all wood (or pure wood) fine woodworking - no glue or metal - advanced joinery

I've now watched two of this guy's videos and I'm addicted:

The tool chest is back up on youtube.

Not quite done



Pic by stephen.

I think you all here would appreciate the dovetail joinery shown here by Beau at the 2023 PTJ building the grape arbor:

Slowly approaching woodworkers' Valhalla.

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I'm looking for a hinoki cup.

This isn't it, but he does some nice work with the hatchet.  Very easily could have been all hand tools.

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I really like these bucket bands...

   

You may have seen this one already . . . 

My most recent woodworking project used no fasteners, just glue. (Sorry, no photos...I'll just describe it.)

It's a plant stand that I designed to go near the window in my sun room. Essentially it's a two-level set of shelves, or you could think of it as a small table (about 4 feet by 18") with a lower shelf. Each "shelf" is actually composed of furring strips oriented on edge with about an inch and a half gap between them, so that the upper shelf doesn't totally block the light from reaching the lower one. The lower shelf also has a cutout to accommodate a space heater in the middle (my sun room is not insulated). The furring strips are glued into the slots of comb-shaped pieces I made from scrap bamboo, and those bamboo pieces are half-lapped into the bed slats I used to make the legs. This way even before I glued it it was quite strong; all the load is carried right down to the floor. I placed all 8 legs right up next to the outer furring strips on each side and glued the legs to the furring strips as well, to further resist shearing force. There are probably 50 lbs of potted plants on it and it's actually slightly stronger with the weight because it helps all 8 legs press down to the ground.

This is significant for me because although I often set out at the beginning to build stuff just with joinery and without fasteners, I don't always make it all the way to the end of the project that way, but this time I did. It's a beautiful piece of furniture, both strong and lightweight. I love looking at it.

Furniture made of twigs and branches (aka rustic furniture) while definitely appealing only to certain and particular tastes, can certainly be beautiful in the right setting, and simpler rustic pieces—small tables and stools for example—are very DIY friendly and can easily be made without metal fasteners or adhesives.

The pictured 3-legged table has neither fasteners nor glue—the cross brace was simply sprung to keep outward pressure on the legs, and that keeps everything tight and sturdy. The top is made from a cross-cut slab of locust (locust is a good choice because it has a sort of interlocking grain which tends to keep cracks from splitting wide open) with peeled hornbeam legs and cross bracing. The legs and cross brace have simple round tenons that fit into even simpler drilled holes. All of the parts are wood that otherwise would find its way into the compost or a garden hugel or the woodstove.

The necessary tools are quite simple and affordable. To make the tenons I used an antique spoke pointer (brace and bit) followed by spur tenon cutters (in an electric drill), but have also made very workable tenons with a spokeshave. The top was a chainsaw slab that I sanded smooth (a job made tolerable by electricity).

To me this stuff is, to borrow Paul’s description, soul food.

This is the side and bottom view of a Sweedish shrink pot.
The cylinder is made from a fresh green branch or log.
The bottom is made from wood that has already dried and shrunk.
As the cylinder dries it shrinks and grabs the bottom tightly.
There is no glue or fastener of any kind, just the 2 pieces of wood.
I got the idea from an episode of Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's Shop.
It's not water tight, but, makes a nice storage container for tools, pens, or something granular.

Ned Harr wrote:My most recent woodworking project used no fasteners, just glue. (Sorry, no photos...

Got photos finally!

Just remembered another project I did last summer, a low table which used not only no metal fasteners but no glue either, the parts just slid together like a puzzle.

As usual, I was using just random materials I had laying around in my garage. The first image is my sketch of how the parts go together:


This is the table in progress, which shows some of the cuts in detail:


By the way, I didn't do those dovetails; I was reusing the frame of a drawer I found in my basement when I moved into this house. So, maybe kinda cheating there. If I had to make that part myself I might have tried some basic finger or lap joints though!

And here it is finished and loaded next to my desk, keeping stuff off the floor which is its job:

This is an excellent video by YASUHIRO TV showing how he uses just a router and a circular saw to fashion strong, press-fit joints.
He even provides a tool list and free plans for the jigs.

Jesper Makes just put out a video from the latest Northmen Guild timberframe build:

L. Johnson wrote:Hey, my dovetail tool tote is all wooden joinery. Granted it's not as well done as these, but the joinery is stable and sound.

I beg to differ.  Out of all these pictures of woodworking projects in this thread, if I could choose one to have for myself, I'd take your tool tote.  Easy decision.  The other projects are incredible and I don't want to take anything away from them.  They're just not my style.  I'm not drawn to ornateness or pristine things, as skillful as they are.  I like good ol' homemade things with built in character and practicality.  You did a mighty fine job.

I remember watching a YouTube video awhile ago about a woodworker famous for carving little mice into the wood he carved.  The mice weren't attached, but carved from the same wood as the mantles, pews, shelves, etc., that he carved.  I love this idea as a fun touch of whimsy for a country house.  I'm hoping to find someone who can do it.  

The French Snap probably deserves its own thread, but thought it was relevant here as well.

Saves a ton of cutting time for traditional mortise & tenon joinery with hand tools.

Here is a video by the Northmen Guild from a class on traditional French joinery. Big timbers joined by wood dowels for a building.