At my stage of woodworking, I suppose I could say that I had to check to see that everything would fit properly, and that's true to an extent. But I dry-fit all these parts mostly to z9finally) see if it was going to look the way I had imagined when I was cutting and shaping all of the pieces and drilling the hundreds of dowel holes.
Anyone else do that? Or are you all such disciplined veterans of your craft that you can delay the gratification until later on? :)
I only put in about half of the dowels in for the dry fit. Now I'll disassemble everything and start sanding.
Always ... and time the dry fit as well. The more parts, the more time it takes, and the more important the dry fit.
It allows you to to insure alignment of parts; the possible need for any sub-assembly glue-ups; the time it will take to stay within the "open time" of the glue; identify any trouble areas that may require more/different clamps/techniques, and how many; and, most importantly, determine the sequence of events of the operation in order to insure that you can indeed attach the horse to the cart, in the proper order, and all within that open time.
Besides, if I drew it up in SketchUp, I already know exactly what it is going to look like. ;)
On 6/8/2014 8:09 AM, Swingman wrote:> On 6/7/2014 5:23 PM, Greg Guarino wrote: > >> Anyone else do that? > > Always ... and time the dry fit as well. The more parts, the more time > it takes, and the more important the dry fit. > > It allows you to to insure alignment of parts; the possible need for any > sub-assembly glue-ups; the time it will take to stay within the "open > time" of the glue; identify any trouble areas that may require > more/different clamps/techniques, and how many; and, most importantly, > determine the sequence of events of the operation in order to insure > that you can indeed attach the horse to the cart, in the proper order, > and all within that open time.
I've been thinking about that. I figure that I'll glue up the "ladders" first and apply glue to four of the (10) horizontal pieces (the curved top and bottom plus two of the "rungs"). When I dry-fit the first "ladder" a few weeks ago I made the mistake of putting all of the dowels in. It was a little difficult to get it apart even with no glue in the joints. So there's probably no sane reason to glue them all; just enough to prevent the piece from "racking" .
While the most obvious way to do the assembly would be to glue up each of the four "faces" of the units and then attach the faces to each other, I've been tossing around another idea in my head.
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I think this would make the final assembly easier. (note: the bottom shelf and the front and rear bottom rails would not be pre-assembled). I'm thinking of putting in strips of quarter-round - attached to the ladders - underneath the shelves to guide the shelves to their proper locations during the assembly. I'll probably fasten the shelves with pocket screws afterward.
Yup. That was it. My junior high school ("middle school" for you young'uns) typing teacher (yes, they taught typing then) was really ticked off when she found out I played the piano. But really, facility in one hardly predicts skill in the other. :)
In A&C and Mission furniture it is very common to see the "slats", which are much like your ladder rungs, and appear to perform same, non structural function, to "float" instead of being glued.
The top and bottom "rails" obviously need to be.
That appears to be pretty much the way I would approach it.
An important tip on gluing up sub-assemblies, if you don't always practice it:
In most cases on a project that requires a sub-assembly to be glued up in advance, it is, IME, _very important_ to do a _complete_ "dry fit" _with clamps_ of ALL the other components, along with the glue-up of the sub-assembly.
This insures that when you do the final glue-up, that now 'cast in stone/glue' sub-assembly will be in perfect alignment with the rest of the parts.
This is particular important in those project that must stand "four square", or maintain that holy grail of "square" that insures other operations, like mounting doors and drawers, go smoothly.
Clamping pressure during glue-up can seriously affect alignment of parts and the "square" of the final assembly, so take that to heart.
Looking good ... good execution of well thought out plan always provides satisfaction, and sometimes even a bit of profit. ;)
This project incorporated many of the methods we have discussed on your recent project: from pattern routing, to dry fitting, to glue-up of sub-assemblies, which in chair making is a necessity:
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And, note the use of the method of fairing a curve that you recently "discovered" here:
I would not have thought to do that. My plan was to glue up the ladders back-down on a flat surface with a two-sided square corner "jig" to line them up. In fact, as I'll be building four identical ladders, I could even make a gluing jig with all four corners. Then when I assemble the whole unit, I'd use the shelves to get the whole unit square, and a flat surface to get the legs to be level.
I can see how that would help insure success. It sounds less convenient though.
No accident there. I'm like a kid who has recently discovered how to make purple with red and blue paint. Purple is sure to crop up in my next few "works". The curved rails are owe their existence to my recent (and surprisingly smooth) successes with pattern routing. The "palette" expands a little with each project.
Of all the things I may someday try, chairs look the most daunting. Of course, had I seen my current project in a woodworking magazine even a year ago, I'd probably have skipped over it as beyond my abilities. And I may have been right ... at the time.
I discover something old almost every day. I'm thinking of grinding the threads off some screws so I can simply pound them in.
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