yes, figure 14 uses unistrut brackets and short pieces of unistrut to make the top beam adjustable (and easier to mount in the process)
But the section itās in is related to how to install the wood armsā¦ not unistrut brackets.
Toenail a screw into it from the front to hold it down. Iām good at screwing things at an angleā¦ especially when my goal is to do it straight.
as I see it, itās just above the section on wood arms, in the section of
unistrut (or did I manage to put it in two places?
In your post with the images embedded into the instructions, the last image is Figure 14 but should be Figure 13, I believe. You have Figure 14 twice in that post.
ahh, I see that. Iāll fix it when Iām at home tonight
as far as the number of screws go, I tend to think in terms of nice symmetrical patterns and like doing 4 screws.
but if you are gluing things, the glue is the primary force holding things together in the long run, and the screws are clamps to hold things in place while the glue dries.
If you look at the test that @madgrizzle did a few hundred posts back, he ended up using three screws nicely spaced. I would generally always do two screws, just so things canāt twist while the glue is wet (and acting as a lubricant between parts)
my estimate of 90 screws was 4 on each joint attaching to a flat face, and 2 on each joint connecting to an edge
Iām going to throw this out there and I feel like chicken little, I think Iām about to be run down. I love glue joints, however this adds 24hrs to the build per joint. If you start putting stress on the joint before it dries, why use glue at all? Yes you could us CA(super glue) but this is the wrong application for that. Did you know Super Glue was developed for human skin? The fact it works on other stuff was an accident.
Glue joints should be glued and set aside for 24 hours before putting pressure on them.
I donāt think most people want to wait days to play.
My 2 cents
Thank you
1 Like
I havenāt looked at the new design or instructions closely at all, but I imagine it could be built in sub-assemblies that would allow a few glue joints to be setting at a time. Also, with screws locating and clamping the ālayupsā, many of the joints will be quite forgiving of being moved around. Likely not being put into service right away, but secure enough to allow assembly to progress for much of the frame.
Some test builds and a solid procedure will show that it wonāt be as long of a process as the number of glued joints may lead you to believe. Of course that will need to be proved out, but I have faith that it will be reasonable.
1 Like
I donāt think most people want to wait days to play.
I agree.
Glue joints should be glued and set aside for 24 hours before putting pressure on them.
ideally, but itās very common to assemble multiple glue joints at once (or in a
short time) and not have every set dry before doing the next step.
We are in a situation where either glue or screws should be enough and the
combination is rock solid.
If I was being conservative, I would do:
- all the assembly of each leg (steps 1-5)
- all the crossmembers (steps 6-10)
- stand it up and do the top braces
- finally attach the top beam
being a bit less conservative, I would be pretty comfortable doing everything
except the top beam in one shot.
I wouldnāt start running it before letting the glue dry, but moving it around to
assemble it, while itās held pretty solidy with screws, doesnāt seem like it is
too bad
Iām going to throw this out there and I feel like chicken little, I think Iām about to be run down.
hopefully not too badly.
I love glue joints, however this adds 24hrs to the build per joint. If you
start putting stress on the joint before it dries, why use glue at all?
the screws are strong enough to hold things together, so it could be done
without glue, but adding glue is easy and turns an āacceptableā screwed joint
into a ārock solidā glue+screw joint.
David Lang
I think we should go all screws. My design has 9 currently and would be ready to cut if I had another Maslow kit. There is a problem with glue - too varied. I would advise āMaslowā to stay away from shipping glue, look out for the pun, it gets sticky. But really it can cause shipments to get held up and inspected. Then how do you get everyone on the same glue page, I didnāt have wood glue, how about white school glue. I have done some kit things in the past and stay away from shipping chemicals. The headaches that it can lead to arenāt worth it. If glue were a necessity I wouldnāt be typing this. It simply isnāt needed and makes things more complicated in space that has gotten overly complicated already.
again this is my 2 cents
Thank you
Please do, it seems like we are getting very close to a final design. We are at the point where having people try and follow the instructions (to see how different what they get is from what I intended) would be a valuable thing to do.
I think the design as-is will work pretty well with just screws. I think using glue is a good idea and will be a noticeable improvement to the stability and longevity of the resulting machine.
But I donāt think the machine will fail without glue (unless you manage to split your wood with the screws)
I agree that shipping glue is a bad idea, I donāt think anyone is suggesting that. Anyplace you can buy lumber you can get a small container of pretty decent wood glue.
Iām happy with the glue being a recommendation, not a requirement, but I donāt think we should be silent and not suggest it.
2 Likes
I did. 
For step #4 (pivoting screw for the legs) I feel it would be worth mentioning that the pivot screws on each leg should be reasonably accurately located so the frame angles are the same. Otherwise the frame may end up distorted.
Beyond that, the only other thing that had me a bit confused at first was the use of components as spacers to line everything up. Itās very smart, but it took me a few looks at the drawings to get the idea of whatās going on. Maybe the parts being used as spacers and construction aids should be shaded a bit to identify their use as tools. Enough to identify them, but not so much that they would cause issues if someone chose to print the drawings out in greyscale. I only have a black and white laser printer and I would like to have printed drawings handy for building the frame - and scribbling on.
Itās excellent work.
1 Like
Iām sure itās been discussed I pre drill almost everything. The stardrive deck screws are the exception, they are engineered to ājust workā. My design can probably save 6-8 minutes out of the 60 minute build buying a $8 box of screws.
agreed it shouldnāt , not be discussed ( yea double negative )
Perhaps something like " while not a requirement, the kit isnāt shipped with glue, however glue can increase the strength and longevity of some joints. Please see the section on gluing if you indent to use your own wood glue. "
Thank you
1 Like
I built mine with the star screws and drilled all of the holes on just the screw side. I used 2 screws on the end grain and 4 screws in a square pattern when screwing the 2x4 side. I think that my frame is more than strong enough and I havenāt screwed my 4āx8ā sheet down yet.
I bet that if your frame was not all that sturdy by the time you screw a 1/2" or 3/4" sheet of plywood on it you would not have any trouble with it.
1 Like
Sure no problem with that.
I am going to use unistrut to make the top beam adjustable and found these angle brackets and plan on using them, will need two per side but I think that the will work. The nice thing about these is the sides are not the same size so the bolts or lag screws will not interfere with each other, and I got them out of the scrap pile at work fro free;)
1 Like
good point.
Steps 4 and 5 are interesting. I was half tempted to delay attaching the legs, stand the frame up on the kickers, and attach the legs to the kickers and the front legs in the same step. That would be close enough to the correct angle. to work well.
if you make the bottoms of the legs flush, and then pivot, it works really well, except the front corner of the rear leg gets in the way
if the rear leg was slightly offset to the rear, it would be ideal, but how do we specify how much?
Thanks, @madgrizzle has been taking my images and coloring them (and adding the step instructions, along with letters to each piece), but things have been in flux so he only did the first couple
take a look at post 724 š New Stock Frame Design š - #724 by dlang for an example