Childrens Furntiture / Construction MethodsTo simplify construction procedure without sacrificing strength, dowel assembly is avoided in favor of screws and glue. Nails should never be used in the main assembly to hold basic sections of the furniture together.Only screws, which pull and hold the pieces together in a firm tight grip, should be used here. Nails can be used for fastening light drawers, attaching edge trim and other decorative features that have no bearing on strength. To make a strong permanent joint, spread a thin layer of glue on both sections to be joined, set them together, and immedi-ately tighten with screws. The best method of working with screws is to pre-drill screw holes in the top piece; the diameter of the hole is equal to the diameter of the screw being used. Countersink these holes (if the screws are located at the back or underside of the piece where they will not be visible). Then, after setting the two pieces together, drop screws into all the screw holes, hammer them part way into the undrilled wood beneath (unless it is hardwood), and tighten in the usual manner. In the case of a long row or ring of screws, don't tighten them in consecutive order, but skip around, tightening first one at one end, then one at the opposite end, then back to one midway between, and so on until all are tightened. This will insure the pieces being evenly brought together and keep them from getting out of line while assembling. Screws driven into the end grain of ply-wood should be long enough to take a 3/4-inch bite into the wood. Longer screws will not add materially to the strength of the joint and may split the wood. Screws driven into core stock or solid wood should take a 1-inch bite—but to prevent splitting, a pilot hole, half the diameter of the screw, should be drilled first in the solid wood. Screws driven into exposed surfaces of the project should be concealed with long-grain wood plugs as shown in the photos. These plugs are cut as needed from the sides of scrap wood with a special 1/2-inch plug cutter. They differ from dowels in that their ends have the grain pattern running across the surface, while dowels have an end grain. The advantages of long-grain plugs are many. They can be cut from wood that matches in color and grain pattern the surface being plugged, and when properly matched and fitted they become almost invisible in the finished piece. Plugs take stain finishes in the same shade as the surrounding wood, while dowels, with their end grains, soak up the stain and appear considerably darker than the surrounding wood. Dowels used as plugs may in time distort due to their failure to shrink and expand in the same direction as the wood which holds them. Plugs, however, will expand and contract in the same way as the wood. Finally, if for any reason a plug must be removed later, it can be chipped out easily with a 1/4-inch chisel, while the only way a dowel can be removed is to drill it out. | |||||
Where screws are to be covered with long-grain plugs, first bore a shallow 5/16 inch deep by 1/2-inch diameter hole for the plug with a 1/2-inch bit. Then, through the center of this hole, drill the screw hole all the way through the wood. When building complex pieces of furniture that have curved lines such as a rocking horse or garden "heart" bench, the best way to insure an accurate job with a minimum of mistakes is first to make a full-scale layout sketch of the piece on a large sheet of paper tacked on a piece of plywood. Such a drawing will graphically reveal in full size all angles, bevels, miters, curves, assembly points, and true measurements. In fact, full-size patterns can be cut from your layout on heavy paper. Since, in many cases such as the rocking horse, patterns of parts overlap each other it is advisable to cut out one pattern at a time while leaving the rest of the layout tightly tacked in place. Then, after using the pattern, place it back in its original place, tape it with transparent tape, and continue cutting out patterns. All templates must be cut carefully with a sharp knife.
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