IKEA engineered joinery

[Packard]

About 10 years ago, I read that IKEA had developed a revolutionary new joinery method. I have not heard anything about it since.  Is it in production?  Is it limited exclusively to IKEA products?  What kind of equipment would be needed to make this type of joint. Both sites have videos.  The Daily Mail’s video is better.
https://www.core77.com/posts/59321/How-Ikeas-New-Joinery-is-Advancing-Their-Design
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/n...dge-dowel-spell-end-tools-IKEA-furniture.html

 

[woodferret]

Very likely a CNC with a custom router bit that resembles a finger jointing bit.

That said, Keilverbinder Dovetail (https://keilverbinder.de/ ) is based on the same principle except just uses a dovetail instead of rounded fingers. 

Engineering wise, the KV Dovetail is more compact and has less of an issue with grain/thread/finger failures.  Do keep in mind that any threading one does on a long grain piece effectively cuts those fibres short and drastically reduces their sheer limit.  That's why for small joiners, we see more resin/plastic products than something that is cut into the wood itself.

For larger projects, or wood only ones, there's engineered mulitplex/plywood inserts that resemble the bed locking hardware. =1572s (Jump to 26:15)

That type of stuff I think why we didn't see Ikea's idea take off or anyone directly copy it.  There became so many more efficient ways to skin that cat.

 

[Packard]

Wood is not the only material that has grain.

We had a customer that made gaskets for Diesel engines. Both the head and the engine block had circular grooves that accepted a stamped ring about 4” in diameter. The gasket was copper.  When they tightened the head bolts the ring would press the gasket into the groove making a good seal.  Apparently the compression was so high that regular gaskets would blow out.

The problem was that the steel had grain running in one direction. Since the rings were just 0.020” wide, the areas where the length of the grain were only 0.120” would blow out.

We made those same rings from wire and butt welded the ends.  The grain in the wire runs the length of the wire, so there were no sections that were weak.

The quality of the weld was the only concern. 

The customer sent our samples out to be photographed with an electron microscope. The first ground the wire ring to 0.060” (half the original thickness).

They reported that the grain structure was “completely homogeneous” ( they no longer were able to locate the position of the weld).

Pretty off topic, but I thought it was interesting.

 

[squall_line]

The LISABO and REGISSÖR lines that were referenced in the Dailymail video are still in production at IKEA.

The main difference between those and the Keilverbinder Dovetail are that the IKEA versions are integrated into the unit and don't use any non-wood hardware or fasteners.