Marking system to identify pieces of furniture for finished glue up
FYemWuk5LV
| Posted in General Discussion on
I prefer to glue up a project after the finish is applied and I do not have a clear and consistent way of marking different pieces of the project so that different parts with similar dimensions are not interchanged both while working on them and particularly when they are glued for the final assembly. I wonder whether experienced woodworkers have developed some system of marking furniture parts which they can share. Thanks. Aurel Ionica
Replies
Aurel:
You can use blue painter's tape to label each component. Write the label (and/or instuctions) on the tape while it is still on the roll to prevent marring your wood (which can happen if you write on the tape after it is applied). Just make sure your finish is fully cured before labelling. I have also used this tape to mask off tenons, etc. to make sure I don't accidentially get finish on areas to be joined. This trick also works for masking off around joints during glue up to keep the glue squeeze out from soaking into areas that are to be finished later. Once the squeeze out gets rubbery you remove the tape.
gdblake
I mark my joints on the joint surfaces that go together - the ones that are concealed after assembly. Be aware that alcohol based finishes can run permanent marker. Spraying on light coats is fine though.
Just number the joints, 1 goes to 1, 2 to 2 and so on. Typically I only label the carcass end panels and partitions, with a felt marker where it wont show, to make sure they are assembled correctly. All other marks are with pencil on an "as needed' basis. All door and drawer assemblies are stacked in sets after cross referencing to the cut list and usually aren't marked. I'll mark the back of the drawers when they are installed so they will get put back in the correct opening
Folks,
I guess my question is not understood. My question is not how you do the marking, but what do you actually write on each piece? You cannot write “top rail door #3 tenon left front side” because there is not enough room to write on a tenon. I am interested in some kind of code system to mark each part of the joinery so that, when you do the assembly, each piece goes where it is supposed to.
Do you make a cutting list? Can you cross-reference your parts that way? When I use a cutting list, the first part is A*, * being the number of those parts - so if I had two legs, they would be called A2. I use arrows to point towards the show face.
I have a sketch plan of my project and I label each part on the plan in letters. I make a cut/check list of the pieces, with final dimensions and cut them to length width and thickness. I mark them with the letter in pencil and then shrink wrap all the like pieces. After mortises, tenons etc I majic marker a glue surface for the letter and L or R , F or B if needed. You can see several examples here in projects section or other websites like Wood, Shop Notes etc.
AZMO
How about tR3-lfs. tL3-rfs. bR3-lfs. bL3-rfs.
Or maybe a-a, b-b, c-c and so forth, when you run out letters add a number a-1, a-2 and so on. This is what I do as there is no need to dictate top left or bottom only a matching letter / number code. As I mark the pieces I write down on a piece of scrap the codes I have used. For up and down add an arrow. Sorry, I was Rude in my earlier post. Some things we take for granted.
Tom
This is why I use the blue tape. I can write more discription than will fit on a tenon (some parts, such as a leg only have mortices, I haven't found a good way to write inside a mortice, plus even if I did I would then need a flashlight to read it). So I write stuff like "front left leg". I also use tape to label "top" or "outside face" to help me properly orient a part that is symetrical. Tenons can be simply lettered (labeled) A thru Z (if more than 26 then start over with AA thru ZZ, then AAA thru ZZZ, etc). Mortices get labeled with blue tape to match tenon lettering. Everybody thinks a little differently from everbody else (actually, my wife says I'm the only one who thinks differently, supposedly the rest of you all think the same way she does). My advice is to develop a naming/labeling scheme that makes sense to you.
gdblake
Finishing all your parts before assembly limits some traditional marking methods since you need to hide your marks and can't sand them off. One traditional mark is a triangle. If you were to line up boards for a table top, for example, you would chalk a large triangle across all the boards. The marks only line up to form that triangle in the position you originally chose.
If you were marking the four members of a frame, the top would be marked with the peak of the triangle, right, right corner, etc. Although the triangle lines don't line up like in the table top, the marks still show the relationship of the parts.
Joints are often marked across the two pieces with dashes so the lines match up when the parts are together. One dash on the right, two dashes on the left, and so on
I use a shorthand for some parts, RFE for right finished end, P for partition. Where I put the marks and the direction they read also identify which end is up or which face out.
I use a magic marker and put the identifying marks where it will not be seen. I try to be consistent with my marks, always starting left to right or top to bottom. With repetition you will develop a system to meet your needs. If you look at a stack of parts I'm working on, you can see the various marks and easily pick out the O in the X pile. I keep things stacked so the marks are visible throughout any process, that way I don't accidentally pick up something that looks the same but isn't.
Aurel,
There is a FWW article on this website about triangle marking:
https://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28313
Personally I like to use triangles where possible but for many-parted pieces I usually employ the letters of the alphabet + a digit (eg A3, X9) to mark pairs of parts at their join.
So if there was a table with four upper aprons and four lower rails, all M&T'd to the 4 legs, the apron and rail ends would get their unique letter/digit name put on or near the tenon whilst the same letter/digit names would go next to the corresponding mortises in the legs.
With care, these marks can be placed so that they will be covered by the joint, or out of sight inside the construction, after glue-up. A thin BB pencil works well; or a white "lead" pencil for darker woods.
I have made items (usually those with lots of slats) where I run out of run-of-the-mill letters so have to employ a few greek characters too!
Lataxe
Hammer1 & Lataxe,
I think you understand what I am talking about because I am not talking about marking several pieces that make up one part and after sanding all those marks are gone. I am talking about that short hand use of letters or symbols which you place where they cannot be seen after all the pieces are finished and assembled. I realize that some of you, who are experienced woodworkers, have developed a system but I have never found anywhere an article explaining or outlining some rules. I realize that you have your system in your head but do you have it written down so that some of the rules you have developed I can adopt. If you bother to write them down, I would appreciate if you emailed them tho me. Thanks.
Aurel Ionica
There isn't a "tradtional"
There isn't a "tradtional" marking system for what you want, because traditionally furniture is assembled before finishing. I much prefer that, with the primary exception being largish panels in frame and panel situations.
Finishing first eliminates a lot of opportunities to make the final tweeks to ensure rails and stiles are absolutely flush or similarly that table aprons are flush with legs, etc.
Not being able to make a final pass with a finely set plane across a joint often means resorting to factory type "short cut" alternatives like leaving reveals where aprons meet legs. That reduces design opportunities that can set craftsman made furniture apart from the stuff factories turn out.
To me that's critical keeping
To me that's critical keeping the parts strait. I use chalk and letter the parts and if I'm making more than one I add a number. I also use a triangle across parts sometimes to show how to glue up like when you have three parts of a panel and the order is important, or 4 legs to denote the face to keep out etc. You can go to a dollar store or any walmart and buy a small tub of colored chalk for a buck. I also use it to mark grain direction so that when I'm running something through the router etc I don't accidentially run the wrong face.(not that I ever did that:)) It wipes of when done, and different colors work great for different woods. I don't use pencil except to mark domino points or cutoff points, as it's to hard to get off in general. I'm currently making a couple wine cabinets and it's the only way to keep it all in order. I had a pic, but you can't post pics to replies. Sorry.
Bones,
Email me your pic and I'll post it here via Photobucket, if you're willin'.
Aurel,
I can't tell you a lot more about my "system" than I already have, except to say I use capital letters, start at A1 for the first pair of parts that are joined and then go sequentially through the alphabet/numbers until I reach Z.
I rarely run out of single digits because it is unusual to get beyond 2 (sometimes it goes to 4). This is because a part that's joined to, say, 3 other parts will have those joins marked something like A1-A1, A2-A2, A3-A3. It's rare to get a part that's joined to more than 9 other parts!
If I run out of A-Z letters I begin to use greek characters, which I remember from school. An alternative would be to use double letters (AA, BB, CC etc.).
In that table example I mentioned earlier there would be:
* An apron marked A1 at one end; A2 at the other. The mortises in the legs, where the apron will fit, will be marked A1 in one leg and A2 in t'other.
* Each apron (and each lower rail to hold a shelf) would be similarly marked - aprons marked B1/B2; C1/C2; /D1/D2 with their matching mortises in the legs "reflecting" the appropriate letter/number combination. The system continues with the rails: E1/E2, etc..
It does help to write the letter/numbers of the ajoining parts the same way up, so that they can be oriented properly when glued together. Alternatively, put small arrows next to the letter/number mark, to show which way is "up" to keep the parts correctly oriented when joined.
The same process works for most joint types, such as tail/pin ends of boards being joined at right angles (eg in a drawer).
That's it really.
Lataxe.
Lataxe,
Thanks, and I think I understand your system. I also suppose that you have a rule for how to go about the project, such as left to right, top to bottom, front to back, and so on. Besides the limitation which you mention that you may run out of letters, I imagine that on a larger project with many identical parts it is not easy to tell just by looking at a part where it goes. I raised this question with FW and after a long time, they suggested to ask this question on the forum and I suppose that they did not find that woodworkers have developed an intuitive system which someone could recommend. I find this surprising and disappointing because there are articles about finishing parts of furniture before they are glued in order to be able to polish them for instance, but they never give any clue as to how they keep track of how all the pieces come together and any mistake is virtually irreversible. Thanks to all for your suggestions.
Aurel Ionica
FYemWuk5LV
I mark the joints not the pieces. That is, if two pieces join together, as a mortise and tenon for example, I mark both pieces at that end with the letter "A". A table leg for example would have two letters on it, one that matches the front apron, and one the side apron. I would label the joints in order. I don't think I've made anything with more than 26 joints, but I would go to AA, BB,... after that.
I use a combination of triangles and numbers.
If simple triangles (the apex always points up or to the right) won't cover all the sub-assemblies, then I add a number that fits inside the part of the triangle for each piece.
I also use chalk, but painter's tape would do well for prefinished pieces.
rdesigns,
I am very interested to know more about how you use the triangles because I am not sure I understand your system. One limitation which I see with letters and numbers is that they do not provide any clue as to which part they connect to. In other words, with letters, if you have a part, that part does not tell you which part it connects to and look for. Of course, you can go through all the similar parts until you find the one with the same letters, but shuffling through finished parts increases the chances of damaging them. Personally I do not write the symbols on the tape because the tape has to be removed in order to assembly the pieces so I prefer to write them down on parts of the pieces where they become hidden after the glue up, so that the markings are permanent on each piece. Besides, I do not use masking tape but aluminum foil tape, the kind used for duct work because finishes with strong solvent like lacquer tend to dissolve the glue under the tape so that the tape shrinks and comes off. On aluminum tape any markings can easily come off. If you can provide more information about your system I would appreciate. Thanks.
Aurel Ionica
think of two parts oriented the way you want them i.e. one board 90 degrees to the other layed out exactly as they would be glued together. Where the two boards touch draw a letter that crosses the seam where the two boards go together. I use A,B,C etc. I put one on each side of the board and only write on one face of all boards. I also draw a circle around the letter on one side and a square on the other so I can change the parts around and when I put them back together I know exactyl which way they should go because the letters will look right only in one orientation. If I'm putting a panel together I'll draw a triangle that crosses the seam of all three so that I know the grain oreintation goes back just the way I intended. Its like a little jigsaw puzzle.
what are you building? A wooden rocket ship, Also whats with the aluminun foil tape.
"because finishes with strong solvent like lacquer tend to dissolve the glue under the tape so that the tape shrinks and comes off"
Why would have masking tape on your work during the finishing process.
If you want to polish the wood befor hand , do so then put a lite pencil mark somewhere obvious polish it off after glue up.
Also what is a FYemWuk5Lv? With a tag name like that and no profile info, I almost want to call you Charles .
gofigure57:
She's using the
gofigure57:
She's using the aluminun foil tape to mask off areas she doesn't want her sprayed on lacquer finish to cover. I get that much. Also, she wants somebody to give her a complicated secret marking code for identifying which part gets glued to what that not only identifies the mating pieces, but tells you what each part is, how it is to be orientated, and when it gets added to the assembly. Also, if you're up to it, tell her how to stack/store the parts to keep them from being damaged, and yet organized so that assembly is as efficient as possible. And oh, don't fail to cover the added complexity of subassemblies. If you can't do all that you obviously aren't a professional, or are willfully witholding information. Personally, I would like to be a nice guy and help this lady out, but sometimes you just can't do it when every effort is being made to complicate things. This is exactly how our government works. If there is a simple, cheap solution that actually works the government discounts it, ignores it, or changes the parameters of the problem so there is no solution. May God bless the person who is clever enough to give this lady the answer she seeks. Where's Mel when you actually need him. I think he is just the guy to explain the secret marking code.
gdblake
Aurel,
You might want to familiarize yourself with the Dewey Decimal system as a guide for coding your projects. It's worked well for the libraries of the world for about 125 years and does a pretty good job with the internet too. It would allow you to work in the associations you've mentioned and give you consistency between projects.
I wonder if you're making
I wonder if you're making this more complicated than it needs to be?
The most complex things I have ever made, like a 2-piece Welsh dresser and a 2-piece Chippendale secretary, required very little in the way of marking, especially for the finished pieces. Pieces that are similar and the could be mixed up can easily be marked with triangles--example, face frame parts. But they are obviously face frame parts and would not need marking to distinguish them from, say, carcass parts, shelves, doors or drawer parts. Same for drawer parts, etc. Usually, a simple triangle mark with no additional numbering is sufficient, because the pieces that belong to any particular sub-assembly clearly go together and don't need marking to differentiate them from the parts of another sub-assembly. If they do, then that's when I might include a number inside the angle of each part of the triangle.
Aurel, you do seem to be getting tangled up for no really good reason. I use a very simple system, similar to the methods outlined by others. Mark the male and female parts with corresponding letters, eg, A-A. A on the tenon, and A on the matching mortise. You can't really go wrong.
As for orientation, that too is simple. Let's assume you need to identify all the parts in a table frame. Start with A marked on the face of the front left hand tenon of the front rail: mark a corresponding A on the front left hand leg mortise. Mark B on the front left hand leg side rail mortice: mark B on the corresponding side rail tenon. Continue working your way around the frame clockwise using up letters C, D, E, F, G and H. Then mark up the stretchers using a similar system starting with J, then K, L, etc.
You can do the same with frame and panel doors. Get into the habit of always starting your lettering at the same corner, eg, the bottom left hand corner, or the top right hand corner-- whatever is your preference.
If you run out of letters in the alphabet, start again at A but make it A², then A³, etc. In the end, the KISS principle is best. Work out a simple logical system for yourself. I know it works because I've had to go through the alphabet using increasing additions of A up to 12 or 15 times-- I can't actually remember how many recyclings of the alphabet I've had to use. However, you can rest assured that when you get up into that number of joints the job is getting pretty darned complex, but I've always managed relatively easily. Slainte.
Folks,
Thanks for your interest to address the issues am raising. First, my name is Aurel Ionica, and I am a guy although my last name, Ionica, does sound like a lady's name. I am building a desk, a book case with two bodies (a base and shelves on top), a dresser and a chest of drawers. All the legs and the posts are laminated with miter lock joins. All the tenons and mortices are through like Arts and Crafts style. As someone realized, I use aluminum masking tape to cover the areas where the glue is applied because the finish is polished, so all the pieces have to be finished and polished before assembly. As I am sure you realize, all the cuts have to be very accurate so that when you set up your machines to make a cut, lets say, lock mitre joints, its better to run all the pieces at the same time. Similarly, with all the tenons and mortices of the same sizes. Moreover, because polishing requires to let the lacquer cure really well so that the grain does not show in the surface after you polish it, you need to spay many pieces at the same time to be efficient and you cannot apply the coats too quickly, otherwise you get fish eye. A desk or a dresser has 8 legs and each one has from 4 - 6 through mortices. There are several sizes of drawers but there are duplicates of each size. Because all the pieces of furniture are built in a specific style, there are identical parts not only on each piece, but identical on different pieces. I agree that when you build a table with four legs, four aprons and a top you do not need more than a few letters to know where each tenon goes, but when you built a complex project and you are working with hundreds of pieces at the same time, things can get very confusing, particularly when you have to let them sit around for some time to cure. And someone realized that there is a problem with how to store them, but I have a solution for that. I already built a desk when I developed a crude system of marking of my own only to discover that at some points I got confused and that is the reason I want to perfect it because now I will be working with many more pieces. If you built small projects one at a time and apply the finish when everything is glued up, I agree that a complex marking system is not necessary but on projects like mine it is extremely important. I am beginning to realize that I am trying to solve a problem which no one has had so far or may be you have such good memories that you make a piece, put it aside, pick it up a month later and you know precisely where it is supposed to go.
I too have worked on large projects with hundreds of pieces, and in some cases there were thousands of pieces. When you get into that scale there are inevitably masses of pieces all the same. The solution is therefore relatively simple in that you group identical parts and stack them together on carts, in boxes, or in storage racks, etc. In reality when you are working on that scale you've entered the realm of batch or mass production which calls for a batch or mass production method of organising your work and materials throughput.
Let's say you have sixteen drawers to make all the same. A likely scenario is that you will process 34 drawer sides, 17 drawer fronts and 17 drawer backs because you always need a few extra parts so that you can reject a few. Your final selection of which four parts go together at assembly takes place at final assembly time, not at the beginning of the job.
Take, for example, a typical job I've worked on where we had an order for fifty dining chairs for a golf club dining room. In all there were 1265 parts machined up to provide enough materials for, in theory, 55 chairs. Obviously there are 200 legs required, but we machined up 220, ie, 55 front left legs, 55 front right legs, 55 rear left legs and 55 rear right legs. Initially we were able to machine 110 front legs as one batch, and 110 rear legs as another batch. These batches were stacked together in two separate piles. Next you have to sub-divide these two batches into left rear and right rear legs and left front and right front legs thus making four batches.
We used similar systems for all the other parts; crown rails, back splats, side rails, rear rails, stretchers, central stretcher medallions, etc. We were organised and compartmentalised in our materials throughput. We knew where everything was, and there were labels attached to each stack.
In the end we were able to make 51 perfect chairs, plus one that was just about passable, and the remaining parts made up to make the other three chairs were all scrapped as being of inferior quality.
Your description of the scale you are working at indicates you are working at a lower volume of production than this, but perhaps you need to organise yourself into this kind of mindset to be able to keep up with all the parts and their place in your product. Slainte.
SgianDubh,
I think that you understand perfectly well the kind of situation I am talking about when an intuitive system of identifying the parts is critical. I am not doing production work because, as I said, is a kind of Arts and Crafts style with through mortises and tenons in which each joint has to be fitted individually, but in production work like the one which you describe where more than one person is working on larger projects, an identification system is the more critical. I agree that keeping the parts together is important and that’s what I am doing. Your example with the drawers matches my situation very well because I have 10 drawers which are the same height and all are the same depth (2 on the desk, 2 on the bookcase, 3 on the dresser and 3 on the chest) so I have 20 drawer sides which look the same but ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. If you take a drawer side and is marked T3, that does not tell you which drawer it goes to and you need to go through all the drawer fronts or backs to find the one which is marked T3. You are right, you do not decide where each part goes when you cut identical parts, but once you match them, you need to identify it so that no mater how many operations are done on it and how many people work on it, eventually it will end up where you decided when you matched the grain. In your example with hundreds of chairs, would it not be nice to have a system so that you pick up a chair leg and by looking at the marking, you can tell that it is front left leg of chair no. 73 and if you want the stretchers that connect to it, go to the pile of stretchers and looking at the markings, pick exactly the ones that go with that leg? When pieces are finished before assembly, this convenience is even more important so that you can stack them in the proper order because they cannot touch each other on any surface in the stack and you cannot just go through the pile of pieces as you do with unfinished parts. When it comes to finishing, I need to separate all the pieces for one project, lets say the desk, apply the finish, put it aside to cure, then separate the parts for the next piece, an so on, so knowing which parts you are dealing with at all time is not easy and is not as straightforward as it is with smaller projects. I realize that there is no such system but, as I said, I developed a crude one when working on a desk and I am trying to perfect it based on some problems I ran into. I hope that some day we will have a system and those who write articles describe not only the way the make the pieces, but how they mark them to keep track of them. Thanks to all for your imput.
Aurel Ionica
PS: That funny identifier was assigned to me by the system and I did not know that you could pick your own.
Aurel, there are systems out there for doing what you want. Using IT you could use a bar coding system much the same as furniture mass producers do and identify each part with a bar coded label and scan the labels. These systems are probably more expensive and clumsy for what you need and hand labelling is more than adequate.
You cited matching a stretcher to a chair leg from my earlier post. It's seldom that you need to do this in a large scale production for you machine all these parts, build in some tolerance, and just about any left stretcher will fit between any left rear leg and left front leg, whether they're pre-finished or not.
In the case of your drawer parts, the only time it will matter which drawer part fits with the other three parts is where the joinery is all executed by hand. If the joinery is done with machines, then, again, pretty much any set of four drawer parts will go together (whether pre-finished or not). In your case you are only trying to match ten drawers so the letters A-D will identify all the corners, where A2 will match A2 and A3 will match A3, etc.
I wonder if you are trying to bring a one-off hand crafted mindset to what is in reality a batch or mass production operation? I don't know the answer to that, but I do wonder if that may be what is causing the most difficulty. Slainte.
SgianDubh,
The drawers have through tenons through the drawer fronts but even if the backs have hand cut dovetails, you cannot mix the drawer sides. Yes, your are right, I am not talking about mass production and buying a bar code system and scanner is not justified. I want to use printed labels on the computer with the markings and apply them to each piece after they are matched and until the tenons and mortises are cut, but then I intend to discard the labels and transfer the markings from the labels on actual pieces where they become hidden after assembly but are easily visible when the pieces are in a stack. Of course, the markings are going to be covered in most cases by aluminum tape while applying the finish, but when I apply the finish I do not need to see any markings anyway. When I assembly the pieces, I need to remove the tape in order to apply the glue and that’s when I need to see the markings again. When you are not pre-finishing the pieces, you can write on each one “left drawer side, top right drawer on desk” because after you glue up the drawer, you do the sanding and all the markings are removed and it does not matter any more that you do not have any markings as long as the drawer is now one piece and there is no danger of mixing its parts with other similar ones. I suspect that those who feel that I am trying to make a problem where there is none have never tried to pre-finish pieces of a relatively larger project with many similar parts. As I said, I ran into this problem while building a prototype for the style of furniture I have designed and since I’ve read articles about pre-finishing parts before assembly, I know that it cannot be just my problem. I agree that with the system of letters and numbers you eventually manage to get all the pieces together, but I think it is very tedious and confusing, particularly if you pre-finish the pieces. The system which I developed as I was working on the desk worked better than the system with letters and number because most of the time I knew which piece I was working on and where it was placed in the project, but at several points I had to stop and re-assembly everything to make sure that I did not fit the wrong pieces together or place a piece in the wrong position. I did interchange two pieces in the end but they were hidden parts and it did not mater. I know that I am going to do better next time and eventually I’ll have a very simple and practical system, but I am surprised to discover that the kind of situation I am describing is basically un-mapped territory in woodworking. In my cutting lists now I have included columns not just with the sizes and the description of parts, but also with the markings which need to go on each piece so that I can print the labels and apply them on each piece as I decide where it goes. I know that my system is not perfect and I will find later ways to simplify it but I envision a time when there will be a standardized system of marking each individual piece just as there is a standardized system of marking the dimensions of each piece which anyone can read and understand. I think woodworking is still dependent on machining in the sense that woodworking has adopted the system of drafting and marking the dimensions of pieces but has not gone beyond it and assign some extra symbols that identify each individual piece with its position in a project. In machining, as long as identical pieces have the right dimensions and tolerances, it does not matter how you assembly them because grain structure in metals is not visible. In working with wood, grain is a major design factor so that it is critical that each piece not only has the proper dimensions, but also is un-ambiguously marked and identified both on the drawings, in the cutting lists, and on the actual pieces. I agree that woodworking is an art and not a science and many would want to keep it an art as free of science as possible, but personally I want to use all my energy on the art part and let the science part keep me from headaches.
It sounds like you are basically doing assembly line work and trying to operate a production shop. If that is the case what you are really needing is a material management system. Here is a link that may or may not be helpful. I didn't read through everything on their site.
http://www.trifactor.com/Material-Handling-Engineering-and-System-Design/Material-Handling-System-Project-Management
If you do an internet search on material management you should be able to get some ideas. A local university library may be helpful as well.
Given your fuller description of what you are doing it sounds to me like you need to tag your individual parts and create a bin storage system for keeping them organized. I don't think a marking system alone is going to help you keep up with a few hundred parts that are constantly being used and replaced.
gdblake
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