# knock down furniture with minimal tools?



## puff (Sep 8, 2008)

I'm very much a beginner, with pretty minimal tools (handheld circular saw, handheld drill, handheld sander). I've finally got a garage space to work in (yay) but I'm still running very lean.

I'm trying to figure out how to build knockdown furniture with this minimal tool set. In addition, the conditions of use are pretty extreme. I do a medieval camping event every summer, so I need to build a couch (or a glorified park bench, really) with the following requirements:



 can be built without buying several additional power tools at $300-$500 each
 can transport disassembled and fairly flat
 put together in the woods with no electricity
 will hold together on uneven ground knock apart relatively easy for tear-down and pack up
 after spending two weeks in a damp forest under a canvas shelter
 I'd also like it to look reasonably not-modern. I"d love to have an actual period design, but I'm willing to compromise on that .

I'm considering a quick and dirty mortise-and-tenon-and-peg (or would you call that a wedge?) approach. I'd build the ends with the arm rests, then attach three boards bed-rail style, securing them with mortise and tenon joints that are in turn secured temporarily by pounding a wooden wedge through a second mortise in the main tenon. (Is there a proper term for this approach?)

So far, other than minor dinking around with building plywood boxes, my most grandiose project has been an oversized repro of a 13th century mortise-and-tenon viking bed. http://www.darksleep.com/puff/bed

I had a good friend with considerable woodworking experience and some real tools helping me out (mentoring) on this one, mostly with using an oversized hand-drill and 1" bit to start the mortises (which I then completed with a wood chisel and a lot of swearing  and a table saw to make cutting the tenons easier. This thing is glorious to look at, weighs a ton, and is a nightmare and a half to knock apart after it's spent long periods sucking up moisture. Or together, for that matter. I'm hoping the couches will be a bit easier in the logistics department .

I considered using bed-rail fasteners from rockler. I did a prototype with the cheapest rail fasteners rockler has. It was somewhat okay, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't hold up to the stress of being on a slight slope. I'm considering either using the better bed rail fasteners, mainly these, which wouldn't require a router:

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5783

Or, on the other hand, I've read in the past that a router can make it much easier to make fairly shallow mortises, and a thread I just read here said that a router and a mitre saw will take you quite a ways with furniture joinery, so I'm considering getting a router, in which case maybe one of these other fastener types would be better:

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10230

Do you think the fasteners or a mortise-tenon-peg approach would be stronger against vertical racking stress? 

Is there some completely different approach that I'm missing?


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

*WELCOME TO THE FORUM*

Any of the bedrail fasteners you linked would work. Their failure would be whether the connecting parts bend or not, and how well the mounting hardware holds up. If installed properly, they are quite good.

A pegged tenon would also work and would give the ability to tighten up, and with those, their re-use or how they would weather might be a question. Definitely more handwork.


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## puff (Sep 8, 2008)

I'm leaning towards pegged tenons, I guess. Time to buy a router . 

How deep a mortise can your typical home workshop router cut? E.g. are we talking in inches in eighths of an inch? I'm leaning towards doing it with 2x6 pine for now, until I settle on a design I like and then do it with better wood.

Stress and wear on the tenons is a worry... especially as I'm thinking about doing this with fairly normal, thinner boards, not the monsters I used for the viking bed. I'm also figuring that I should add a secondary mortise, a shallow mortise around the first mortise, that's enough larger to fit the whole board. So the tenon is securing the board end into the shallow mortise, but not taking as much of the shear stress by itself. 

Is there a standard term for this (or a pointer to a standard glossary for this sort of thing)?


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