What Tools You Actually Need to Build Flat-Pack Furniture

The short list, and why each one is on it

Flat-pack furniture comes with a folded hex key and a bag of hardware, and the makers aren't lying when they say that's all you need, but they're only telling you what will technically finish the job rather than what will finish it square and still solid in 5 years. There aren't many tools on this list and none of them are expensive, so it's worth having them in a drawer before the box turns up rather than halfway through the build with panels all over the lounge room floor.

The hex key set, and why the one in the box isn't enough

The little folded key that comes with the furniture is short on purpose, because a short key can't generate much torque and that stops people crushing the panels. The trouble is that it also rounds itself off, and once the end is rounded it starts rounding the screw heads too. A proper set with ball ends will reach a bolt at an angle, which matters constantly on a half assembled carcass where the panel above is already in the way, and the longer arm means you can feel what's happening instead of guessing.

Screwdrivers, and the one thing everybody gets wrong

A flat-pack screw is usually Pozidriv rather than Phillips, and they look close enough that most people never notice. A Pozidriv head has four extra fine lines between the arms of the cross, and if you put a Phillips driver into one it sits high, cams out under load and chews the head into a useless dimple. A driver set'll have both, so it's worth a look at the screw before you reach for the handle. A magnetic tip is worth the extra, if only because it stops the screw dropping down the back of the panel you've just stood up.

A rubber mallet for the dowels

Timber dowels and locating pegs want to be tapped home flush, and a steel hammer on a raw chipboard edge will bruise it in one hit. A rubber mallet spreads the blow and leaves no mark, and it's also what you use to persuade a back panel into its groove when it's half a millimetre proud.

Tape measure and a level

Measure the space before the box gets opened, because a wardrobe that won't clear the doorway is a bad afternoon and a bookcase that overhangs a power point is worse. Once it's built, a small level across the top tells you whether the floor is out, and the answer's nearly always yes. Pack under one foot until the doors line up, because a cabinet that is out of level will not close square no matter how hard you look at the hinges.

Where flat-pack actually goes wrong

None of the failures are about tools at all, so this is the part worth reading twice.

• Over-tightening into chipboard. Chipboard holds a thread once and there's no second go at it, so nip it up by hand at the end, and if you're using a drill, put it on the lowest clutch setting and stop it before the screw seats so you finish the last turn yourself.
• Cam locks forced past their stop. The round disc turns about half a turn and then stops, and that stop is the design rather than a jam. Keep going and you'll crack the panel from the inside where you can't even see it.
• Building on a hard floor. Flatten the box out and build on the cardboard. It saves the panel faces and it saves the floor, and it costs nothing because you already have it.
• Starting before you've read it through. Half the parts in flat-pack are handed, so a panel goes in one way round and one way only, and the drawing that tells you which way is usually two steps earlier than the mistake.
• Losing the hardware. Tip each type into its own container and count them against the parts list before you start. A missing cam bolt you find at step 3 is a phone call, and the same bolt at step 19 is a dismantle.

Shop related products

• Supercraft 7-Piece Ball-End Metric Allen Key Set. Ball ends so you can reach a bolt on an angle, and metric is what flat-pack uses.
• Rubber Mallet, 450g. Taps dowels home without bruising a chipboard edge.
• Supercraft Hi-Vis Tape Measure, 8m. For measuring the gap before the box gets opened.
• Supercraft Torpedo Level. Small enough to sit on a shelf inside a cabinet, which is where you need it.

Did you know we also keep a fair bit of this in the shop that never made it onto the website. Screwdriver sets from a 10 piece up to a 19 piece, hex key sets in 18 and 25 piece, carpenter's pencils and a mechanical pencil set for marking, fluted dowels in 6mm, 8mm and 10mm for when you split one, and knee pads for the long builds. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

Have a read of these next

• The skills worth learning when you first own a home
• Clever Hidden Storage Ideas for Small Homes and Units

I'm a great believer in reading the instructions all the way through first and a fairly unreliable practitioner of it, so do as I say on that one.

Candeece

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