Furniture construction and method of manufacturing

Abstract

Office furniture units, particularly desks, are fabricated panel members cut from standard pre-finished flat wood panels, their precise final configuration, by an NC controlled automatic router, including all holes, recesses and the like required in each panel member. The panel members have configurations which constitute the intelligence to assure their precise alignment as they are subassembled into furniture panel components by securing the appropriate panel members together in multiple layers, and for reception of two-part mechanical fasteners in appropriate positions to insure proper positioning of the panel components with respect to one another in the final assembly of the panel components into a functional office furniture unit. The panel components are assembled with one another in T-joint fashion, with the edge surface of one panel abutting a major side surface of the respective transverse panel to which being joined, using cam-type fastener components which secure the panel components together in firm edge-abutment relationships. The multiple layers of panel members provide reinforcement and rigidity of the panel components where necessary, as well as visual thickness effect. In each instance, one of the panel members is of the configuration of the final panel component. Several of the panel members include edge tabs which protrude laterally of the respective subassembled components for interfitting in recesses provided in mating panels to provide enhanced shear strength across the T-joint interpanel connections in the final assembly of the furniture unit. The structure and method also provide flexibility to produce differing furniture items in successive machining and assembly operations, for rapid production of a variety of different products 'to order' from a single machine production line.