One thing to add – repeated taking the stretcher in and out of the legs will result in the joints getting looser. I’m guessing this is because pine is a softer wood and bruises fairly easily. I’m guessing the solution is to limit the number of times you take the stretchers in and out.
Yes, one or two test fits should be fine but if the joint is repeatedly assembled and disassembled, the wood will compress and the joint may loosen. But when glue is added the moisture should swell the compressed fibers back close to their original thickness.
Question on design. I’ve seen several examples that use full boards for the half lap stretcher rather than the four small ones. Is that a more modern approach or is that still traditional? Thanks Bob.
Both are traditional designs, just a different stylistic preference. In the case of the design I built here, using the shorter stretchers made it possible for me to get all of the parts out of a single 8′ long board. One of my goals for this course was to keep the costs low and source as much material and supplies as I could from the local home center to make it as accessible as possible to the greatest number of people. My local home center did not have longer 1 x 10 boards in clear pine, so I based the project on a single 1 x 10 x 8′ board. Using longer stretchers would have required a board longer than 8′.
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One thing to add – repeated taking the stretcher in and out of the legs will result in the joints getting looser. I’m guessing this is because pine is a softer wood and bruises fairly easily. I’m guessing the solution is to limit the number of times you take the stretchers in and out.
Yes, one or two test fits should be fine but if the joint is repeatedly assembled and disassembled, the wood will compress and the joint may loosen. But when glue is added the moisture should swell the compressed fibers back close to their original thickness.
Question on design. I’ve seen several examples that use full boards for the half lap stretcher rather than the four small ones. Is that a more modern approach or is that still traditional? Thanks Bob.
Both are traditional designs, just a different stylistic preference. In the case of the design I built here, using the shorter stretchers made it possible for me to get all of the parts out of a single 8′ long board. One of my goals for this course was to keep the costs low and source as much material and supplies as I could from the local home center to make it as accessible as possible to the greatest number of people. My local home center did not have longer 1 x 10 boards in clear pine, so I based the project on a single 1 x 10 x 8′ board. Using longer stretchers would have required a board longer than 8′.