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I'm working on a project with a friend of mine - we're building cat trees. (yes we are PI posters shut up) Unfortunately, I now live far, far away from the table saws of my childhood and have no clue how I'm going to cut all the pieces we need for this thing. The current plan is to get all of the shelf pieces out of a 5/8"x4'x8' mdf board. My options, as I see them are: 1. Have Home Depot make the cuts, pay whatever their price is per cut, hope they don't gently caress it up. 2. Rent portable table saw for a day, install in driveway, use outdoor power outlet, hope landlord doesn't mind. (How big are these things? I have an old Volvo station wagon, would it fit in there?) 3. Something else? If it helps, I live in Ottawa, Canada.
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Jun 14, 2008 08:12
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wormil posted:If you're going to cover the cat trees with carpet you might also consider waferboard or particleboard, both are lighter and cheaper than MDF. You can make the cuts with an inexpensive circular saw. The board of MDF I was planning on using is $24.97 for 5/8"x4'x8'... 5/8"x4'x4' particleboard was $15.37. We don't really need all 32 square feet, but we definitely need way more than 16, so I don't think it'd save that much money, if any. Plus I am trying to go for strength here, since my friend has four cats. Her last cat tree (>$200) is quite close to its end after only a year or so of use. I have one very light cat, but I like overbuilding things. I'm kinda leaning toward just renting the table saw for a day for $38. That would let me buy the MDF on one day, use 1-2 free cuts to take it down to a manageable size, actually mark things out properly on the board, and then get the table saw the next day and cut it. Anything I should know about MDF? I haven't worked with it before. So far I'm planning to cut outdoors (that was the plan already), wear a mask, and put all my screws and staples an inch from the edge.
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Jun 15, 2008 03:09
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wormil posted:Well MDF wouldn't be my first choice for strength but if you're set on it then I guess you are already aware of the awesome amount of dust that will happen when it's cut. I'm aware of the dust, but no, I'm not set on using it, especially if it's that touchy with screws. I need something at least 32" wide, though, given the design I'm using, and I need to keep costs down. What would you recommend? Edit: Actually, here. Let me do something vaguely intelligent and actually tell you about the design. This is the slightly larger of the two cat trees, since the smaller one is pretty much the same thing, just not quite as big and only required to accommodate 1/4 the amount of cat. The main supports (big squares in the animated gif below) are 4"x4" fenceposts. The secondary supports, under the diagonal edge of the "green" shelf, are just little 2"x2" pieces of wood. The things underneath the diagonal corners of the green shelf will just be little blocks of wood screwed into the fenceposts to act as a sort of lip for the green shelf to rest on. The straight edges of the green shelf are supported by four 8" shelf brackets, one going each direction on each edge. The red and blue shelves are supported by an 8" shelf bracket at one end and the top end of a fencepost section PLUS an 8" shelf bracket at the other end. The top orange shelf is supported by the top of a fencepost section and two 10" shelf brackets. I was going to drill up through the base into each fencepost section and attach them with big ol' screws, and do the same thing for the shelves that rest on top of fencepost sections.   So - workable, or crap? maplecheese fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jun 15, 2008 |
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Jun 15, 2008 05:52
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wormil posted:Okay, if I understand what's going on then I think you're fine. The screws will be screwing into solid wood so they will hold. The problem with MDF + screws is this: MDF is basically dust and glue so side to side forces pull on the screw and the MDF just turns to dust around the screw and it falls out. But if your screw threads are going into solid wood then it's not a problem. Yeah, the only place where screw threads will actually be in the MDF will be to attach the shelf brackets, and there shouldn't be much force on those except for little sideways pushes when the cats are jumping onto or off of the shelves. There would be three screws going into the MDF per bracket, two right after the bend and one at the tip. Do you think that'd work, or should I get some kind of appropriate glue? wormil posted:If you're going to carpet it then I would just choose whichever sheet stock is cheaper - MDF or OSB. I built my cat tree from particle board which is basically sawdust and glue, it's what you find as shelving on those cheap metal industrial style shelves. I only used it because I had it laying around. The advantage MDF will give you is that it is heavy and your tree will be more stable, my tree tended to tip once my cat became full grown (but he was a big-rear end cat). Oh good, because I bought MDF today. Edit: Would have bought it even if I'd read the advice beforehand, too - definitely wanted the extra weight for stability, here. While I was waiting to get my two free cuts so I could actually fit it in the back of my car, I had to listen to this old man bitching at the poor lumber guy because somebody had cut his piece of wood 1/16" TOO WIDE. The old man wanted the employee to use his giant saw (located directly under a sign that said "NO PRECISION CUTTING") to take off the extra 1/16", but NO MORE THAN THAT. maplecheese fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Jun 18, 2008 |
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Jun 18, 2008 05:13
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wormil posted:Just predrill the holes and put a drop of glue down the hole and it should hold. Make sure to use a coarse threaded screw, fine threads will pull right out. They actually make special screws for MDF but I've never seen them in a store. Perfect! I'll do that, thanks. Now I just have to wait until it quits raining for a day or two so I can get this stuff cut. Unfortunately, if the weather forecasts are right, that won't be for at least a week.
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Jun 18, 2008 08:00
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Holy crap was that blade ever dull. But the cuts are made and the pieces are sort of approximately the right size, so yay. Now I just have to do... all the rest of the work!
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Jun 24, 2008 21:38
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wormil posted:On the rental saw? It would probably have been worth buying a cheap carbide blade just for the project. Yep. Too late now, though. wormil posted:Pictures? Not yet. There are some of me and my friend's fiance looking sweaty and sawdust covered, but they're on his phone. I'll be taking other pictures once the drat things are actually assembled and probably making a thread in PI. Looking at the size of the posts next to the size of the... everything else... and testing out the strength of the mdf and shelf brackets, I am realizing that this is probably going to be the most ridiculously overbuilt cat tree in the history of cat trees. I would put a small lion on this thing, and my cat weighs like ten pounds, maybe twelve tops. Oh well. More for her to scratch.
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Jun 26, 2008 06:35
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Sawdust makes my ferrets sneeze.  Other than that, the cat tree project is proceeding along rather slowly. I just had an exam this evening and my living room is a shitpile (not literally) so I haven't really wanted to invite my friend over to help, but I do have two posts carpeted now, and my cat has been expressing her approval by sharpening her claws on them as they lie on the floor. (Good kitty! Yes! Keep doing that and leave the couch alone!) The catnip I rubbed into the carpet probably helps. I am absolutely loving the Stanley TRE500 power staple gun I borrowed courtesy of another friend's girlfriend's mother -- it's being treated even more reverently than borrowed tools normally are due to the tenuousness of that connection -- and I can't imagine how tired my hands would be using a cheap manual gun. It is slightly terrifying as the TRE500 is fully automatic, and will just keep firing staples until you let off of the trigger. (current maximum count: four) I'm hoping to get the first cat tree at least partially up (posts attached to base and at least one shelf on) this weekend. My downstairs neighbours are gone tonight, so I can use the staple gun at 3 AM with impunity, at least for the moment. It's looking like the project will come to a total of about $200, or $100 per cat tree, with fully a third of that being shelf brackets. For someone who didn't own any tools beforehand and decided to buy carpet instead of dumpster diving it, I'd say it would cost maybe $300 for two. Sort of seems like a lot when you look at cat trees online, as a lot of them are not that much more, but I would put tigers on this thing. ... well, baby tigers. And I am posting this in the woodworking thread because none of my friends are online to tell about this. Probably has something to do with the fact that I keep going "OMG cat tree cat tree cat tree" whenever they are.
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Jun 28, 2008 08:47
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:20 |
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I made a thread in PI about my cat tree. Unfortunately, I don't have the pictures from sawing-day or wood-assembly-day right now, which is what all of you guys would presumably be interested in, but I still think it's kinda cool.
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Jul 8, 2008 22:14
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