J is for Joining

J is for Joining

Well there are many ways to join two materials together.  I am most familiar with the ways to join wood together as this is what I have the most experience in.  I like my joints to be rigid and supported. 

To join wood together there are many ways in which you can join wood together.  The first is the typical mechanical fasteners which come in quite handy.  This can be further broken down into either nails or screws.  There are many kind of nails that I won’t go into here, mostly because I do not know them all, but I use either straight nails or spiral nails.  Straight nails are typically for temporary work as they are easier to pull out while spiral nails will hold into the material for a long time, and the material will likely get damaged if the nails need to be removed.  I don’t use nails that frequently as I am not a good shot with the hammer and I do not want to mar the surface of the wood, but since I got my air nailer last year I am more inclined to use them on projects where I have lots of things to put together, which I will use when I start work on my basement. 

I use screws a lot as they are not hard physically as with the repetitive motion of the hammer, and are quite strong.  I have learned to be careful when screwing into pressboard as the sawdust tends to strip out.

With either of these I like to use a cleat or something underneath the horizontal piece like a shelf to help support it.  It is a little bit my preference as there are shelves built on my construction site with just plywood and nails that hold a lot of tools and supplies with no cleat that hold up quite well. 

Moving on to joinery which is basically cabinet making style woodwork, which is what I enjoy as I did this in high school.  Because you do not want to see the heads of the nails or screws it is typical to cut a groove into the wood known as a dado or a rabbet if it is on the edge and then the piece is fit into the groove and carpenter’s glue is used to hold the piece together.  This is a strong joint, but not as strong as a mechanical fastener over time if the pieces get moved around a lot.  To make a dado joint you need either a dado blade for a table saw or a dado bit for a router.  I have only ever used the dado blades at school, but due to my limited space I will be acquiring some bits to use with a router so that I can build some of the cabinetry here at the house. 

There are other types of joints for wood and lots of ways to join other types of materials, but I am not as familiar with them.  What is your favourite way to join material?  Discuss down in the comments section.

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