Polish Vertical Half Lap Joint

[edwardw]

I've been looking at the corner joint that everyone uses for hive boxes.  There are box joints (finger joints), rabbet joints, butt joints, mitre joints, lock mitre joints.  It is a forest of choices.  I never saw this kind of joint but thought that the pros and ease of construction out weighed any cons.  It has as much end grain exposed as a box joint, but just redistributed.  It is also very easy to cut on a table saw.  The other plus is that when you put the frame rest on the same side as the hand hold, you aren't stressing the joint at all with the weight of the frames.

So..they say a picture is worth a thousand words.





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Edward

[BlueBee]

Learn something new every day.  I’ve never seen a box done that way before, but I think the bees will like it.

How did you cut that groove for the handhold?  Dado I assume?

[Michael Bush]

I like it.  You get some holding power in two directions, you get a handhold that runs the length of the box.  Very nice.  i don't know how hard they are to make, but it doesn't look too bad.

[buzzbee]

I like it too,especially the handhold. it's as much as a cleat without sticking out.

[The Bix]

How did you cut that groove for the handhold?  Dado I assume?

Router I believe, same for the frame rests.

[edwardw]

The boxes are not to hard to make.  There isn't much difficult work.  Cut the sides to length, cut all the notches out - they are all the same so it is just two setups of the table saw.  Run two of the sides through to get the frame rests.  Then just 4 passes on the router table for the handhold - two different bits.  One is a flat bit then the next is a cove bit to round the bottom edge.  This was the first box so it took me probably 30 minutes to make start to finish.  If I wanted to make a bunch time would go down considerably.

Edward

[contactme_11]

I have a couple boxes built like that.

[Shanevrr]

nice kitchen aid :-D

[edwardw]

That Kitchen Aid has seen better days.  Definitely not food safe anymore. 

I built another box today.  Timed myself.  From pulling the lumber out of the car to the last screw was 15 minutes.  Doesn't include clean up time.

Edward

[Apis_M_Rescue]

What kinda screws are those? Also noticed on the pic that one screw is missing by the handhold dado. Does that full length dado interfere w/ the screws ability to find enough wood to grab onto in that area? Like its time saving construction, thanks for documenting & placing on forum :).

[edwardw]

I test fitted the box before I cut the handholds.  The screws are sheet metal TEKS screws.  They have a drill point on them so in wood it lessens splitting.  They also have the nice washer head so they good holding power.  Since the screws are just really there to hold things tight until the glue sets, they aren't bearing much load.  I could stand on a box and wiggle it and it was fine with just 3 screws.

Edward

[Tommyt]

Why Can't I see Picture #2??
 has it been removed ??

Tommyt

[Course Bee]

Picture two was the last thing to load on my computer. It took about twenty seconds.