Fitting "bed bolts" (barrel nuts)

[sunnybob]

Surely, the whole point of using bolts is to NOT use joints?

Apart from a half lap joint to reduce front to back depth, any joint that then has a bolt through it is going to be weaker, and after a couple of dismantles is going to be too loose to re use.

Its a bench. Its going to get hammered (literally).Build it strong. Give it a hard life. Dont take pictures and frame them on the wall.

 

[Bodgers]

Surely, the whole point of using bolts is to NOT use joints?

Apart from a half lap joint to reduce front to back depth, any joint that then has a bolt through it is going to be weaker, and after a couple of dismantles is going to be too loose to re use.

Its a bench. Its going to get hammered (literally).Build it strong. Give it a hard life. Dont take pictures and frame them on the wall.

I think for most the point is the ability to knock down the piece...

Sent from my P027 using Tapatalk

 

[sunnybob]

yes. You either make well fitting joints and the bench becomes a family heirloom, or you bolt it together.
Why do half and half?

 

[--Tom--]

I would presume it’s because the joints will resist racking much better than the bolts would on their own

 

[transatlantic]

Hope all this gives you confidence to go ahead.

Good info! thanks!

See my Hayward Workbench build thread.I made a simple jig to drill the holes accuractly.

I'll go through that thread now

You might find a square nut easier to fit than the barrel kind.

Why would square ones be easier? wouldn't the length of the barrel give them an advantage in terms of more surface area to spread the force (they're quite long, 28mm)

I'm prepared to slightly modify my opinion if as suggested above you can get them in 12 mm thread. I've never seen anything bigger than 8 mm.
But even then, size for size, a through bolt with large load bearing washers just HAS to be stronger.

Not sure what you mean by a through bolt in this example? do you mean how Steve Maskery is suggesting? besides the barrel nut is 28mm long, I would have thought it would be plenty strong.

If I was doing that, I'd plough a groove along the rail (wide enough to take a length of studding, central on the face of the rail, deep enough for the studding to sit central on the thickness) and bore holes through the legs.

I expect Bob would do similar, but using a router or circular saw for the grooves.

Is that to make things easier? My only concern with that (looking at Steven Maskerys images) is that it's a lot of material to remove, surely thats weakening it?

I've found a diagram of how I do mine:

Few questions.

- Why remove so much material?
- Why are the bolts that long? I was onyl going to have the rail hole be around 60mm long.

A few years back when I built my current bench I looked for barrel nuts and even considered tapping my own. In the end I just used a regular nut and bolt. You just need enough of a recess to get a spanner on.

I quite like this approach as you can drill the long hole (in the end grain) first, then drill the large hole in the side grain, and as you can now see where the long hole came through, position the square notch accurately.

 

[Steve Maskery]

My only concern with that (looking at Steven Maskerys images) is that it's a lot of material to remove, surely thats weakening it?

I've found a diagram of how I do mine:

Few questions.

- Why remove so much material?
- Why are the bolts that long? I was onyl going to have the rail hole be around 60mm long.

Drilling a hole in endgrain is not easy to do freehand, it's much easier to rout a groove. It's straight and to a predictable depth. Then the rebate all around enables me to glue in a filler strip, leaving me with a square hole that is dead central and true.
The routed pocket then gives me access for the nut with a spanner. I've made a number of beds this way and I've never had a problem. They don't come loose, the bed does wobble or squeak. It's easy to do and it just works.
60mm may be enough, I don't know, but making it longer does not make it weaker. On the contrary, if the end of the rail is hollowed out, a short bolt runs the risk of shearing the grain.

 

[dzj]

"Why would square ones be easier? wouldn't the length of the barrel give them an advantage in terms of more surface area to spread the force (they're quite long, 28mm)"

I've installed the bolt and barrel nut combination many times. It's fiddly.
The further the nut is from the shoulder of the rail, the harder it is to get right.
The square nut is more forgiving. No spanners needed, easier to align...
I must admit I haven't compared the sq mm of each nut, but both will exert more than adequate
force.
Doesn't hurt to try on an off-cut and compare the two.

 

[rafezetter]

I would presume it’s because the joints will resist racking much better than the bolts would on their own

As per my above comment - the way I did it the bench will resist racking on both axis without the need for a diagonal brace - I also made my legs tapered outwards on the long axis to further mitigate any possibility of racking around - I forget the angle but it's noticable, eyeballing it it's about the thickness of the leg top to bottom, so about 80mm offset over a 800mm length.

I think sunnybobs "after dismantling several times it'll be loose" is overstating it a little (no disrespect intended) - just how many times will be be dissassembled? Only a few in it's lifetime I'd imagine.

He's right about the "make it and abuse it", mines a mess and I'm going to remake it, but only so it's taller and I'm going to do it the same way.

(edit - it's crossed my mind that transatlantic has me on ignore, because I can't see how apart from a "through bolt and nuts" any of the other options proferred are easier than how I did mine, no jigs required to locate the holes, nothing - you clamp the rail, drill a pilot hole where you want it, enlarge the hole, wind in the screw part of the metal dowel to the leg, bolt on the rail, walk away....)

 

[Orraloon]

I don't know why using bolts as a knock down joint is raising so many eyebrows. Simple answer is it works really well and on my bench so far (6 years) no wracking what so ever. Great feature is if it does wrack then tighten up some more. It has proved useful when I moved the bench also. Of course that was the whole point. That said the shoulder is the important bit like in a M&T so I made that deep to resist wracking.
Hope that's made things clearer.
Regards
John

 

[Inspector]

There is another option not mentioned yet and that is to use a rod spanning the length of the bench. You cut a groove the full length of the rail, either under if you don't want to see it, or across the inner face if you don't care. A steel rod threaded at either end or a length of ready rod / all thread lays in the groove with the ends sticking out both legs just enough to get nuts and penny / fender washers on. When you tighten the nuts the legs are pulled towards each other compressing the rail between. The groove is easily cut with router or table saw by multiple passes (one pass by dado blade over here). You'll need to make some kind of shallow housing /tenon joint to keep everything lined up and because of the single rod across the bench you would want to use a 12mm or bigger size.

For what it is worth the maple bench I made in the late 70's has a wedged through tenon joint holding the two rails to the legs.

Pete

 

[transatlantic]

(edit - it's crossed my mind that transatlantic has me on ignore, because I can't see how apart from a "through bolt and nuts" any of the other options proferred are easier than how I did mine, no jigs required to locate the holes, nothing - you clamp the rail, drill a pilot hole where you want it, enlarge the hole, wind in the screw part of the metal dowel to the leg, bolt on the rail, walk away....)

Sorry - I didn't mean to ignore your reply. I have used those metal dowels and they do work well, but I think an exposed bolt head looks a lot neater than an exposed thread/nut. With the metal dowels, there is also the chance that the wrong thread undos when you're trying to undo a nut that is done up very tight (I've had it happen a few times)