This wardrobe/armoire is only the second time I’ve used nails to attach a frame to a carcase. Interestingly, the other time was also a wardrobe. For years I have resorted to either biscuits or dowels. I hate biscuits (noisy, dusty machine .. yuk!) and dowels are finicky. So the issues are, who else nails on frames and what spacing for the nails? I used both nails and glue in attaching the frames for the doors. The nails are 8” apart over a frame of 42”. Tools of the trade .. View Image I use a Japanese hammer, which has a flat and a domed end. The flat side is for hammering to the edge of the surface of the wood, and then the domed end is use to tap it gently to the surface without marring the surrounding wood. The frame was partly pre-drilled for the nails, mainly to prevent splitting and also to ensure that they went where I wanted them to go! View Image The nails are the thinnest I felt I could use, approximately 1/32” diameter and 1 ¼” long. The frame is a little under ¾” thick. View Image Frankly, I am not sure if the nails are doing anything structural, or whether it is the glue that holds it all together. I need to know if this area must be beefed up. A sequence of nailing (self explanatory).. View Image The nail holes are filed with wax. I mixed up a colour that matched the darker figure. View Image How well does the wax disguise the holes? Here is a sequence of views … View Image View Image View Image And here is an update on the WIP: frames-and-doors and base attached .. Total height is 51″ … still to do is the drawer, handles and top. View Image Regards from Perth Derek
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Replies
Hi Derek ,
This post seems so " out of the box " for you , so to speak .
But,,, honestly it is so much nicer to take the time to just glue and clamp the majority if possible .Even on the better kitchen cabinetry I use either no / or blind nailing methods or only where they won't show . This is mainly speaking for wood finish grade not paint grade works .
For a quick nail up 3 nails or less in the 42" is good add clamps in between instead of more nails .
Trust your glue and let it work , it has more holding power then nails .
The time spent drilling hammering setting and filling holes may be better spent just glue and clamping imo, dependng on what you want to end up with.
regards from Paradise
dusty,boxmaker
Hi Dusty
The frames are glued to the carcase. My thought was that the nails ... pins .... would offer support for a vertical load.
It appears strong .. which is down to the glue.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek:
Nails were used heavily by furniture makers in the past, with or without glue. I tend to think is is because they didn't own dozens of pipe or bar clamps. Plus, their time was money. Nails are quicker than clamps, which had to be a bonus considering the limited working time of hot hide glue. I have seen plenty of quality pieces that were assembled using nails to hold trim pieces on until the glue cured. Personally, I used wire nails on painted country pine pieces I built years ago when that type of furniture was in demand. Nails do add strength to the face frame attachment. Spacing them every 8" is propably a little overkill. I usually space them 12" apart on larger pieces.
Nice to see you down in the trenches with us regular folks. Hope you had a super Christmas and New Year. My oldest son ordered one of the new Lee Valley plane blades for me for Christmas. He sent for the 2 3/8" in O1 steel. Can't wait for it to arrive and see what kind of an edge the iron takes.
gdblake
I have cabinets with tools hanging on the doors that are just glued on. Only time I have used finish nails is for trim work and I blunt the end of the nail first.
Hey I thought you had to have this cabinet ready and installed in a day or so?? Do you sweep up every night before parking the Porche, my wife insists I do before she drives in.... Oh the tragedy of it all.
Derek:
You won't get any nail
Derek:
You won't get any nail advice from me, however I just have to say I like your work. Your work has clean lines, nice proportions and no frills. Your choices of wood just add to the pleasing look. You have a gift for detail.
Nice work,
Jim
Derek,
Your nails are adding nothing but work to the case. As far as strength goes, the glue is more than enough. If you can't wait for the glue to set to release the clamps , then a few biscuits will allow you to release them in under half an hour. However you look at it, much less work than drilling, setting, and filling those nails.
Derek,
Ah ha! I spot a man who wished to play with nails. :-)
As others have said, the nailing-on of glued face frames is in lieu of clamps so you have got the sequence backwards there then. Of course, one might want to add nails as decoration too; but you have used unnattractive wee things that you have anyway hidden, rather than nice big black cut nails with hobnail boot heads, sticking out the faces all proud and ugly (I mean attractive in a man-cabinet kind of way).
Yes, you just wanted to play. I can understand that.
Lataxe, another wee mudlark.
PS You are prejoodissed concerning the biscuit joiner, I can tell. What is wrong with earmuffs (for the racket) and a dust extractor (for the chips)? I think myself quite the figure with the big red ear-claspers on, clutching fistfulls of high tech gubbins with hosey and cable snaking out of it.
PPS A handsome cabinet, that.
Lataxe, another wee mudlark.
"PS You are prejoodissed concerning the biscuit joiner, I can tell. What is wrong with earmuffs (for the racket) and a dust extractor (for the chips)? I think myself quite the figure with the big red ear-claspers on, clutching fistfulls of high tech gubbins with hosey and cable snaking out of it".. Lataxe
I just sold a biscuit joiner I have not used in the two years I have had it. The proceeds have gone toward a 12 gauge- 8 shot- pump slide shotgun with a 18 1/2" barrel. That will increase the noise level but I have a 40% hearing loss after VN anyway. It does get rid of the cable though. ha.. ha...
Hmmmm...12-gauge, 8 shot magazine, pump action with just an 18" barrel. Methinks you are most interested in targets less than 15 yards away. Take another 3 or 4 inches off the barrel and it would qualify as a true scatter gun!.
I learned to deer hunt in the hills of WVa with a 12-guage pump loaded with slugs. Lots of brush and a 30-40 yard shot was the norm. Twigs didn't stand a chance! I also knew a couple of Seals in the Delta and Parrot's Beak areas who favored a short barreled shotgun with a condom over the muzzle to keep the water out. An alternating load of slugs and buckshot seemed to be their choice of load. You realize, of course, that I'm lying as we were never active in the Parrot's Beak area. Nixon said so. . .
Regards,
Ron
18 1/2" barrel........Sarge, that's not a shotgun. That's a howitzer. Are you shooting ball bearings with it?
Jeff
Derek,
Very nice. I was told a long time ago that merely nails hold the work while the glue sets, so they are in fact a permanent clamp. Certainly an advantage if you do not feel like farting about with a lot of clamps and risk marring the piece or over clamping and introducing unwanted stress.
I think pin nailing would wrk well in this situation.
Don
A day late and dollar short for this comment, but ! Have you ever considered using cut Nails ? Sometimes that slightly "primitive" accent can take a piece over the top, especially it the square head is ever so slightly proud of the surface.
Check out http://www.tremontnail.com
Bruce,
Yes, I like cut nails, but it's surprising how much harder they are to drive (and even harder to pull!).
Derek,
A Japanese hammer...
Based on what I've heard about Japanese saws and Japanese planes, I can only surmise that the hammers work the same way, by pulling the nails, rather than pushing them. Could you elaborate?
Ray
LOL. Good one, Ray.
Hi Ray
That is so true ... but I'm a bit slow and can't figure it out. Help me - does one hammer (what is the adjective for genno?) from the other side? Stand upside down (that should be straight forward for me here in Oz), or face the other direction?
Confused in Perth
Derek
Derek,
I understand that with a Japanese hammer you just show it to the nails and they "understand" that they must go into the wood.....
Now, you obviously need to see some proper nails whacked into furniture. Mr R Lee of Canada supplied these:
View Image
View Image
which matched those already in the 16ft 8" x 8" old factory beam this table was made from.
A Japanese hammer would not persuade these rascals to do anything but chuckle. One needs something more towards a small lump hammer.
Lataxe, who probably has an agricultural mental disease causing him to be attracted to crude joinery artifacts.
You have to love cut nails for their aesthetics and more so for their holding strength (much stronger than wire nails) And they are not prone to split your stock.
How do you drill rectangular pilot holes for those puppies? ;-)
Ralph,
Use a two-jaw brace?
Derek,
'Sup with this place?
Derek,
'Sup with this place? Takes me days to get back to where I once was; it's worse than Alice thru the Looking Glass--the faster I run, the more I can't stay in the same place!!
I dunno, here in 'Murrica, the nails with heads on the wrong end, are for the OTHER side of the cabinet. Being Down Under, using an inscrutable hammer, who knows what you ort to whack; maybe it's all in the swing, not the blow that is struck? Tantric nailing...
Ray
One option that's commonly
One option that's commonly used is to rabbet the edge of the cabinet sides, cut a corresponding groove in the face frame and mount it that way, only using glue. Typically it's a 3/8" x 3/8" rabbet and groove.
Hammer,
I don't remember this
Hammer,
I don't remember this
"Beat it to fit / Paint it to match" --Om, Om
being your tag line but if its not I may use it for mine, or at least take up Foredom carving and put it up on the shop's walls.
That and Lataxe's
"I understand that with a Japanese hammer you just show it to the nails and they "understand" that they must go into the wood".
Love it
boiler
I started to use the tag line back a few years ago when Knots went through a change and some of us lost our original names. There were quite a few with the name Hammer or something similar, someone else got my original name so I kept the tag line. It's a common teasing phrase in the trade when somebody is being too fussy and taking too long to get a simple job done.
The issue I have with nails is that the wood can change color or darkness over time and the nail hole filler doesn't. So you might match the color perfectly at the time but later one the nail filler is to light.
I finished a whole house and years later I had light colored dots everywhere. The worst part was my sister in law pointed it out. She was always pointing out my shortcomings. She isn't invited over any more.
How about an invisible nailer kit? Basically, a chisel lifts up a thin strip of wood and holds it up while you drive in and set a nail, then you glue the wood back down.
One of my clients, on my explaining why her un-flat walls were creating gaps behind my work, said: "If anyone looks that close, I'll smack 'em!"
Ouch said the wardrobe.
gdb,
Yes, what were those olde fellows thinking of, banging their nails willy-nilly into the nice wood. When we lads come to pull their ugly ole thangs apart, to get at the nice wood for making a pleasant new piece, what do we find!?
View Image
View Image
Wottamess those Great Iron Pins do leave! One must dig them out with a chainsaw and a large pickaxe.
So, young Derek; when you have tired of that wardrobe and need the wood to make a pipe and slipper rest for your old age, you are going to regret your nail-play, oh yes.
Lataxe
Wottamess those Great Iron Pins do leave! One must dig them out with a chainsaw and a large pickaxe.
That brought a smile....
Many years ago I bought up alot of old timbers from a very old Chicago factory that was being demolished. The old Western Electric plant. It had 'parquet' floors. The 'parquet' was about 10 inch squares, 18 inches deep! Face grain up.. Not endgrain (I think?). The floors were held up by huge wooden timbers and steel. I assume 'face grain' was used because they bolted heavy machinery to them. Sometimes, huge lag bolts, and sometimes steel rods with steel plate washers welded at the ends.. All the wood was white oak.
Anyway, a learning experience. My new bride warned me not to buy anything. I did anyway.. Bad me! The wood was worthless. Very strong and beautiful, if sanded it with about 36 grit on a belt sander. The wood was so full of rusted steel and other metal cuttings impacted into the surface. I guess I got the wood from where they worked metal. They made telephones for Bell telephone? I think maybe all that metal in the wood was the outcome of Western Electric making 'whatever' for the military during/for WWII.
MY lovely wife never let me forget. She sort of forgave me for the first cost BUT she was really upset when she found out I had to pay to get rid of my lost dream wood...
Has anyone noted that nails have no place in fine cabinetry?
Philip..
See..
Why Use Nails
Philip..
See..
Why Use Nails in Fine Furniture Rules of Thumb by Michael Dunbar.
https://www.finewoodworking.com/Materials/MaterialsPDF.aspx?id=2930
Sorry, I had to do it...
No. Why would they?
Don
Derek:
I'm surprised nobody
Derek:
I'm surprised nobody has told you that you should have used a kreg jig and attached the face frame using pockethole screws. I saw their ad on TV just last night. They claim it is the way you can build fine furniture just like the professionals. What were those furniture makers of old thinking with this nail thing anyway. Taught us all some bad habits. I seem to remember Norm shooting nails all over the place in The New Yankee Workshop. I admit to cheating and using biscuits nowadays to line things up. The rabbet and groove is better craftsmanship though.
gdblake
Hopefully there is no shame in pounding a few nails. There is a certain pleasure in drawing two 2 x 4s tightly togehter with some well placed framing nails and a nice hammer.
I love my long handle/heavy framing hammer!
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