I'm about to make some simple boxes for tool parts, one small one for a trim router and attachments, one long one for a lathe replicator. Both will be simple affairs from scrap pine I have lying around.
What kind of joinery do you use for simple tool storage boxes? Nails and butt joints are easiest and quickest, but perhaps not the best choice. What's your preferred choice and why?
Surveyingly yours, H.
Butt joint, recessed screws and plugs.
Fast, strong and not skanky looking.
UA100
If you want strong, Box Joints.
The box design will typically include 2x2's in the corners to join both adjacent faces - fasteners need not be driven near the end of either face and blowout is reduced by aiming into the 2x2 surface instead. A little more material but a stronger connection.
A few extra screws, regardless of the fastener for the rest of the box, should be added at stress po>I'm about to make some simple boxes for tool parts, one small one for
Depends on what tools you have available. butt joint with glue and screws would be preferable to nails, but then box joint or dovetails is even better. Rabbeted joints are fairly easy also if you have the right tools.. Ed
Just about any joint you'd care to think of but nails and butt joints.Dovetail, box, spline, locking miter, M & T arts and craft style.
for quick utility boxes I use glue and screws
I go with Ed. "Combination" joints like dado/rabbet or if you have the bits, drawer joints, are easy to make, have good gluing surfaces, and mechanical resistance to breaking apart. Any of them will also accept fasteners if you car to add them.
The one thing I would (do) add to tool boxes is corner protection. When they have the 25% off anything that fits in the bag sales at Menards, I always stock up on piano hinge and corner protection, as well as all the fasteners I need to get my containers up to date.
I personally like rebate/housing joints like dadoes and grooves for quick and dirty box building. You can cut them quickly with a table saw or router bit, use glue (increased surface area for the glue) and fire a few brads "until the glue dries" so you can be up and running with the other operations quickly, and they are self squaring to a certain extent.
Depends what tools you have. I'd go for box joints, because you obviously have a router and it's worth sorting out a jig to cut them. Once you're tooled up, they're fast, strong and look good. Stronger than dovetails too, for typical combinations of modern glue and softwood. If you have a dado head and a good saw fence, then sawing box joints is even easier.
If you have a router but not box-cut jig, then a drawer-lock router bit is a small investment (with a table) and they're even quicker.
Open tenons have over a thousand years of European carpentry tradition behind them (search for "Mastermyr chest"). They're quick, can be strong if you pin them (good stregth along the axis, lousy in "folding"), and they look interesting. However other woodworkers who aren't medievalists or Japanese will sneer at you.
Butt & biscuit works for me. If I'm using plywood or MDF, I see little point in anything else.
I only do dovetails by hand-cutting and aiming for beautiful ones. If I'm not doing beautiful that day, I don't dovetail.
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