knock down furniture with cross dowels

[Ray Schafer]

I stumbled across the Woodpecker Universal Cross Dowel jig, and thought it looked really cool. I am very curious about using cross dowels to build knock down furniture, but I have not been able to find any plans for building cabinets and furniture with cross dowels. I am surprised that there is such a cool way to build so that things can be disassembled and moved, but there aren't a million plans.

If you know of any resources that have woodworking build plans using these or similar joinery, please point me in the right direction.

Thanks.
Ray

[johnny means]

Knock down joinery just isn't worth doing unless you're trying to flatpack product. Set up can be tricky and takes some trial and error. The actual hardware can get pretty pricey, even at whole sale prices. Then, of course, there's thes question, "why?".

[Richard Coers]

I don't understand why you need specific cross dowel plans. Should be simple math to remove the length of tenons if that is the problem.

[Jim Becker]

There are a lot of different methods to allow a piece of furniture to be disassembled occasionally for moving, etc. I partially agree with Johnny in that with most things we might build, there's little value in making something that can be disassembled, but there are also situations where it's either a nice feature or in the case of something like a bed, essential to be able to physically transfer the piece to/from a particular space in a home or other location. Cross dowels are a good solution to draw two things together tightly but are often used with additional elements like dowels to insure alignment, etc. My opinion is that they are for light duty situations, too, unless they are very stout like might be used with a bed frame.

[Ray Schafer]

Thanks for the input.

I have since found a couple of plans at Woodsmith.

I s
till would welcome links to other plans.

[Scott Bernstein]

I am just a hobbiest, but have built a few items which can be disassembled. I have used the Lamello Z2 hardware, festool domino connector hardware, and some specialty hardware for bed rails. I recently made an extremely large freestanding cabinet (8 feet tall, 20" deep, and 3" wide) - I used the festool knockdown connectors otherwise there would be way I could move the cabiner into the room! Same with a queen size bed - it's just too big to move without giving some ability to come apart. Lastly, I built some simple plywood shelves for the basement. I used knockdown hardware for that because the piece sits behind some HVAC equipment and I had to be able to assemble it place.

[Frank Drackman]

My experience might not pertain to your situation but I make a fair amount of projects using cross dowels.

I design my own and cross dowels are simple to include. I pretty much just eliminate any tenons, and figure out where the holes are need for both parts of the hardware. Sometimes hiding the holes takes some thought.

The projects that require knock-down hardware usually have specific measurements that exclude finding anything at retail that is the right size. My kids live on the other side of the U.S. from me and they are the primary recipients of the projects.

I use the Woodpecker Universal Jig and am extremely happy with the results. As others have said, the hardware can be expensive. Especially it you get into the larger sizes.

Good luck

[Ray Schafer]

Thank you very much!

[Ray Schafer]

Thank you for the ideas!

[Ray Schafer]

This one looks pretty cool: https://www.woodmagazine.com/project-plans/furniture/cabinets-storage/knockdown-modular-cabinets-downloadable-plan