Make loose-tenon joinery without a Festool Domino

mortise and tenon joinery is fundamental to good sturdy woodworking in the old timey days the mortise would be chopped by hand and the tenon would be cut one cheek at a time with a hand saw modern routers have made it much faster to cut mortises and while machines like the table saw have taken a lot of the elbow grease out of cutting the tenon half of the joint they still must be cut one cheek at a time and that leaves room for airs to creep in but if the mortise is the easier half of the joint why not cut two mortises and connect them with a loose tenon loose tenons are much faster to make you merely rip a board to the right width at the table saw around the edges of the router table and cut it up into short pieces you can create dozens of tenons in just a few minutes now that we've simplified tenons let's turn our attention back to those mortises if you have several to make in a single project it pays to spend a couple of minutes and a few scraps to create a custom jig here we've cut some scraps of plywood the larger pieces are about six or eight inches by three or four inches their exact size isn't important but the thin strips in the center are important they're exactly as wide as the bushing you've installed on your router it doesn't matter what size that bushing is just make the center strips in your jig the same width next determine the rough length you wish your mortise to be this isn't an exact science just be sure it's shorter than the end of your narrowest work piece that you wish to use the jig on keep in mind as you glue your jig together that the actual mortise you're going to cut will be slightly shorter than the space you've just created due to the offset created by the bushing surrounding your router bit fight the desire to get out your calculator and figure out how much that offset is it doesn't matter because the exact length of the mortise doesn't matter now we have to attach our fence to our jig place the plate you just assembled on top of your work piece and center the hole by eye now scribe a line with a pencil on the underside of that plate along the edge of your work piece to indicate where your fence will be mounted it is critical that this line be parallel to the mortise if it's off your mortises will be crooked and you'll have all sorts of assembly issues the easiest way to ensure that that line is parallel is to replace the line with the kerf you cut at the table saw this is accurate because we know the edge of the plate is parallel to the edge of the mortise and the table saw fence will ensure that the kerf will be as well the distance of that curve from the mortars isn't that important we just eyeballed it when we drew with pencil line so don't stress over that when you cut your curve all that matters is the kerf is parallel to the mortise now get yourself another scrap of wood raise the table saw blade and skim the edge leaving a tongue that will fit into that kerf it'll only take a couple of passes slowly raising the blade until the tongue fits perfectly what you've created is a fence that will self-align with the mortise as you attach it to the jig securing it with screws that's it for the jig let's cut some mortises lay your work pieces together as they will be assembled with the show faces up here we're making a door which is a perfect project for this type of joinery draw lines across the center of each joint these lines will help you position your jig so use a square to extend them around the edge or end where your mortise will actually be cut notice how we've also drawn a line at the center of the jig's mortise opening this line can be aligned with the center line on your work piece and the jig is clamped in place it's important that the jig's fence is always placed on the outer face of the work piece that's why it doesn't matter if the mortise hole was perfectly centered on the edge of the work piece when we laid out the position of the fence as long as you always place that fence on the outer show face of every work piece everything will line up perfectly you should have no problem keeping track of which are the show faces because that's where you drew those center lines earlier so the jig always covers those lines i recommend an upcut spiral router bit i'll link to the one i use below this video up cut bits will help pull the chips up out of the mortise keeping the bit cooler so it'll last longer however you still have to take several shallow passes going about a quarter inch deeper with each one and if you're cutting a large deep mortise you may still have issues clearing chips unless you pause and vacuum them out from time to time remember clearing those chips are essential to keeping your bit cool and sharp if you're getting a lot of vibration as you make each pass you may change your tactics instead of moving the router sideways through each cut plunge the bit repeatedly downward to full depth boring a series of overlapping holes down the length of the mortise this is my favorite method especially when cutting deep mortises once most of the waste is gone you can clean things up with the final pass across the mortise's length at full depth after you cut your first mortise you'll know how wide to cut that loose tenon stock without having to calculate for that bushing offset remember tenon stock is cut in long pieces which are then cross cut into many loose tenons it's not a bad idea to actually cut your tenon stock narrower than the length of the mortise this gives you room to adjust the position of the assembled work pieces in case you don't position your jig perfectly on your center line or if you just want to make an adjustment during assembly the strength of the joint is in all the glue surface on the faces of the loose tenon it will not be weakened if the tenon is narrower than the mortise's length and that's all there is to it loose tenon joinery is easy to make it's super strong and now you know how to do it too try it out in your next project feather boards improve the quality and safety of table saw and router table cuts if you use them hedgehog feather boards are designed to be easier to use with a single knob and one-handed operation for quick adjustments there are no more excuses check them out at the link below this video wait don't go yet if you're new here please subscribe and remember to ring the bell i would really appreciate that give us a thumbs up or better yet leave us a comment i always read them and be sure to check out the latest issue of stumpy nubs woodworking journal it's always packed with tips tricks and tutorials designed to make you a better woodworker

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 221,573

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, tips, workbench, table saw, scroll saw, drill press, quick tip, band saw, bandsaw, lumber, hack, hand plane, sharpening, tormek, worksharp, diamond stone, water stone, wood turning, bowls, lathe

Id: Bx1Mg2mTMO0

Length: 5min 59sec (359 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020