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The Practical Built In Funiture

Construction Methods

Elementary Details

IF you know how to fasten two pieces of wood together you can make anything shown in this book. This fact becomes obvious when it is shown that it takes no more skill to make a seemingly complicated cabinet or case than it does to make a small or simple one. The larger pieces actually are often no more than several small units combined. A cupboard with three doors and six shelves, for example, is no more difficult to plan and put together than a cupboard with one door and two shelves. They both call for the same elementary knowledge of the simplest woodworking operations — measuring, sawing, planing, sanding, gluing and the driving of nails and screws. The principal difference between the beginner and the expert is the accuracy with which they cut to a line and fit the parts together.

In some of these pieces you will need to know how to use a chisel and saw a curve, but these operations, too, will prove simpler than they seem at first. With the beginning carpenter and joiner in mind, many of the operations have been simplified, and plain joints have been substituted for the more intricate ones used by some professionals.

It seems customary for the amateur carpenter to start out with hand tools, graduating to power tools only when he has mastered the use of the hand-saw, chisel and plane. What these beginners do not realize is that even a small bench saw can enable them to make straight cuts, both across and with the grain, and form accurate joints. Women in particular, with their weaker wrists, will find in such a power tool a means of cutting and shaping even the larger pieces of wood with the expenditure of practically no muscular effort.

Method of Joining

One of the first things to decide in planning any built-in furniture — whether it is to be attached permanently or temporarily, or merely free-standing — is the way it is to be put together.