Month: April 2020

My new alternative to wood screws… kinda

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As you saw in my last post where I built a prototype MTG card tray, I had some pretty decent issues with wood splitting. In retrospect using screws on 1/2″ mdf wasn’t the best choice. Initially I thought a brad nailer may have been the best choice. However I found an even better method thanks to Adam Savage and his YouTube channel, Tested. In a couple of his recent videos he mentioned pin nailers. Pin nailers are like brad nailers but they shoot very thin fasteners that are virtually invisible once in your material.

I haven’t had a chance to use it in any of my own projects yet but the results are quite amazing on some scrap MDF I had lying around.

There is atleast 20 nails in this board!

I also put some pegboard up in the shed today, turned out quite nice. Next up will be a workbench to go under it.

Card Tray Built!

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I managed to make my way into town the other day and buy some supplies for the project I mentioned in my previous post. I picked up a 24x48x1/2 inch MDF sheet and a pack of 6 x 1″ flathead robertson woodscrews.

I made quick work of drawing out the parts to be cut.
The base plate and 4 walls cut out!
After all the the dividers are installed and everything is screwed in. You’ll notice some problems have arose.

Results

As you probably noticed I had some pretty substantial splitting issues this was due to 2 errors on my part. Initially my pilot holes were too small putting too much stress on the wood. Additionally my chosen screws were a bit too wide. I suspect I should have been using around a #3 or #4 screw rather than a #6. At first I was a little disappointed but have decided to treat this first run as a proof of concept. My chosen size and dimensions seem to be perfect for what I have in mind.

All in all I am pleased with the experience even if the quality is lacking, for the next trays I build I am expecting the quality to be much higher.

Mistakes are never a bad thing if you learn from them!