Another "no glue" project: a chest of drawers

Ellis, those are two really good questions. I was hoping someone would ask and spark some discussion.

My simple answer is that the chest was absolutely solid as built and remains so three years later. My evidence is that I fit the drawers closely when built. As you can see in the video the drawers close with light finger pressure at a corner of the drawer front. You'll have to take my word that they all fit the same way with no binding. That is true today after three cycles of summer dry (35-40% humidity) and winter wet (60-65%) here in the Willamette Valley, and daily opening and closing drawers. I don't drag the chest around much, maybe a just few feet 5 or 6 times per year so it doesn't get a lot of racking forces. The chest itself weighs about 150 pounds it has maybe 50? pounds or so of tools in it. If the construction has gone wobbly I would expect it to show in one or more drawers binding and that hasn't happened.

But three years isn't much in such a low stress furniture environment. And the chest is way overbuilt for any reasonable and most unreasonable forces it might meet. It has relatively large structural members for a chest this size, redundant joints, plywood reinforcement on the back and sides, and so on. But ask me again in 50 years!

You rightly ask about wedges and keys loosening over time. There are keys in the corner joints of the mobile base, sill, and header that are critical for keeping things firmly together. I can think of two ways those keys could loosen. 

One is they vibrate loose from the chest being moved around. That seems unlikely since I don't move the chest that often (but someone in the future might). Even so, the ends of the keys are trapped by the post shoulders. Those keys can't come out.

The other is that seasonal moisture cycles cause repeated shrinkage and compression of the keys cross grain and they end up compressed. That is possible but very unlikely given their small dimensions (1/4" or so), the keys are Oregon White Oak which is very stable, and the humidity doesn't change here much. Also, I set the keys in the dry season here. In the winter they only get a bit tighter. If the chest gets transported to Louisiana or Phoenix, and the corner joints seem a little loose after a few decades, a concerned citizen who thought it worthwhile (not me!) could dismantle the chest and tap in replacement keys. If they knew enough about the construction to know what to do.

Your other question was about "vs glued joints." This chest probably isn't a good way to compare one vs the other because the overall construction is so unusual.

A better comparison would be with the Ming table construction I described in another thread that has keyed wood joinery between the rails/aprons and legs and a Western side table that might have a glued mortise and tenon joint there. In that case, the Ming aprons are held in tension by a tapered dovetail joint running at right angles. I would predict that construction is much stronger than any joint of the same size held in tension by glue alone. In the Ming table I did leave the keys that fix the corners of the top and the top to the legs exposed proud so they could be seated further if necessary. So far they haven't. But that table has just been sitting there for 18 months and I haven't tested it for wobble.

Finally, wedged and keyed joinery is standard for timber framing. Timber frames tend to last a long time without glue and they are subject to strong winds that push and pull on them. They might flex but a well designed and well built one would probably not be described as wobbly. They might, however, need some wedges re-seated, especially if the joints were cut when the wood was green.

Gary Radice wrote:

Your other question was about "vs glued joints." This chest probably isn't a good way to compare one vs the other because the overall construction is so unusual.

A better comparison would be with the Ming table construction I described in another thread that has keyed wood joinery between the rails/aprons and legs and a Western side table that might have a glued mortise and tenon joint there. In that case, the Ming aprons are held in tension by a tapered dovetail joint running at right angles. I would predict that construction is much stronger than any joint of the same size held in tension by glue alone. In the Ming table I did leave the keys that fix the corners of the top and the top to the legs exposed proud so they could be seated further if necessary. So far they haven't. But that table has just been sitting there for 18 months and I haven't tested it for wobble.

Finally, wedged and keyed joinery is standard for timber framing. Timber frames tend to last a long time without glue and they are subject to strong winds that push and pull on them. They might flex but a well designed and well built one would probably not be described as wobbly. They might, however, need some wedges re-seated, especially if the joints were cut when the wood was green.

Thanks for the update, Gary.  Good to hear that your tool chest has stayed solid over time. If you pull the shoulders tight with a drawbore or folding wedges or something, and the joint geometry constrains opening in other dimensions, it stands to reason that the joints will resist racking or coming apart.

In the case of mortise-and-tenon joints that are only glued, the glue line is what keeps the shoulders tight. If you're a belt-and-suspenders guy and add some additional mechanical element(s) to the joint, you've added an insurance policy, but it's not likely to be noticeable or necessary except as a backstop against excessive pull-out forces.

Ellis

As a non-woodworker, when I see stuff like this and what Chris made, I usually just end up scratching my head and feeling like an idiot--chalking it up to some kind of magic.

There's a list of YouTube woodworking channels here on WC, and I found this:

https://www.woodcentral.com/videos/?v=NzaQxgtzF6U

It's a channel from Korea (목공 TV translates to Woodworking TV), and seeing someone actually do this stuff via video it quite helpful. For me at least, I am prone to think that this stuff is WAY too hard, and I'm not interested in even trying to learn. Watching a video makes it seem more doable, and if not, it is at least entertaining to watch.

admin wrote:

As a non-woodworker, when I see stuff like this and what Chris made, I usually just end up scratching my head and feeling like an idiot--chalking it up to some kind of magic.

There's a list of YouTube woodworking channels here on WC, and I found this:

https://www.woodcentral.com/videos/?v=NzaQxgtzF6U

It's a channel from Korea (목공 TV translates to Woodworking TV), and seeing someone actually do this stuff via video it quite helpful. For me at least, I am prone to think that this stuff is WAY too hard, and I'm not interested in even trying to learn. Watching a video makes it seem more doable, and if not, it is at least entertaining to watch.

Now you know how I feel about your programming chops.

Ellis