your answer to all the pinning questions is yes yes and yes. use them however you need to hold your wood together. use the t pins to hold your parts together try to make sure your wooden parts make good contact with each other sand lightly until you get a good fit, and you can get either the locking plastic clamps or the spring loaded clamps that look like small jumper cable ends from almost any hardware store. I like the locking type clamps because you can adjust the amount of pressure you need to hold things together.