Building furniture....

[Tidy Max]

Anybody built there own furniture at home?

Me and the gf have just got our first gaff together and basically can't afford out! So i am building whatever i can. I have designed the bed but started first with the wardrobe.

I am making it out of scaffolding boards mainly due to how cheap i can buy them, heres a couple of pics so far....

 

[telectrix]

that'll show up the neighbours' ikea rubbish. can't beat furniture made out of reclaimed real wood.

 

[Silly Sausage]

Nice usage of dowels.
Have you considered biscuits?

 

[telectrix]

he's saving them for his scam assessment.

 

[Silly Sausage]

he's saving them for his scam assessment.

For Part W?

 

[Tidy Max]

I consider them usually between 10-10.15, 14-14.30 and 20-20.30 when i am pulling a late one, digestives for me mate.....

But no i haven't, never done much work with wood but seeing as i have done everything else in the house i thought i would give it a crack. I have just bought the collins wood bible (should be £25, £2.50 on amazon oosh!) that has various joins etc.

I am having varying success with the dowel to be honest although it looks good once done its taken a bit of fannying about.

What would be the advantage of biscuits? I am building the doors out of multiple pieces to get the affect that i want so maybe i should consider biscuits??

 

[Tidy Max]

he's saving them for his scam assessment.

I took biscuits, kettle, two choices of tea and coffee to my assessment!

...and all he brought was a bunch of books to sell me...

 

[Silly Sausage]

What would be the advantage of biscuits? I am building the doors out of multiple pieces to get the affect that i want so maybe i should consider biscuits??

I'm thinking once you've routered out your slots for them, you'll get a more accurate joint, i.e. less sanding down afterwards.
Drilling holes by hand can be a bit random!

 

[Tidy Max]

Woahh wooah, theres nothing random about it. Accurately measured with a steel ruler and marked up with a metal try square! But you have a point

I don't have a router unfortunately! One issue i am having is that all of the boards are marginally different widths, so i have been doing some inventive planing and sanding. 80g,120g then raising the grain and cutting back with 240g twice. Then waxing twice!

I am making some filler out of wax also for the joins to smooth them over completely. Really looking forward to making the bed.... and dining table!

At £10 per 13 foot board i can't help myself!

 

[Silly Sausage]

Filler? NO!
Get yourself a beefy belt sander, awesome machine for smoothing down!

 

[TJ Anderson]

Woahh wooah, theres nothing random about it. Accurately measured with a steel ruler and marked up with a metal try square! But you have a point

I don't have a router unfortunately! One issue i am having is that all of the boards are marginally different widths, so i have been doing some inventive planing and sanding. 80g,120g then raising the grain and cutting back with 240g twice. Then waxing twice!

I am making some filler out of wax also for the joins to smooth them over completely. Really looking forward to making the bed.... and dining table!

At £10 per 13 foot board i can't help myself!

You should watch "The Salvager" on TV. This is exactly the sort of thing he does.

 

[multimick]

hi I did 15 yrs building furniture from old pine ,etc old floorboards are good with the tongue an groove removed ,buy yourself a biscuit jointer ,some old caustic for colouring and fiddes wax.scaffold planks are ok for table tops ,but remember to use buttons to keep the top floating (stops it cracking ) pm me if you need any help
cheers

 

[Adam W]

My dad's mate used to work on a heritage railway. He said they bought planks of wood in for about £15 each and sold the old ones off for about £50 each because after they'd used them they had become 'old railway sleepers'.

Either way it looks like what you've done there is way better than buying furniture pre-built. Made to measure furniture would cost you more still.

 

[Tidy Max]

What are buttons mick??

We need some railway sleepers for the garden! I didnt think they would be that much! Cheers Adam, yeah its definitely better than some of the stuff we looked at.

We bought an 'oak' coffee table from oak furniture land when we first moved in. NEVER AGAIN!!!

 

[multimick]

the rails which the table top sits on have a groove in them ,about 6mm wide and 6 mm deep about 12mm from the top of the rail all the way round (do that first ).then you make buttons from scrap wood maybe pieces of 20mm thick by about 50mm wide and 75mm long these have a rebate at the end which sits into the groove and is then fastened to the table top with a 45mm screw thro middle so the top is not actually fastened to the side rails but floats on the buttons.also good is pvu glue (foamy) sets in half hour and works on damp timber .also van dyke crystals to stain it .get hold of a fiddes catalogue (wales) there is evert=ything you need to finish wood