Tools for DIY furniture making and assembly

Measuring tool for furniture making

At all stages of making furniture with your own hands, you will need a measuring tool. Even if you just wanted to assemble ready-made IKEA furniture, you can’t do without measurements.

Markers and pencils. Markers come in different thicknesses, mostly alcohol-based, which can be easily erased when the mark is no longer needed.
Tape measure and square. It is worth taking a responsible approach to the choice of this measuring instrument and giving preference to those options where there will be no doubt about the accuracy of the calibration.
Awl. Using an awl and a pencil, it is convenient to mark the places for screwing in self-tapping screws and holes for confirmations, shelf holders and other fasteners.
Level. Strictly speaking, this tool for making furniture with your own hands will only be needed at the very initial stage - measurements. In order to correctly develop a design project for a built-in wardrobe, it is important to take into account the curvature of the walls and the difference in horizontal and vertical planes. You will also need a level when installing already assembled modules.
Furniture templates and conductors. Ready-made furniture jigs for marking holes for guides, hinges, handles and other fasteners make the process much easier. After all, in fact, all connecting holes in furniture are applied in the same way, according to the well-known “System 32”.

Furniture templates for marking furniture parts can be purchased ready-made.

Or make it yourself from thick cardboard, leftovers and scraps of thin plastic, fiberboard, HDF.

Tool for cutting and edging furniture parts

Cutting parts to size and then gluing the visible ends is rarely done at home. It is much easier to order cutting and edging in a workshop. Many companies that supply chipboards offer these services locally. It's very convenient and ultimately cheaper. If you take into account your own labor costs for the need to transport entire sheets of chipboard, their loading and unloading, the cutting itself, sanding the ends and covering them with melamine tape, as well as all the costs of electricity and consumables. Value your time.

In addition, cutting on a wide-format machine is much more accurate and of higher quality than manual cutting, and PVC edges are many times superior to melamine edges in terms of durability and aesthetics.

But there are some designs of built-in furniture (in particular wardrobes) that require adjustment and sawing in place. Some beveled and radius shelves are also designed during installation. This is how hobs and sinks are embedded into kitchen countertops.

In these cases, you should ensure that you have the following tools for making furniture:

Jigsaw with wood files . The main electric tool for making furniture with your own hands, if you need to saw parts at home. The length of the file is selected according to the thickness of the material (it can be fiberboard with a thickness of 4-5mm, chipboard with a thickness of 10-25mm, postforming with a thickness of 26-38mm). As well as narrow files for decorating radii with reverse and straight teeth without streaking.
Manual router for removing edge overhang . It will be needed when gluing and subsequent processing of PVC edges with a thickness of 1-2mm. The technology requires a certain skill and additional study to carry out at home.
Grinder machine. An indispensable tool when installing built-in wardrobes. Using a sander, you can adjust the parts to fit the unevenness on the wall, for a tighter and more aesthetic connection without gaps. The grinder is also used to smooth the ends after cutting with a jigsaw, in order to glue the melamine edge more accurately and evenly.
Iron or hair dryer. The melamine tape is glued with a regular iron and gently pressed until it is completely glued. You can use a hair dryer for these purposes, manually pressing the edge with a rag. Wear gloves, otherwise you may get burned.
A stationery knife and a blunt knife, sandpaper 40, 60, “one” and “zero”. Excess glue and edges are carefully cut off with knives, then the cut edges are sanded to a visually aesthetic appearance.
Silicone sealant or wax, wax restoration crayons, touch-ups for masking defects and scratches . This set of consumables cannot be classified as a tool for assembling furniture with your own hands, but in the process you will definitely need it for processing cuts, accidental defects, etc.

Jigsaw

To trim in place, create bevels and radii on parts, you need a jigsaw. It can be safely called an indispensable power tool for any furniture maker. It is rarely used when assembling furniture, but very often you cannot do without it during installation (especially kitchen sets). Because without it you won’t be able to fit either the sink or the hob into the countertop.

Let's list the main characteristics that a good jigsaw should have, it should be:

Heavy, because in this case it is convenient for them to work (there is no need to apply additional effort when cutting).
Have good power (450-750 W).
Have a saw speed regulator.
It should be possible to attach any type of nail file.

DIY tool for pre-assembling furniture and wardrobes

Before assembly, it is necessary to mark the parts and drill the joints for confirmation in the ends and front parts of the chipboard. This process will make further assembly much easier.

Also, preliminary marking will be required for attaching various lifting and sliding mechanisms, furniture hinges, shelf holders, rod holders and other fittings.

For the marking process, at the initial stage you will need all the measuring tools described above.

To add parts (drill holes) at home, you will need a simple hand tool:

Drill. Drilling holes in furniture parts does not require a high power drill; 350W is sufficient. The main thing is that it is light and comfortable - after all, for large volumes of making furniture with your own hands, you will have to hold this tool in your hand for quite a long time. The drill will require a set of drills - confirmat, wood and metal drills 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10mm. And also Forstner drills 15 and 20mm for installing minifixes and eccentrics, 26 and 35mm for inserting furniture hinges, core drills 60.65 and 80mm for inserting lamps, plugs for wires (if required by the purpose and design of the furniture).
Clamps and vices. Needed when assembling large-format parts and gluing (for example, when assembling furniture dowels). Also used for direct drilling in place, without preliminary additives, to evenly clamp parts in the desired position. It is better to use quick-release clamps. Homemade variations of clamps and vices are also useful for this purpose.
Mallet. Used to install hidden fasteners (furniture dowels) and adjust conventional ones. Indispensable when inserting dense removable shelves into designated niches, since it allows you to precisely and without damage “fit” the parts to the right place.
Hammer . Needed for attaching back walls and bottoms of fiberboard drawers to small nails. But many assemblers have gotten used to screwing fiberboard onto thin self-tapping screws. Or attach to staples using a construction stapler.

Types of consumables

Jigsaw files. Thanks to removable files, it is possible to saw through chipboard.

Various jigsaw files

Quality bits for driving screws

You will need a Forstner drill bit to cut holes for overhead or internal hinges and holes for a minifix tie.

Screw and twist drills for wood for drilling through holes and holes in the ends of parts

What tools are needed to assemble furniture with your own hands and then install it locally?

The process of assembling cabinet furniture can be divided into three stages:

Pre-assembly of cabinets and cabinets, drawer frames.
Installation of furniture modules with built-in and hanging at the location.
Hanging and installing furniture facades, regulating the movement of moving mechanisms.

In the process of assembling and installing furniture with your own hands at home, you will need the following tool:

Screwdriver. Lightweight, with a removable battery of medium power, with reverse and two screwing speeds. It is better to use with a set of bits with magnetic attachments.
Screwdriver Set . Includes long-shank screwdrivers for driving hex and Phillips screws into tight spaces, plus a reversible screwdriver with bit set for hard-to-reach areas.
Hammer . Will be needed when installing wall-mounted kitchen modules and shelves in built-in wardrobes. Just like a drill, there are no increased power requirements. As a rule, a furniture assembler and installer only deals with drilling simple holes for dowels and anchors in partition walls.
Extension cord . Needed to be able to connect an electric tool in any “spontaneous” assembly location. It is better to purchase one with a wire length of 5-10m.
Hacksaw, metal scissors, grinder . In built-in wardrobes, you will need to cut a pipe with a diameter of 25 mm for installation under the hangers. And also file the top and bottom rails to fit the size of the niche in place, overhead side profiles, etc. When installing a kitchen, it is often necessary to cut parts of the hood, various pallets, joining strips, baseboards, and aluminum plinths in place.
Chisels, files, pliers, side cutters, pliers, wrenches and other small hand tools. In the process of installing a built-in and free-standing wardrobe, you may need any other hand tools that any home craftsman usually has.

The process of making furniture at home is quite labor-intensive and requires the arrangement of a special workplace. It is better to transfer all work on cutting, edging, and preliminary drilling of parts for final assembly to a workshop or garage. A tool for assembling furniture with your own hands is, in fact, a universal “gentleman’s” set that should be in any home or apartment. If you plan to assemble and install a wardrobe or kitchen on your own, just make sure that the necessary items are available and operational, buy additional consumables and other small items.