I am making a cat tree – there will be some platforms and a couple of moggies added to these pieces of wood. What is the best manner to connect each one of them to a 80 * 80 cm base of 18mm birch plywood ?

I’d use a couyple of large washers under the plywood and then coach bolts up into drilled pilot hole in the bottom of the ‘tree’ bits.

You’ll need two layers of ply, lower one with cutouts so the bolt heads don’t touch the floor.

Without knowing the diameter of the base of the branches you could use two or three long countersunk screws instead of a single coach screw to save having two layers of ply. It would mean the at the branch won’t unscrew itself over time too. You’ll tend to find that anything over 100mm long usually will be thicker (5mm or 6mm) and will need a chunkier PZ3 bit /screwdriver to drive it in instead of the usual PZ2

If you don’t mind an online trawl for stuff you could also look for a spigot mounting plate – a metal bar protruding from a drilled metal plate. I buy them for attaching props / scenery to lighting stands – drill the wood to a close fit to the spigot and bond it in with something like Sticks Like Shit then screw it down to your board

I am making a cat tree

I think you’ve been had. Cats don’t grow on trees. 😆

Bolting into the end grain may split the branches. Can you put jubilee clips or similar around temporarily?

I like these things…

http://www.axminster.co.uk/miller-standard-dowels-ax816467

Does that email addy in your profile work?

Screw and use PVA glue, amazingly good with wood.

Cats don’t grow on trees

Of course they do

Just starting to harvest mine. Likely to be a bumper crop – I’ll probably have to make jam

^thats how you get the cats in the trees to start with. Fireman’s Friends we call them – keeps them in a job.^

Potentially quite bit of leverage, I would be tempted to make some sort of socket personally.

If want more contact area / spread at the base you could cut a triangle of ply – screw that on edge to your baseboard then cut a slot in the base of your branch – slide it onto the triangle and screw / bolt / dowel through that.

Two triangles and a cross formation if you feel fancy.

You could engineer more strength by finding a third matching branch – screwing all three of them to one base and pinning the three branches together where they pass each other

ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree? No!

they always get down

The diameters of the trunks are 9 and 11 cms, so there is a fair bit of weight in the pieces.

The spigots look interesting, though gluing the spigot in would mean that the pieces could never be taken apart again, which might not be ideal ( not least because I am working on the trees in England and plan to re-assemble them in Holland if I can ).

2 layers of ply and coach bolts might be good, not least for adding weight to the base to make the trees stable.

Slowoldgit – the email address in my profile is made up, why do you ask ?

The spigots look interesting, though gluing the spigot in would mean that the pieces could never be taken apart again,

So long as the fit is snug they probably wouldn’t need to be glued actually

Shop around and try different search terms as the size of the plate and length of spigot can vary. The last ones I bought were from Doughty and they call them ‘wall plates’. A scaffold base plate might do the job too.

Those dowells are step-tapered, need a matching drill. Larger size would do the base, smaller would join branches. If you wanted to try them I’d mail you a few with drills. You’d only need glue. So long as I get the drills back. Won’t be until after the weekend now.

Would need home address…

I bet you 50p that no cats ever sit in those ‘branches’. And for that reason I’m ooot.

Enfht – have you been talking to Ada and Babbage ?

Slowoldgit – that is an exceedingly generous offer – thanks, but I am only in the UK for another couple of days, so I think that I will try one of the other options excluding the Sticky Fixers.

excluding the Sticky Fixers.

They’ll never let you through customs if you’ve got cats stuck to you.

They’ll never let you through customs if you’ve got cats stuck to you.

Maybe if they’re feline in a generous mood?

As this is STW you should be using a Festool Domino.

It’s the only way.

And… a picture of the tree in use with one fairly-happy pussy:

Wicked 🙂