cut nails, rabbet joints and reinforced corners

[phildcrowNOSPAM]

I'm building a toy box (no top, thanks JOAT) and want to reinforce the rabbet joints at the corners with 2x2 diagonal braces cut into triangles. For the outside, I liked the idea of using cut nails (thanks to you too Mr. Dingley). Being a relative newbie, I have some questions regarding the wisdom of this plan of action:

Will the wood move enough that I shouldn't glue the diagonal braces to the insides of the box? The grain for the corner braces will be vertical, and the grain of the sides of the boxes will be horizontal. The box is made of pine 1x left over from a job building shelves.

Will the cut nails work? Will they split the wood? Will they hold? I drove a couple of hard-cut masonry nails (it's what I have) into a test piece this evening, and am not inspired. I drilled a pilot hole, wallowed it out to fit the long dimension of the cut nail (long dimension across the grain of the board) and tapped it in. It went in hard, but came out kind of easy. It would seem that the relatively soft wood fibers move right out of the way, and don't grip the nail very well. Pilot hole too big, or what? Will the wood "heal" around the nail over a period of hours or days? They (the nails) were 2 1/2" long, so that may have had something to do with it.

Thanks for the help,

-Phil Crow

P.S. My chair turned out great. All those pieces of 3/4" stock should burn readily. Sometimes I wonder why I got started in this hobby.

[cefischer]

I think the nails you are using are probably the "concret" variety which are not suitable for what you are doing. Go to

for a look see. I have used a variety of their nails for several projects and am happy with the results. Also, in order to avoid splitting the long side of the nail should be parallel with the grain. Predrilling may be necessary for nails over

1.5".

Ed

[Lew Hodgett]

My answer is prejudiced because I don't like NAILS.

I would glue the corners in place using something like pieces of 3/8" dia dowel to create diagonal spring braces to hold the blocks in place while the glue dries. (Any piece of scrap wood also works if cut to the proper size.)

If this is a young kids toy box, who wants nails?

Lew