Thread: Breadboard ends - a different approach

Rocker,

Looking at the FWW site they use screws for the outer mortices; through slots, which then have wooden plugs, could this not be used?

mkb,

I suppose that would work, after a fashion, but it involves driving the screws into end-grain. I think perhaps I will use screws in addition to the outer mortices. This belt-and-braces approach should yield a long-lasting joint.

Rocker

Could be wrong with my interp of your description here but the pins you describe here go thru the edging vertically, do they? If so itoffers some resistance to the pulling action of the draw board being pulled out for use. A floating tenon wouldn't offer this same sort of suppport and would put all the force on the glued tenon in the middle, which would eventually fail, especially if constantly being pulled out from one edge.

If I've read this all wrong, feel free to ignore this comment. :confused:

Ramps,

You have a point; hence my intention to use the screws, as suggested by mkb, as well as the floating tenons.

Rocker

why not sliding dovetail tenons

Bob,

They would work, but they are much harder to cut accurately than mortices and floating tenons, and they would show at the ends of the edging strip.

Here is a pic of an edging strip ready to be mounted on the end of a draw board. The slotted holes are for screws set in countersunk holes that will be plugged. I already had the jarrah floating tenon stock on hand.

Rocker

As I had suspected would happen, driving screws into the end-grain of the draw board turned out to be totally useless; they would not bite at all. The only way that this would work is if you inserted dowels from underneath for the screws to bite into. I can't be bothered with fiddling with that, so I shall just plug the screw holes. I am pretty sure that the 55 mm wide tenon in the centre has sufficient glue area to hold the edging strip in position firmly, and the lateral floating tenons will keep it properly aligned.

Rocker

Hi David;

That's the method I used on the hall table with an arch - see: http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...9&d=1147594128

While too late for this time around, you may like to consider using vertical dowels into slots in the tennon. I used a blind hole, had no problem with gluing either. Another approach to the screw into end grain issue is to do almost what you have done! Drill a hole horizontally instead of vertically and plug with a dowel, seems that the timber in the dowels holds PDW.
Jacko

Thanks, Jacko; your idea of drilling a hole horizontally into the side edge of the draw board is easy enough to do, and looks like the answer to the problem. I will try it tomorrow.

Steve,

It looks as though you beat me to it with this idea of floating tenons

Rocker

Inserting short lengths of dowel into 40 mm deep, 9.5 mm holes drilled into the sides of the draw boards worked well and provided good anchorage for the screws inserted into countersunk holes near the ends of the edging strips. I plugged these holes as well as the dowel holes and this produced a neat job. Thanks again, Jacko.

Rocker

Like the sound of this idea

any chance of a coupla pix to show us what the result looks like?

Here are a couple of pics of the plugged dowel and screw holes.

I attached a cleat on the underside of the draw board near its back end as a stop, to prevent the board from being pulled right out or pushed too far in. It also serves to prevent the board from cupping.

Rocker

Rocker,

I have a rolltop desk C1930 built in Oz not unlike the one you are building, and a big thumbs up for your posts on the construction as you go. The pull out slides on ours have the bread board end on the sides. The actual pullouts are two pieces of timber about 10" wide and I have no idea if these are glued only, dowelled our how they are joined. The sides which run full length are probably bread board as there is visable movement on the end which does not seem to stress the joint that much. Does this alter your thinking any on the construction style? in any case the job seems to be done.

John