# Dowels for Assembly



## redraider (Jan 11, 2016)

Good Morning All,

I recently started building a farmhouse table, and decided to build this base out of douglas fir from home depot for the purpose of staying cheap, as this is pretty much a practice run for a higher quality wood later on.

This was my first time to build anything with a Mortise and Tenon assembly. I created a (sloppy) mortise in the base 4x4 with drill press and chisel and the tenon on the vertical piece with table saw and chisel (also sloppy, but got better by the 4th one. The top of each leg is a mirror image of the bottom.

My problem is how to attach the triangle braces. I am trying to avoid using screws since I haven't on any other part of this piece. I am leaning towards drilling a 1/2" hole into the brace and leg, and joining with 1/2" dowel and glue (dowels where the red lines are in the image). I would do the same to attach to the base, and would have glue up both dowels and the tenon to the base altogether. 

I suppose I am just asking if those if you with more experience would see any problems with this route, or have a better proposals. Any ideas would be appreciated. 

Thanks.


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## Burb (Nov 30, 2012)

I've never personally done anything like that but I believe that should work fine. I'm guessing you'd have to affix them to the vertical legs first, then assemble them as a whole piece to the lower horizontal runner.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

Burb said:


> I've never personally done anything like that but I believe that should work fine. I'm guessing you'd have to affix them to the vertical legs first, then assemble them as a whole piece to the lower horizontal runner.


Agree, impossible to dowel both ways unless you came up from bottom for vertical dowels.


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## jeremymcon (Oct 16, 2014)

Another option would be exposed dowels that run the whole way through the braces. Just place the leg where it belongs, drill through the support and into the leg. I do this all the time for shop related projects. I like it because there's no need to fuss with the alignment of the dowels with a jig or something. Only issue is that you see the dowel, and for fine furniture that's not ideal. Might like the look for a farm table though.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

FrankC said:


> Agree, impossible to dowel both ways unless you came up from bottom for vertical dowels.


You can drive the dowels in from the front instead of trying to hide the dowels. This will give it a pegged look to your harvest table. 
If you wanted rustic, you could drive in square pegs instead of dowels.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Before you go there you better sand some of those parts. Once assembled it will be a lot harder to sand. The vertical post should be attached with screws or dowels. The angle pieces could be just glued on.


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## firehawkmph (Apr 26, 2008)

Couple of items:
On the feet, get rid of the point. Cut the point off so you're left with a half inch vertical surface at the end. Those points are just going to ding or break. I've used that same Doug fir from HD, I ran it through my planer, couple swipes on each side to clean them up a bit. Lot less sanding that way.
Mike Hawkins:smile3:


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## mascaray (Jul 1, 2015)

I think this table is going to have a lot of movement when you seat people around. Dowels will not last to use. Instead of wood dowels I would use metal bolts where the head is going to be inserted into the triangles in a chanel deep enough(pocket hole). Then get through base of table and use a nut to secure it. What I am trying to use the same idea as Ikea use for assembling furniture. I would glue triangles sand and finish as close as you want it. Then use the method I suggested.


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