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.