the peanut saga - part ii
No plan…….
What to do when life conspires to give you peanuts
Survives first contact.
Or so I’m told.
I’m of the opinion that things not said about stuff may often be more important than the things that are.
Well on that somber note let’s continue.
Just a recap, I was torn between the various joinery options that I could use to assemble an upcoming customer project, with the Peanut from Intelligent Fixings coming out on top as a favourite. With dowels a close second and the Festool Domino third and pocket holes in the last place.
Check out part one to get all the details of how we got to this point.
You could say that I was now in three minds.
The potential ease of construction using the Peanut together with the cabinet being able to knock down for transport helped make the decision and I was off to the local tool supplier for my monthly visit and some shopping. A side note, have I mentioned that I really enjoy retail therapy…….
Peanuts, jig, cutter and bushings - the system needs a 30mm bushing on the router to work - in hand I arrived home with an itch to try the system out. Sorry no, not yet the Peanuts are attached to the ends of a board by way of a 50mm long screw through the Peanut and I needed to get a supply of these before I could get on with it.
With all hardware eventually in hand testing could begin.
You may notice an obvious lack of images in this post, it was one of those difficult days in the workshop.
I feel it’s important that I mention that it is always a good idea to test any new tool or technique before using it on a customer project or very expensive wood. I am impatient and guilty of not doing so, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t but this time, testing saved my bacon.
All will become clear in a bit.
I happened to have a stack of pine offcuts stored in my wife’s garden shed and I processed these into enough stock to make about 6 small boxes. Want to see how we processed the stock? Have a look at the video at the end of this post, we are still learning about making and editing videos and we hope as much as you, that we will improve in time!
Stock in hand it was on to the Peanuts and after some fiddling with clamps we had the jig attached to the bench with a stop block mounted against the fence to make the placement of the components easier, seeing that they were all the same size and the slots and holes would line up perfectly. Next came the prep on the router and I was soon stumped. The bushing that was to ride inside the guides of the jig was extended too far and the router base would not sit flush with the surface of the jig. Some fiddling was required and I eventually figured out that if I turned the mounting plate for the bushing around that the busing would shift up towards the collet and the problem was solved.
If nothing else, woodworkers tend to be master puzzle figure outers.
Cutting of the slots then commenced and we soon learnt that the guides in which the router bushing rides need to be turned around when routing the different ends of a side. The “key holes” that eventually accept the Peanuts during assembly need to point in the same direction to make assembly easier later.
Scratch one side piece of processed wood and together with the stop block that makes half a box.
With enough material for five boxes left we had another go at cutting the slots.
Remembering to turn the guides around this time we proceeded to make the cuts in a new workpiece. These looked in order and this was set aside to start on the holes in the mating piece that would take the Peanuts.
Once the holes for the Peanuts were drilled into both ends of a fresh board, I removed it from the jig and had a closed look, something was off. Turns out, it's really important that the correct edge references against the fence when drilling the holes. This is to ensure a flush fit with the face once the Peanuts slide into their corresponding slots. Well, doesn’t the jig allow all slots and holes to be made in the middle of said workpieces, I hear you ask. No way, that would be waaaaay to easy, would be my reply. You see the fence is fixed to the base by screws and it's not adjustable forward and back. The only adjustment is to spin the fence around and attach it “backwards”, because the mounting holes are offset on the fence it allows different ranges of stock to be used in the jig depending on the orientation of the fence. Now before anyone turns away in disgust, this system actually works, and considering that the Peanut jig was predominantly designed with man made materials in mind the design makes sense and allows the jig to be very simple to adjust and of course assists with simplicity and keeping the cost down.
For the curious the jig handles stock of 16-22mm in position 1 and 22mm and more in position 2.
So two points to take away from the above ramble, the first being that deciding which side of the stock will be pointing outward is important and the second is that when drilling the holes in the opposite end of the stock, the same reference edge needs to be butted up to the fence. Now we are down one more piece and we installed another into the jig for drilling. Being sure to pay attention to board orientation this time, we drilled the holes and sure enough the offset looked correct this time. We installed the Peanuts into the holes and when we got ready to slide the workpieces into place the between the Peanuts was all wrong. Investigation showed that I had the drill guide the wrong way around when drilling the holes.
We had enough stock for four boxes.
We drilled more holes and installed more Peanuts into a new workpiece and took it back to the side with the slots and we were still off!
We were fast running out of potential boxes.
Moving all drilled and cut sections aside we counted to 10 and had another look at the set up and the workpieces we had already cut. After some head scratching I figured out that when the router guides are flipped over to cut the other side, they need to be moved one position up or down in the main jig body to ensure that the slots on both ends line up. Of course figuring out that this was indeed true for the holes for the Peanuts as well, cost me another piece, or was that two?
Down to 3 boxes, or wait, if we take out the stop block we can still get four.
Having figured out the positioning of the workpieces in the jig and the alignment of the guides the cutting and drilling of the next boxes went fast especially if you hit production mode and do all slots first and then all holes, finishing will Peanut installation in all the relevant ends before moving on to final assembly.
Once the first face and side went together I decided it was time for a stress test on the joint. This was conducted by putting the two ends on the bench with the jointed corner in the air forming a pyramid. I then placed very accurately calibrated pressure onto the corner with a single hand to check the joint’s strength. The joint departed almost immediately and the Peanuts literally burst through the end grain of the board they were slotted in.
Oops.
Down to at least 3 boxes if we were lucky then!
It seems as if this particular system doesn’t like solid wood, at least not garden variety pine.
With careful assembly and trying not to put too much stress on any of the joints I assembled 3 complete boxes from the remaining components. The rest of the faulty stock went to the firewood pile as reminders of a rather frustrating day in the workshop and all hopes dashed of using the Intelligent Fixing solution on our next project, especially considering that the client opted for pine in the construction.
Or maybe not, more about that in part three.
Coming back to a point I made at the beginning about things being unsaid I now realise that I don’t recall any mention of the jig being used on solid wood, nor that the setup could be slightly confusing. Things not said.
We are now here:
Dowel - looking more likely
Pocket hole - still nope
Domino - still dunno
Peanuts - disappointingly no
On to Part III where we work through our results and figure out a way forward.
We process raw pine offcuts to use in our experimentation with the Peanut Jig by Intelligent Fixings. We very quickly ran out of components during the process!