. Looking more like self-tapping screws than woodscrews. chipboard screws are usually threaded all the way to the head and often have a double thread, which means the screw goes in faster. The screw bites into the chipboard as it is put in to give a good grip. Some larger chipboard screws come with a special drilling jig to make sure the holes to receive them are drilled in the correct place. To cover the normal chipboard screws, special plastic covering plugs are available in white, magnolia or brown, depending on the type of chipboard being used. These cither push into the Pozidriv head of the screw or into a counterbored hole in which the screw is recessed.

To get a stronger connection, a chip¬board plug can be used. Some of these work on the same principle as solid-wall fixing (expanding as the screw is driven in) while others are glued into the chip¬board; both allow ordinary woodscrews to be used. A hole (typically 8mm in diameter) is drilled in the edge of the chip¬board which will receive the screw and the screw is driven into the plug to give a secure fixing. Again, a dowelling or other jig will keep the hole square.

Where the countersunk head of a screw could damage a thin surface, surface or recessed screw cups can be used.

Block joints
These plastic blocks are used for joining two pieces of chipboard at right-angles.

The simplest type the mini-block - has a dowel to locate in one piece and a single screw to secure to the other. This makes for an unobtrusive joint, but not a very strong one.

A better connection is given by the one-piece block joint which is fitted into an internal corner and is simply screwed to the two pieces of chipboard. A neater result is given by a rigid triangular corner joint.

Better still is the two-part (or 'knock¬down') block joint where one part is screwed to each piece of chipboard and the two joined together by a slotted-head machine screw. This joint has the advantage that it can easily be taken apart but, like the one-piece joint, takes up room inside the cupboard. Block joints gener¬ally come in a choice of white or brown colours.

Cam joints
A cam joint is more complicated than a block joint, but is completely unobtrusive once fitted. A nylon dowel is inserted in the edge of one board and is locked by driving a steel pin into it. A large plug is fitted in the other board in a hole drilled by an end mill. The dowel fits into the plug and a cam screw is then turned to lock it in place. Although neat, this type of joint is more difficult to make than other types and is not always very rigid.

Panel connectors
There are two special connectors you can use for joining panels end to end or back to back.

For joining panels end to end (two adjacent lengths of worktop, for example), a panel butt joint connector is used. This fits into a pair of holes drilled in the surface of the two boards to be joined (again using an end mill) and a slot is cut to join the two holes. The connector is positioned and tightened with a span¬ncr, drawing the two boards together.

For joining panels back to back (con¬necting together two adjacent kitchen cupboards, for example), a cabinet connecting screw is used. This simply fits into a hole drilled through the walls of both cupboards and tightening it will bring them together.

Hinges
There is a wide selection of other types of hinge available for making your own furniture.

For kitchen cupboards, the most useful type of hinge is probably the adjustable concealed hinge which is fitted into two large holes drilled in the back face of the door and the side of the cupboard. This hole (typically 35mm) has to be made with a special drill bit called an end mill, which drills a flat-bottomed hole. For control on the depth to which it is drilled (which is crucial), the end mill is best used in an electric drill fitted to a vertical drill stand equipped with a depth stop.

Cupboard fixings
When it comes to fitting cupboards in place, there are several different types of fittings which can help.

First there is a variety of catches, including magnetic catches, magnetic touch catches (push to open; push again to close), roller catches and ball catches. If certain types of hinge have been used (and the door is hung properly), no catch is needed at all the hinge will hold il closed.

Hanging wall cupboards can often be a problem if the securing holes (for wall plugs) in the wall have not been made in exactly the correct place. Cabinet suspension fittings and cabinet hanging brackets both allow a degree of adjustment once lilted; the hanging bracket provides the more secure fixing.

An angle plate can also be used for holding cupboards to the wall, but is more commonly used for securing worktops to the sides of base unit kitchen cupboards.

For lightweight cupboards (or wall shelving units), glass plates can be used: these are simply screwed to the back of the cupboard and the surface of the wall, which means the cupboard stands out from the surface of the wall by the thick¬ness of the plate.

At the bottom of kitchen base unit cup¬boards, some kind of foot is necessary to keep the chipboard sides off the floor -particularly important if the chipboard is left unsealed when any water on the floor could damage it. Feet may also be needed to deal with uneven floors, though many kitchen fitters will simply pack the cup¬boards out with slips of hardboard. The simplest type is the metal foot, which is banged into the bottom of the cupboard sides. More sophisticated are the cabinet leveller, the base levelling screw and the adjustable foot, all of which allow for adjustments to be made to allow for discrepancies in the floor surface. As well as feet, there is a range of castors which can be used if the cupboard is to be movable.

Drawers
Making drawers in the traditional way can be very satisfying, but is hard work and, for a kitchen cupboard, may not be the best solution as all-timber drawers can be difficult to keep clean.

There are various drawer-making kits on the market, which use plastic slotted sections for the two sides and back of the drawer: you add your own front (some¬times attached to a fourth plastic section) and base (typically melamine-faced hard-board, positioned melamine face up).

Making your own drawer like this is fairly simple and involves only cutting the profiles to length, screwing pieces on to the back of the drawer front and slotting the whole thing together. You must double-check that everything is correct before you assemble the drawers (for example, the base is the right way up), because, once assembled, these drawers cannot readily be taken apart.

The drawer slides on simple rectangular plastic runners which are fitted to the sides of the kitchen or other cupboard.

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Question by Kevin R: what's the name of this woodworking joint?
i made a stool in woodwork and have to write up how i made it and stuff but i dont know the name of the joint i used?

the joint is a leg with two trenches cut out on one side and another on the adjecent side and two rails come in and meet in the middle and the rails are cut at 45 degree angles to make a 90 degree angle?

this is reli important so plz plz tell me?
no its not a dove tail joint i know wat that joint looks like, thanx anyway
i tink its actually a mitre joint or sumthing similar thanx neway

Best answer:

Answer by Snow
Could it be a dove tail joint?

Perhaps you could do a search on "dove tail joint" in images and find pics of them to verify it.

Good luck!

Give your answer to this question below!

Are you thinking about your next Woodworking carpentry project but don't know where to begin? I used to be like that until I started to plan and research in great detail, then somehow things became a lot easier. Follow these 5 tips.

The initial thing I care to do is take into consideration my plan of action. Is it something I am doing for fun or an important home improvement. As soon as I decide what the project is I move onto the next step Write down all the materials you need. I used to just go to the wood yard without writing anything down and forget at least one item and have to go back.

Think about the tools you will need. If you have a woodworking project on the top floor of your house and you keep your tools in the shed. You don't want be running back and forth fetching the one tool that you forgot.

Plan your workspace. Are you building something static like a shelf or piece of furniture that can be moved. I remember building a wardrobe once in the hallway but after building it I couldn't get it into the room it should have been in. It looked like it would fit through the doorway but was one inch too big. Lesson learned!

Planning your time is an important. You don't want to be outside in the dark and cold cutting wood. Try do do this before it gets dark and carry on with internal later in the evening. Remember to plan your woodworking project and get as much information as you can off the internet.

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Though nailing seems to be an easy job at first hand, but if you are not expert at nailing, you may injure yourself or simply spend a lot of time trying to do it the right way. To make the job easy, less time consuming and safer, you should know some tips and tricks of carpentry. Nailing is the basic carpentry job. If you follow these tricks and have little practice, you will achieve the required results faster.

First and the most basic tip for nailing is that you should loosen your grip on the hammer. Do not clutch it in death grip.

Hold the nail between a thumb and a forefinger and turn your fingers in such a manner that your fingernails touch the board. Now start hammering. In case you miss the nail, it is probable that you hit the fleshy side of your fingers.

In case, you are using a very small nail, use a fine-toothed comb to hold the nail, otherwise you may hit your fingers very badly. When the nail comes near the board, remove the comb and nail will be completely driven into the wood.

Apply light hammer strokes on the nail until it is inside the board, one-third of its length. If you hit it hard before that, nail can fly right into your face. When it gets inside, you can hit it harder.

While doing this job, you should wear a canvas nail apron. It will help you hold your supplies. You can hold pouches of nails in its pockets and it is very convenient.

One thing you must know is that the knotty parts of the wood are quite tough to break in. So avoid putting nails there. You will find it hard to drive it in. Choose the regular surface of the board to put the nail.

While putting the nail near the end of a board, board may crack or split. To avoid this, you should make the nail blunt a little bit. For this, tap its pointed end a few times over the hammer.

If it is getting tough to drive in a nail, there is a trick. Rub the nail over a bar of soap. This act will reduce friction in the nail.

Other way is to make a pilot hole in the board using a drill. Diameter of the drill should be slightly smaller than the diameter of the nail.

What happens sometimes is when hammer miss the nail and hits the wood. It leaves “half Moon” shape mark of the board which looks ugly. To avoid this, you can place a piece of thin plywood before you start hammering. In case of a miss, you will hit the junk wood.

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A carpenter is the person who works with wood to make different utility products like furniture, doors, boxes, tables and other things. Carpentry is the skill of making different things form wood. A carpenter uses different types of tools to make these things. A construction team must have a carpenter to do their woodworking jobs. Once the house gets ready, it is the job of the carpenter to make it more comfortable by making right furniture. It is a very laborious work which needs special skills.

Carpentry Tools

Carpenters use various special tools to carry out their job. These tools are categorized into hand tools and power tools. Most often carpenter uses hand tools for carrying out simple or even complex jobs. Power tools are used when working with heavy wood or large amount of work is to be done. Some very popular tools used for carpentry are mallets, hammers, chisels, saws, file, clamp, pliers, punches and measuring tapes.

Some useful tips about Carpentry

A carpentry job may include many small functions as part of a big project. These functions include measuring, marking, cutting, sawing, striking, chiselling, checking, boring, lengthening, sharpening and framing of joints.

Cut once after measuring twice, this is the most important rule of the carpenters who believe in making perfect objects in perfect time. This is why measuring tape and 90 degree angled tool are among the most important tools for carpenters. An end product is always perfect if you measure right and cut materials perfectly. A square is used for drawing straight lines and measuring tapes give you right measurements.

Simple saw is the best choice for cutting wood in straight lines, especially for the beginners. Coping saw is used for cutting curves. But for beginners, it is not recommended to use electric saws and cutters as they may injure themselves. Even if you are using it, you must read all the instructions carefully, about its usage.

Drill machines are the perfect carpentry tools to make holes in walls and wood. These are the power operated tools which make the job very easy and less laborious. Various kinds of nails and glue are the other elements you would need for any kind of carpentry job. Nailing requires skill which a person learns with practice. A beginner can start making simple things like bookshelves, simple tables, closet fixtures, etc.

While going for a project, choose the wood carefully. Measure and mark it even more carefully. If you have drawn some wrong marking, make a cross sign over it to differentiate it from the other lines. Job of carpenter involves too much precision without which you cannot make a perfect product.

After you have chosen an object and the appropriate wood for it, you can start your first carpentry project. Measuring is important for making a perfect carpentry object. So measure you wood twice according to the pattern before cutting it. Mark them with pencil and cross out the lines drawn by mistake. After you have cut wood pieces, it is time to put them together. Use nails and screws and according to the thickness of your wood, they should not stick out of the wood. Along with nails, you can use wood glue as well to make the joint stronger.