Thread: Do you have any idea what holds this together?

Without seeing in person there is nothing obvious so just spitballing ideas,

Cam lock connectors hidden under the trim on the outside ?

Age looks wrong for cam locks so really is just a thought, for more age appropriate dowels and glue ? Ie not for disassembly.

The sides both top and bottom appear to be inline, check if the bench top extends through all the way to the back, could be the bench top and the side panel are interlocking housing joints. Again no disassembly possible.

I’m guessing dowels. Maybe slip a chisel gently in the rear and see if it lifts.
cheers

The strip of ply on the back is a common method of preventing the upper section from moving forwards; it’s normally attached to the top but not the bottom.

I’d be tempted to assume the top was designed to be simply lifted on and off. If it was glued and doweled I don’t see any reason behind the trim/locating pieces that trap the sides of the upper section. It looks homemade and if so would likely have been finished with a proprietary varnish from a hardware store; over the years this could have stuck the two parts together like glue. I think you’ll struggle to separate the two sections without damage.

If it will fit in a ute use some upturned buckets, boxes, tubs or whatever that sit above the wheel arches so it can sit flat. If it is simply held together by stuck varnish as I suspect then having one end sitting on the wheel arches is begging for the two sections to come apart again.

Looks like custom made office furniture from the 60/70's to me. Was it purchased onsite or had it already been removed to the auction rooms? My guess would be lift off, possibly located on dowels and kept in place by the mouldings. I agree with Wrongwayfirst, see if you can slip in a chisel from behind and check if levers up. There looks to be space for this at the front but you might create visible damage there. Be careful - you don't want to tip it over.

Gumtree & Facebook often advertise companies offering free pallets. One or two of them might make a good base on the floor of the ute to level things out.

Thanks for your advice.

I had suspected the top was screwed to the base with the entry of the screws skewed, and the purpose of the strips is to hide the screw heads. Perhaps that approach didn't go to plan and the strips are to hide some untidiness. The upper section is directly over the lower - I can see that dowels may have been used.

Milk crates.
H.

Looks like a lift-off tp me.

Does your ute have tie-down points?

While milk-crates and buckets would work in principle, they have the disadvantage of moving around when going over bumps. Unless you carefully wedge then in with... something else.

Me, after registering the ute, I'd cut a pair of cheap studs to rest front/back along the top of the tub, and a couple of short lengths, maybe 700mm long for battens. Position the studs on the tub, about 650mm apart and screw the ends of the battens underneath, one against the front of the tub and one against the tailgate.

The battens should stop the frame from moving backwards/forwards after it's strapped down and now the matter becomes how good are you at tying loads down.

A couple of advantages of this are that you don't have to take your milk-crates, buckets of stones, spare tires or tool boxes out of the tray before heading off and it can easily be broken down afterwards for repurposing or storage.

My old Huon pine kitchen dresser c.1880 had a top, often called a hutch, very similar to yours.



It had those side aligning battens and three dowels glued into the hutch stile and three matching holes in the bench top - just held there by gravity. It was a tight fit and an awkward shape to lift out of the dowel holes.

Yeah, dowels have been suggested. I might have Buckley's chance of getting the hutch off if they have been glued in place. And you’ll notice the varnish on the aligning battens remains undisturbed. Which means whoever transported it to the auction house did so as a single unit. If I were to attempt to remove it by force, when the varnish broke it might look bad. And of course, in my wriggling of the thing in my attempt to remove the hutch I might break some of the dowels.

I’ve pretty much resigned myself to transporting it whole. I’ll get some crates or other packing to raise it above the wheel arches in the ute and that should do it.

Skew was asking if I have tie-down points on the ute. Yeah, I do. I had used them to transport a mattress once (wider than the ute’s width). They are always difficult to shift. I had bolted a couple of battens to them that I placed across the top, as suggested, and used them to rope it down. Good suggestion, but I would definitely have had to tie it down whereas if I let it rest on the floor/crates of the ute there’d be no need to tie it. Its own weight will keep it secure.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

My old Huon pine kitchen dresser c.1880

Really!

Ah - Hobart. That explains it.

It appears to me that the shelf is actually part of the hutch. The cupboard section has its own top. I.E there are two sheets where the hutch meets the cupboard, one being top of the cupboard section and one the bottom of the hutch section. Look inside the cupboard and see if there are screws holding the two parts together.

That’s a novel idea. I’ll check it out.

It was purchased sight unseen, and up until I got up close and personal at the auction house I had assumed the width of the hutch was a little narrower than the cabinet. I assumed there would a few screws underneath. Seeing it ‘live’ for the first time it became obvious that the hutch upright is directly on top of the base. Which fits the dowel notion that has been mentioned.

Anyway, I suck my hand underneath in the vicinity of the upright sections feeling around for screws but felt none. I have to say that my attention was focused on the area immediately underneath the hutch uprights and I didn’t look for screws in any other locations. I’ll check that out next time I see it, which won’t be for a week as I’m out of town at the moment.