Building small table for disassembly

robdew 20 years ago

I am building a child's table and chairs for a christmas present.

This will either be shipped or boxed up and transported in checked airline baggage.

My default plan is to dry fit the table legs and much of the chair legs and then glue and finish them at the destination, but I would PREFER to simply make the table, um, "disassembleable" or have the legs fold down.

The only thing is every table I have seen that can be taken down or folded up is darn rickety.

Any neat tricks here or specialized hardware that would help? I've been looking for commercial examples of this, and every one is like I describe in the sentence above.

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Duane Bozarth 20 years ago

Woodworkers Supply (and many others) have many options for mechanical leg mounting hardware...

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Chris Friesen 20 years ago

What about using quick-connect hardware Ikea-style? I've got a solid wood dining set that uses these and it's actually pretty sturdy.

Chris

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Andy Dingley 20 years ago

Through tenons with wedges are nice and substantial. With the right style (Arts & Crafts or fake medieval) they also look atttractive.

Cutting them needs an easy way of cutting mortices, ideally a bandsaw for the wedges (tiresome job otherwise) and careful paring of the tenon sloped surface to match the wedge. I use a long chisel and an angled block of wood.

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Bruce Barnett 20 years ago

Some of the fasteners can be quite strong. Here's woodcraft's page on knock-down hardware:

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've used this type:

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need to be able to drill holes in a T pattern, however. The barrel nuts (B) don't require precise positioning (you can use a hand drill.)

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