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.

"Hylourgos" wrote in message
om...
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.

1. Butt joints and pneumatic ring-shank fence/siding nails - the nails
are smaller diameter, which avoids splitting and since they are
wire-collated, the wire forms a barb which resists backing out.
2. Butt joints and pneumatic narrow-crown staples - used for the same
reasons that staples serve well to install the backs of cabinets and
bookcases.
3. Butt joints and drywall screws - not as quick as nails/staples
which can be rapidly driven pneumatically, but with soft pine and a
corded/cordless drill, it does not take very many screws to form a
secure structure.

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 points such as the bottom of the box or
for handles which will bear the weight of the box plus contents.

On 29 May 2004 15:58:50 -0700, (Hylourgos) wrote:

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.

"Hylourgos" wrote in message
om...
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?

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.

--
Mike G.

Heirloom Woods
www.heirloom-woods.net
"Hylourgos" wrote in message
om...
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.

On 29 May 2004 15:58:50 -0700, (Hylourgos) wrote:

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.



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.

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
...

"Hylourgos" wrote in message
om...
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?

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

"Hylourgos" wrote in message
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?

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.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 5/15/04

On 29 May 2004 15:58:50 -0700, (Hylourgos) wrote:

What kind of joinery do you use for simple tool storage boxes?

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.

--
Smert' spamionam