# Any reason to actually use "box joints" other than aesthetics?



## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Finger joints are by their nature a stronger joint. I make my equipment with rabbeted joints and plenty of glue and nails. They are holding up just as well as the purchased boxes.


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## Titus142 (Apr 15, 2020)

I'm a furniture maker by trade, so joinery is my bread and butter. There are many ways to make a box, and they will often all work. The thing with the box joint in this case is like the belt and suspenders approach. A rabbeted box is relying mostly on fasteners and a tiny bit on glue (as endgrain to long grain joints are not a good glue joint). But they are plenty strong. However there is a chance of it coming apart moreso than a box joint. 

A box joint provides a lot of good glue surface (long grain to long grain) has a mechanical advantage of the fingers holding each other. As well as fasteners if you use them (nails or screws) so the joint is super strong and not relying on any one thing. If you want a box that will really last a long long time you can't go wrong with a box joint.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Box joints are a pain in the rear to assemble, Rabbet joints are a breeze to make and to assemble and you can also cross staple the sides to the front and back and you can even use Advantech for the front and back panels of the boxes.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

It's my understanding that woodenware is sold with box joints because that is the tooling that's been used for years and the manufacturers of bee woodenware are tooled up for box joints only. I personally feel like box joints are a very good method of joinery.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

I use a simple butt joint with glue and screws. Only 4 years into beekeeping but have not had the slightest trouble. Nice, solid, square boxes with zero flex. I like the fact that the boards are solid pieces, less surface area to rot, and fewer projections to break, split or rot. I don't have any fancy tools to craft more complex joints, and I refuse to buy boxes. 

The exposed end grain has to be treated to prevent moisture infiltrating, but that's easy.


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## bushpilot (May 14, 2017)

I have equipment with box joints and with rabbet joints. The box joints so far are holding up better for me. The rabbet joints are more affected by the wood "cupping" with changes in moisture. 

YMMV


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Box joints rot out faster because as they swell and shrink in wet and dry times, cracks open and allow water into the seams


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## Jack Grimshaw (Feb 10, 2001)

Less exposed end grain in rabbet joints and faster to cut.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

bushpilot said:


> I have equipment with box joints and with rabbet joints. The box joints so far are holding up better for me. The rabbet joints are more affected by the wood "cupping" with changes in moisture.
> 
> YMMV


Where I have observed tops splaying out it is always been associated with wrong grain orientation. Dont put the heart side of the boards to the inside. "Dont Put Your Heart in a Box of Pine!"

Rabbeted joints are a bit more forgiving to cut and assemble if your wood is not kiln dried and nicely flat. Quality dado blades that cut smooth notches with flat bottoms are expensive and do not work on many homeowner table saws.

I would bet my money on Titus142 claim about strength but for entry level equipment and joinery skills the rabbeted joint is more feasable. I have made both and like the appearance of the box joint but the rabbeted design gets the nod from me.

As to weathering longevity; dont know, but then I am getting to the age that I am not bothering to creosote my fence posts either.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

We have deeps in service from the 1940's.(hand holds are made with a Delta tool used in a table saw) When I pick one of them up, I can tell if it is a box joint or not. The Rabbet boxes are ussually loose, where the box joints are still solid. 

Crazy Roland


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

A rabbet joint is entirely dependent on the glue and fasteners in all directions. It provides mechanical alignment of the boards perpendicular to the cut direction but not parallel to it. The joint itself provides no mechanical strength. The interlocking fingers of the box joint provide both alignment and the mechanical strength to handle loads on the joint. Glue and fasteners keep the box joint fingers together but the mechanical strength comes from the joinery. You can intuitively understand this with a thought experiment. Imagine that you assembled a box with each kind of joint on your work bench surface with no glue or fasteners, with the joints fit together dry. Now imagine that you picked up the dry assembled box using the box handles on opposite ends. What happens when you would pick up the two ends with a rabbet joint? What happens when you would pick up the two ends with a box joint? That is the difference. What if you could only apply glue to 1/2 inch of each joint? Which joint do you want then?
The thought experiment makes the mechanical advantage of the box joint fairly obvious. What it doesn't tell us is how the joints perform with fasteners and modern adhesives. The old gray mare just didn't render as good a glue as a modern PVA adhesive does. Modern PVAs are stronger than the wood. If you use 2" deck screws (not a drywall screw) into pre-drilled proper sized pilot holes then you've got a solid mechanical joint as well. 

I make my bee boxes using a box joint because I have a super easy dedicated jig to make them. Setting up a dado blade to cut a 3/4" x 3/8" rabbet would take more time than using my box joint jig.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I dont dado the rabbet on the end boards. I use two intersecting saw cuts to take out the material. It does take resetting the depth differently for the frame rest. The long side boards only need cut to length. A person has to pay well over $100.00 for a decent dado blade. No question the box joint is stronger if they are going to get thrown around.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Frank, like you, I cut the rabbet on the end boards with intesecting saw cuts and find that with a set of gauging blocks it only takes a minute or two to get it perfect.

Unlike you, I still buy green banannas. 
But, I no longer buy trees.


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## ApisMell (May 20, 2020)

I've built half a dozen or so deeps using box joints, but I probably won't again. I enjoy woodworking, but lumber costs (even from a local lumber yard) & the time involved have all but convinced me that I'm better off just buying boxes from my bee supply store.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

JWPalmer said:


> Frank, like you, I cut the rabbet on the end boards with intesecting saw cuts and find that with a set of gauging blocks it only takes a minute or two to get it perfect.
> 
> Unlike you, I still buy green banannas.
> But, I no longer buy trees.


I should have taken the time to make spacer blocks but at the times I need them I cant take the time to do it!


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

All of my hives have rabbet joints. I didn’t intentionally choose this. It just happened to be the way my preferred equipment supplier cut them.
My only point in this thread is in regard to strength. In twenty years with hundreds of deeps, mediums and shallows, I’ve never had a corner joint fail. If a box joint is actually stronger….it doesn’t matter in practice.
Just my experience.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

To tell the truth, I have had one of my rabbet jointboxes fail when I dropped it with a full load of capped honey frames onto a corner, it was bent out of square some so when I removed the capped honey I put 6 screws in each end and that medium box is still out there somewhere.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Beemandan: That is what I would expect after 20 years. The superiority of the box joint does not show that soon. 

Crazy Roland


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## MJC417 (Jul 26, 2008)

I built 10- 5 over 5 frame nucs with butt joints 19 years ago and they look as good as the day I built them. Most of the box joints on purchased hive bodies are cracking, splitting, and a few are rotting out. All the boxes got the same brand/color and quality paint.


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## n8app155 (Jun 3, 2020)

We build our own hives and we dovetail all of our joints.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

n8app155 said:


> We build our own hives and we dovetail all of our joints.


Truly dovetail or parallel side intersecting fingers?


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

n8app155 said:


> We build our own hives and we dovetail all of our joints.


Is that with a router dovetail jig? or are you hand cutting them like fine furniture? I could imagine if you already have the jig setup to do other things, drawers and blanket chests and so forth, it would not be much of a problem to make a few hive boxes. But I have only hand cut 7 dovetails in my life. It seems like a lot of tedium. But I would imagine 3 of the tiniest pins and some of the largest tails you ever saw if I had to do that.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

I like the box joints for everything, but the construction of them.
I will be changing over to military shipping crate construction with everything new I do going forward.
Sort of like these - solid and simple (English subs are available).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn1E4xh4qiA&t=747s


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

GregV said:


> I like the box joints for everything, but the construction of them.
> I will be changing over to military shipping crate construction with everything new I do going forward.
> Sort of like these - solid and simple (English subs are available).
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn1E4xh4qiA&t=747s


I love that. But my mind is translating the Russian, and he wavers and says "And this is, .. how you say, slatted rack." Probably said nothing like that but it worked while I was watching.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Absinthe said:


> I love that. But my mind is translating the Russian, and he wavers and says "And this is, .. how you say, slatted rack." Probably said nothing like that but it worked while I was watching.


The bottom rig on this video is over-engineered IMO.
Otherwise, I love this particular design through and through.
No specialized equipment is needed; no jigs.
Solidness of the construction is compatible to the box joints (especially if you choose to also use glue).
Notice how the screws are always going *across *the grain (NOT along the grain - a typical case of weak fastening) - very important detail.


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

I especially like the bent nail as a fastener for that back plate. No-nonsense!!


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

My answer to your question in the subject line is "No."


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

psm1212 said:


> My answer to your question in the subject line is "No."


Good, I was hoping so. I am planning on doing a bunch, and I was loath to putting the finger jig back together and worse yet pre-drilling all those **** 9/64" holes.  

It probably would't be so bad once I got started, but just getting motivated it makes me not really want to do it. Ever been there?


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Absinthe said:


> Ever been there?


Every freaking day.


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## psallee (Mar 1, 2008)

Absinthe said:


> It seems to be the "traditional" way of doing things. And I see how it makes it somewhat Ikea-like to flatpack and ship hives if they are cut that way. But other than that, any reason why a simple rabbet, staples, and glue; or splines and glue... pocket holes... etc. Are any less valid? Certainly in the 1800's if you were building something from wood, especially a box, you were either doing some sort of box joint, dovetail or clench nails. But is it simply done that way because it was always done that way, or is there some other benefit of which I am unaware?


In my youth I dropped a plugged out deep honey super from about shoulder height. It looked like I’d run over it with my truck. Finger jointed, nailed and glued. Never since built a box without cleats.
The question is, do you want a 5 year box or a 20 year box?


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

psallee said:


> In my youth I dropped a plugged out deep honey super from about shoulder height. It looked like I’d run over it with my truck. Finger jointed, nailed and glued. Never since built a box without cleats.
> The question is, do you want a 5 year box or a 20 year box?


what do you mean cleats? Like corner blocks or gussets?


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## MajKong (Feb 6, 2017)

I’m kind of new to this, but my first hive I built using butt joints. My second hive I wanted to use box joints, so I cut them by hand. That didn’t work out, so my second hive was built with butt joints, too. Then I built a dado sled and hives 3 and 4 have box joints. I think box joints look nicer, but I don’t know if all that strength is necessary.


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## ALinCarolina (Apr 1, 2017)

I've been a woodworker much longer than a beekeeper so I thought I might chime in. Hive boxes may not be exposed to a lot of twisting or racking so rabbeted joints may hold up fine for most keepers but there is no comparison to the strength of a box joint. I built my first set of hives several years ago and used dovetails cut on a Leigh jig but that was overkill. Since then all have been box joints. Once you make a box joint jig adjusted for 9&5/8 or 6&5/8 you set it aside and when you need more boxes just grab it and go. No adjusting needed.
Some heresy: I say adding nails to a box joint box is totally unnecessary and I think is actually worse. The glue joint with something like Titebond 3 is stronger than the wood already and adding a nail into end grain is not very strong. It is even weaker if a hole is predrilled to prevent splitting. Add to that it gives another place for water to possibly enter the wood if it becomes exposed.


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

MajKong said:


> I’m kind of new to this, but my first hive I built using butt joints. My second hive I wanted to use box joints, so I cut them by hand. That didn’t work out, so my second hive was built with butt joints, too. Then I built a dado sled and hives 3 and 4 have box joints. I think box joints look nicer, but I don’t know if all that strength is necessary.
> View attachment 56407
> 
> 
> View attachment 56409


Those are some mighty pretty hives!


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

ALinCarolina said:


> I've been a woodworker much longer than a beekeeper so I thought I might chime in. Hive boxes may not be exposed to a lot of twisting or racking so rabbeted joints may hold up fine for most keepers but there is no comparison to the strength of a box joint. I built my first set of hives several years ago and used dovetails cut on a Leigh jig but that was overkill. Since then all have been box joints. Once you make a box joint jig adjusted for 9&5/8 or 6&5/8 you set it aside and when you need more boxes just grab it and go. No adjusting needed.
> Some heresy: I say adding nails to a box joint box is totally unnecessary and I think is actually worse. The glue joint with something like Titebond 3 is stronger than the wood already and adding a nail into end grain is not very strong. It is even weaker if a hole is predrilled to prevent splitting. Add to that it gives another place for water to possibly enter the wood if it becomes exposed.


I don't think there is a bit or heresy there at all. I think what you are stating is 100% dead on factual. A proper glue joint is stronger than the surrounding wood, and the nails do little to add to that. However, what I believe, and I could be wrong, is that the box joints are as prevalent as they are for more of an IKEA sort of way. A person can glue and put them together with the nails "cross nailed" to hold the boxes as square as if they were properly clamped without having to properly clamp them. If you put the nails in one direction only you can still adjust to square by banging the corner until you get that equal corner to corner measurement then drive it home with the nails going in the other direction. All you need is a hammer and a yard stick... Or tape measure if you are fancy  

I considered doing the tongue and groove (like with a slotter or small dado blade but that requires a stopped dado for the frame rest, and that seems fiddly. I even thought about pocket holes, but I really hate pocket holes. I have a sled that I use with an added piece for doing 3/4 x 3/4 fingers for the box joints. In theory it will line back up and the screws will align it to where it was so painstakingly adjusted before. What I am not really comfortable doing is gang cutting them. I tried that and it is a lot of vertical mechanical advantage to overcome and just becomes unwieldy, and unsafe. So in order to make it really convenient, I would have to rework my jig to safely and securely hold several sides at a time to send them through the dado. Though I had considered reworking the system to do a router setup instead of the table saw, but never really came up with a plan for that. So if I do it, it is one cut at a time so like 7 cuts for the deeps on each side. It is not terrible, and I am sure once I cut a test piece and I was happy with it, and once I got started it will not be as bad as I feel.

I do agree it is a technically wonderful joint. It provides lots of great face to face gluing surface where the rabbet provides exactly none. It is all face to end grain. There comes a point when you just do something because it is the "right" way to do it. I guess I am just trying to convince myself that it isn't  And I do have a huge box of #7 common nails  Pretty much the only thing I ever use them for  The inch and a half air stapler is looking kind of tempting though.  Only wish I had a bunch of stainless staples I wanted to use up 

I was initially setup to have exactly 1 hive. That hasn't worked out for all the reasons that people say. So now that I am gearing up to have multiple stacks, I am trying to make good decisions. In my mind I think I know the "right" way. Doesn't stop me from wanting to do it "good enough."


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

I can trick myself into believing building my own rabbet joint boxes is sensible. I can't talk myself into box joints. Those are a buy item. In the end bee time is time taken from something else I really ought to be doing.

Rabbet in ends only, 3/8 by 3/4. Running your screws at an angle avoiding most of the 3/8 cut is much stronger than straight in.


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## ALinCarolina (Apr 1, 2017)

I admit I am fortunate that I picked up a old Unisaw at estate sale for $20. It was in pieces but after rebuilding it with new bearings, belts, paint, etc. I keep a dado blade on it all the time. I still have my other Unisaw for usual stuff. With a dedicated saw for dadoes and a jig tuned in I can knock out the 8 board ends in minutes. I know it's a luxury most folks don't have.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Saltybee said:


> I can trick myself into believing building my own rabbet joint boxes is sensible. I can't talk myself into box joints. Those are a buy item. In the end bee time is time taken from something else I really ought to be doing.
> 
> Rabbet in ends only, 3/8 by 3/4. Running your screws at an angle avoiding most of the 3/8 cut is much stronger than straight in.


 
Can you clarify if the screws are still going in from the rabbeted end but are started further from the edge and slanted out into the side pieces.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

crofter said:


> Can you clarify if the screws are still going in from the rabbeted end but are started further from the edge and slanted out into the side pieces.


You got it. A few misses that come into the box tell me I am a little too far out. It is a much better bite and stiffer. A few need a screw coming the other way to pill the pucker out of the side.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

ALinCarolina said:


> I admit I am fortunate that I picked up a old Unisaw at estate sale for $20.


You suck. 




> Once you make a box joint jig adjusted for 9&5/8 or 6&5/8 you set it aside and when you need more boxes just grab it and go. No adjusting needed.


Yep. I have a dedicated jig that cuts 1 inch box joints and leaves the last joint at 5/8 inch. The jig also makes clipping the frame rest finger to 3/8 inch a snap. I have set up sticks to position stop blocks on my compound miter saw station. I can cut a bee box on demand in a matter of minutes with no set up time and the box joints are a perfect fit and align the pieces perfectly. It doesn't take any more time that the set up would for rabbet joints.


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## Robert Holcombe (Oct 10, 2019)

Dovetail and glue only : - no nails , screws, etc. may provide an environmental advantage? Increased gluing surface area?, Mechanical lock? Waterproof ( Titebond III) and stronger joints ( my favorite)? More difficult to assemble but some craftsmanship required, especially when using recycled wood. Also good practice for learning how to make good dovetail joints for other cabinetry projects. Routing waste is good litter for chicken coop, mulch for garden.

Never could understand "end-grain" nailing.


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## Pchristu (Aug 10, 2016)

crofter said:


> Where I have observed tops splaying out it is always been associated with wrong grain orientation. Dont put the heart side of the boards to the inside. "Dont Put Your Heart in a Box of Pine!"


 Went to get some boxes at a BK supply store, noted that many were cut with heart grain toward the interior. Also, some of the box joints were done incorrectly (sides and ends were mirror image). Store purchases from Mann-Lake, so I was surprised, as my M-L purchases in past have all been superior. I assume M-L purchases from various mills; perhaps with Covid their supply chain has altered. Discussed this with store owner who intended to raise the issue with M-L.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

JConnolly said:


> You suck.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Having a dedicated setup strictly for those box joints would make it much much more attractive. I admire that design for the frame rest area that provides a solid piece of wood a finger and a half wide. I spent more than a day making a dado sled to cut them on a dadant deep hive body. I still screwed it up by making the frame rest about 15 thou. too deep and needed a slight shim on each upper corner to fill the resulting gap. Also need to shorten the partial top finger a tad to close the gap in the notches. A lot of separate details that have to be accurate within about 5 thou. to have a perfect fit so to utilize all the potential strength of the glue joints.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

Pchristu said:


> …some of the box joints were done incorrectly (sides and ends were mirror image).


Maybe the supplier used plans from this web site. The finger joints in the plans in the build-it section are reversed from how they should be to have a half finger fill the frame rest. It doesn't matter whether you use 1" joints or 3/4" joints you should end up with the top finger on the side board at 5/8" wide. Then when you nip it back to 3/8" long it fills the frame rest and it also provides a point to reinforce the frame rest flange, making it stronger than the unsupported frame rest you would end up with when you do the joints backwards.


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

crofter said:


> Having a dedicated setup strictly for those box joints would make it much much more attractive. I admire that design for the frame rest area that provides a solid piece of wood a finger and a half wide. I spent more than a day making a dado sled to cut them on a dadant deep hive body. I still screwed it up by making the frame rest about 15 thou. too deep and needed a slight shim on each upper corner to fill the resulting gap. Also need to shorten the partial top finger a tad to close the gap in the notches. A lot of separate details that have to be accurate within about 5 thou. to have a perfect fit so to utilize all the potential strength of the glue joints.


Am I looking at an especially deep box? Seems like it is 12"+ (can't read the tape measure in the picture.)


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Absinthe said:


> Am I looking at an especially deep box? Seems like it is 12"+ (can't read the tape measure in the picture.)


Yes, Dadant deep I believe. It has yet to be trimmed to 11 5/8"


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

JConnolly said:


> Maybe the supplier used plans from this web site. The finger joints in the plans in the build-it section are reversed from how they should be to have a half finger fill the frame rest. It doesn't matter whether you use 1" joints or 3/4" joints you should end up with the top finger on the side board at 5/8" wide. Then when you nip it back to 3/8" long it fills the frame rest and it also provides a point to reinforce the frame rest flange, making it stronger than the unsupported frame rest you would end up with when you do the joints backwards.


I don't know if I can get my dado stack out to a whole inch (never tried on my arbor, but it might be worth a shot.) Doing all 1" fingers instead of 3/4" sounds just a little less tedious. And, I am pretty certain that I will never in my life ever make another shallow (5-11/16"). As it is I do 3/4 and skip the last one on the frame rail piece so that the last one is 1-3/8 I think, and the long sides end up with a finger that has to get clipped to fit in the frame rest rabbet. The very first one I screwed this up because I hadn't rabbeted it before hand, and ended up hand cutting the rabbet with a chisel. Or maybe I used a router. I know I did one somewhere with a chisel and it sucked  

I like the look of the clipped finger plan and can tell the ones that are done that way because of the two nails from the front. I have to count the nails from the front to know what I am looking at. 7 (or 6) = deep 5 = medium and 4 = shallow

Wrong way first box I made without plan suggestions for frame rest.







Done the 'right' way sitting on the wrong one.







Count the nails to find the medium vs the shallows.








It's all good fun, but now, I need to account for allowing more than one hive... time to build some more stacks. Need to setup some story sticks for repeat-ability. 

And reassemble this guy and put it back to work


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

crofter said:


> Yes, Dadant deep I believe. It has yet to be trimmed to 11 5/8"


****, where do you even get wood that wide. I think my 1x12's that I just got are still only 11-1/2 ... I would have to just start laminating boards together.


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

JConnolly said:


> You suck.


I immediately thought the same thing, then decided, that I wouldn't have the space, or the equipment to move it to my shop. Then I told myself it was probably 3 phase or something, just to make myself feel better


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I purchased 500 board feet of rough cut cypress lumber for $.85 per board foot and stickered it in my greenhouse so it would dry smooth and fast. Now when I need a few boards, I pull out what I need and run it through the planter. Did I mention that I had it cut 12 1/2 inches wide so it would dry to a full 12 inches? With a 13 inch planer and a bit of time, I have excellent lumber to build Dadant depth bee equipment. It is also a nice furniture grade wood that I have used to build shelves and things for my home.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Fusion_power said:


> I purchased 500 board feet of rough cut cypress lumber for $.85 per board foot and stickered it in my greenhouse so it would dry smooth and fast. Now when I need a few boards, I pull out what I need and run it through the planter. Did I mention that I had it cut 12 1/2 inches wide so it would dry to a full 12 inches? With a 13 inch planer and a bit of time, I have excellent lumber to build Dadant depth bee equipment. It is also a nice furniture grade wood that I have used to build shelves and things for my home.


Is this the bragging encouraged thread? LOL


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## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

Fusion_power said:


> I purchased 500 board feet of rough cut cypress lumber for $.85 per board foot and stickered it in my greenhouse so it would dry smooth and fast. Now when I need a few boards, I pull out what I need and run it through the planter. Did I mention that I had it cut 12 1/2 inches wide so it would dry to a full 12 inches? With a 13 inch planer and a bit of time, I have excellent lumber to build Dadant depth bee equipment. It is also a nice furniture grade wood that I have used to build shelves and things for my home.


You, sir, are my hero!


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## Robert Holcombe (Oct 10, 2019)

"500 board feet ...cypress" , nice price and if I remember right in the good old days we use to use cypress to plank the bottom of skiffs. You could leave them on the beach wet, all the time - no rot. We get native white pine up here for about that price.


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## paulb (Jun 18, 2020)

Wouldn't a logical answer be "because it is an extremely strong long-lasting method, with four times the gluing area"?
I used to own five full stack Cedar (Deep Brood, +3 Deep Supers) Nationals made this way, when I received them they were 40 years old and still as strong as the day they were made.

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

Just because you can, don't mean you should!


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