Depending on what tools you have at your disposal you can cut dados on a tablesaw, or with a router (my currently preferred method), or even with a circular saw if you are patient enough and have a decent chisel to clean out the dado with, it is only one or two dados being cut per side… but the OP did state no saw…
Now I am forced to ask a question… how does one get by without a saw? I have 4 power saws (circular, table, jig, and mitre) and a small, very small, retinue of hand saws, and even with all these tools I know that I need/want more
Aha. Here’s an actual sketch of what I mean. Figures 5 and 6 show the “ledges” I was talking about (the correct term being “shelf cleats”). Note how they support the weight of the shelf.
And, to avoid confusion: 1) The link shows the use of nails. Screws are still preferable, IMO, particularly using a hard wood like oak. 2) They also show the shelves being secured with nails through the end grain, (Fig 6), like I said not to. Still not a good idea, IMO, but note that the end grain nails are only tacking the shelves into place and not supporting the weight of the shelf (the cleats do that).
As I read the instructions, the nails are not being used as fasteners. Any time you read something that says to use glue and some other fastener, the other fastener is really only there to hold the pieces still until the glue dries. The glue is almost always going to be doing the lion’s share of the fastening.
Agreed. Thus the “tacking the shelves in place” comment. Another tipoff (at least to me) in that 6d finishing nails driven into endgrain ain’t gonna hold squat, at least in the lateral direction; if just the nails held it, you could tear the shelves apart wirth your bare hands.
This is also a good time to point out that, in my post above, I was referring to Figures 6 and 7 (not 5 and 6). Oops.
zut, thanks for the explanation and the link. I remember looking at a package of around a dozen of those small sticks and wondering what they were for. Now, I know (and knowing is half the battle).
So it’ll cost more…but if it’s a choice between that and splitting the wood, I think it’s pretty obvious which one to go with. I shall be a master craftsman by weeks end. Whoo ha ha. ha.
Ha.
