problem with Anna white she uses screws to hold everything together and most her shit will tear itself apart. but if you want to use her plans and adjust for proper joinery techniques.
My biggest problem is that I know what joinery to use, I just don't have the experience to know how to translate that to exact measurements for things like depth and thickness to ensure said joints are as strong as I need them to be without overkill. For example this TV stand I'm thinking of, I could design a piece that uses mostly dados, but is a 1/2" dado in a 1" piece sufficiently strong? Should I make the piece thicker? The dado shallower? Those are the kinds of questions I wish I just had existing plans to tell me exactly what to do.
For example I whipped this together in Sketchup: but I'm not totally enamored of the design (it screams "Why not just build this out of plywood"), and I'm not 100% on the joinery. It's all 1" thick with horizontal dados 1/2" deep and vertical dados 1/4", which should work, I think?
I think it would be plenty strong, vertically. My only concern might be how are you stopping it from moving side to side? Are you relying solely on the dadoes to do that? I’d be tempted to put in a piece (or 2) that would tie in the horizontal to the vertical pieces.
That's a valid concern. I was working off of this as a reference, which probably has a lot heftier side walls and therefore deeper dados (or dominos/whatever).
That pic has some extra structure to help make it more solid, for sure. There’s the piece along the front below the bottom horizontal panel that will help tie in the corner posts with the horizontal. Probably the same or bigger along the back. I’d also think that the bottom cabinets have a back panel which will be huge structural support. All that taken into consideration means it’s sturdy as fuck. As to your project, just try what you think is best, and see how it goes. That stuff can be much stronger than you think. Either do up some test pieces or just make it and see how long it survives, is my suggestion. You can also build it and see how strong it is as you go and you can beef it up along the way if needed.
I was originally planning on this being a "warm up" for tackling the bigger project of building a bed, but ironically the bed has proven much easier to design.
I've done kreg joinery exclusively so far and it's worked very well (better than I expected, considering I live in New England and temperature and humidity changes throughout the year can cause havoc on joints). Certainly not the be all end all, but I'm happy with the results I've seen.
I'm an obnoxious purist and try to use only metal when it's for something designed to be detached and reattached over and over (so bed bolts would be a good example). Other than that I prefer to stick to well made joints and glue.
Just thought I'd point you all to a new and upcoming YouTube channel that I've been finding enjoyable: Canadian Woodworks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCERIGfN6ATn5-U2DGhDzOvw They are a small, growing, local (Ontario) wood working shop that has grown to the point where they made their own drying kiln and have spun up their own lumber yard. Fairly unpolished but very effective production. I'd give them about an 8/10. For example, here's today's video:
They also have another channel for their Lumber operation: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjIepN3NDVddmbVl71BSuMw
I'm very surprised to say that I am almost finished probably the most challenging woodworking project I've undertaken so far... and it was for my work bench. I've found that I really need to have better clamping on my workbench / assembly table... so I decided to install some T-Track rails for some hold down clamps and other t-track accessories. My original table was meant to take a raw 4x8 piece of particle board so that when it needed replacing a new one could just be dropped in, so I wanted to make this fairly easy to replace the top as well. That meant I had to do some serious math... figure out how wide to cut the sections of that 4x8' sheet, spacing, etc. I made up some partition rails out of a couple of 10' 2x4s, cut a shoulder on them to support the particle board, and then ran the 3/4" channel down them for t-track itself. The rails themselves had to be at exactly the right heights in order to keep the whole workspace completely flat... and that included the half-lap joints. I ended up doing the math so that there were 3 particle board strips that were 12" wide, with one 7.75" wide piece. The table is done, I'm just waiting for the rest of the t-track to show up tomorrow from Amazon... But holy crap there was a lot of math and precision that went into getting this thing to work out the way I wanted... and I'm happy to say it worked out. I can now use these t-track clamps from Lee Valley to keep boards in place while I plane them: Some pics of the work in progress:
Preordering Spags' book comes with a free guild project. Given the respective prices, it's basically a huge discount on a guild project with the book as a throw in.
Still waiting for the remaining t-track pieces to come in from Amazon (there was a huge sale on them so things got a bit delayed apparently.. still worth the wait for the cost savings), but the first section is installed and working like a charm. Couldn't be happier... clamping on the table top now, which really helps for planing and aggressive sanding with that Rotex (it's fucking insane how much torque it has). Most importantly, I can put my big level anywhere on it and the entire table top is still perfectly flat, even under load.
I've got an older (1983) Craftsman 10" Table Saw with a cast iron top, it has the grooves on the top and a comparable fence to the one below. Any ideas on how to update the top and a possible fence upgrade? The fence is tightened by a handle and it rarely stays in place, I also have to measure multiple (4-6) times to ensure that it will make a straight cut. I'm saving for a new table saw now, in the 1.5K range but I'm not ready to give up on the old one just yet. Thanks
You can buy some pretty skookum rail upgrades that would transfer nicely to a new table saw. The top might be something you leave alone, just attach new rails and fences, then migrate them over when you get the new one. Personally, I'm a pretty big fan of Incra: https://www.incra.com/table_saw_fences-tsls_fences.html
that kind of looks like a craftsman model 113 there is a cult following that loves those table saws. you could probably google craftsman 113 and a whole bunch would come up.
I just came across this. It seems like an interesting, plausible, and affordable way of putting up a building on my property. Any thoughts?