Overthinking joinery
#10
I am doing a "full gut" on the second bathroom in my house.  The bathroom is original to the home which was built in 1953 (I have the original builder's plans drawn in 1952).

There was a vanity table in the bath as well as a wall mounted sink.

I dismantled the vanity which consisted of a top, and two pedestals.  Each pedestal had one drawer and one door.  

The entire vanity was made with butt joints and headed nails which were apparently hand driven.  No glue.  No screws. No dowels. (Oops!  The hinges were screwed in.)

The boxes were butt jointed and nailed; the drawers were butt jointed and nailed.  No glue anywhere.  And 1/2" thick plywood throughout.  So someone was pretty good at driving nails.  

So it stayed together (and solid) for 66 years.  I'm not sure my "properly joined" cabinets will do as well.
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#11
This is a perfect example of "neener-neener!"

I have the same happen to me. I sit at a hard rock maple desk, literally rebuilt from a basket of splintered and loose wood. Every piece is glued and screwed. The rails, guides and dust panels are fused to the carcase to remove warps. After 30 years a drawer may get tight in the winter. 

Yah, it happens and all I can think is that it's good wood. Or, the glue dissolved away.
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#12
Nailed butt joints are stronger than many give them credit for.  In soft wood, even plywood, the joints stay together in many applications for a very long time.  The drawer boxes in my kitchen cabinets were just 1/2" plywood butt nailed together with ring shank nails.  When I tore them out they were 40 years old and still fine.  

John
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#13
Just think, a couple of hammers and a really, really good hand saw and we could get rid of the rest. All that extra room we could use for storing wood.
Smile

--
See ya later,
Bill
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#14
Yeah, it is quite a thing to see.

Most homes back in those days had cabs built on site.  According to an old timer contractor I knew, this was a sub-specialty of the finish carpenters and the guys who hung doors.

Ours was built in '64 and when we demo'ed it I was also quite amazed at the craftsmanship and structural integrity.

Boxes were fir ply and face frames were fir (so also was all the trim in the house).

All nailed together with finishing nails not a drop of glue anywhere.

BTW when I was remodelling the entire roof structure is 2x6 heart pine on 16" centers with 1x6 planking.

The whole underside of the house is also made of heart pine rough cut 2x8's joisting on 16" centers with 1x6 T/G subfloor at a 45.

They just don't build them like that anymore.

I can tell by looking at the birds mouths it was all done with handsaws, too.
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#15
I remember visiting the build site for my parents' home which was being built in 1956.  All the workers were using hand saws and regular hammers.  I was just 6 years old at the time, so I don't remember any of the other details, but I recall the sounds of hammering and the sounds of sawing.  There were at least a dozen workers on the site.  

As an adult I recall going to my parents home and noticing that all the miters were tight (and almost certainly cut by hand).

The same for my current home.  I feel for the workers though.  I have all 3" x 8" joists in my basement, and it is 20' x 80' so a lot of joists.  That's a lot of hand sawing.  I don't even think a circular saw would cut through it in a single pass.
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#16
(03-21-2019, 11:04 AM)Cooler Wrote: I remember visiting the build site for my parents' home which was being built in 1956.  <SNIP>
We are near the same age. We were able to purchase a home at less than finished and do final work. Ours had asphalt sheathing and was $4000 as I recall. Dad even bought salvaged bricks, we cleaned them, for exterior wall facing. The bricks were heavy for me, but my hammer blows were enough to dislodge mortar and not crack the brick. My intro to DIY. 

About your time I saw a house go up near ours that was made from pallet wood.
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#17
(03-22-2019, 09:52 AM)hbmcc Wrote: We are near the same age. We were able to purchase a home at less than finished and do final work. Ours had asphalt sheathing and was $4000 as I recall. Dad even bought salvaged bricks, we cleaned them, for exterior wall facing. The bricks were heavy for me, but my hammer blows were enough to dislodge mortar and not crack the brick. My intro to DIY. 

About your time I saw a house go up near ours that was made from pallet wood.

All the homes on my street (16) were sold as "shells" with the interior either done by the homeowner or the homeowner would contract part or all of that work out.  The quality of the interiors varies greatly from house to house.  One builder built all of these homes.

My house was the builder's own home, and some of the "upgrades" no longer seem like them to me.  For one, he used all metal lath and plaster for the walls.  It is a killer for WiFi.

He used something that I was told was called "hardened concrete" for the basement floor.  The .22 nails won't shoot into the concrete, even the strongest ones.  And I only get about 4 or 5 holes out of a carbide bit.  I don't see the point of this, and it is a burden when framing in the basement.

The 3" x 8" rafters in the basement (probably douglas fir) are so hard that it is almost impossible to drive a nail into them, and I've popped the heads off of drywall screws trying to do the same (construction screws are fine, though).

And while removing the wall tiles in the bathrooms is not too bad, the floor tiles are so hard that sparks fly when I use the hammer drill to chip away.  

And, of course stud finders do not work.

The hot water heating system was "state of the art" in 1953, with graduated valving for different rooms.  No one seems to know what the valve numbers mean and if they did, there are no replacements available.  

But nails reigned supreme back then.  And they were all driven by a hammer held in a hand.
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#18
I hear ya. But then again, I love pocket screws so what do I know?
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