Which Woodworking Joint SHOULD YOU USE?

so up until this point I have given you very comprehensive instructions on how to cut all of these joints on the table in front of me however I haven't shown you the instances in where they should be used kind of like giving you a very complicated recipe to follow but then you not knowing the difference between peace and sweet class so in this video I'm going to give you examples of where we would use all of these joints things to consider before choosing each of them and hopefully answer some questions for you let's get going so choosing which woodworking joint you want to use is usually a bit of a balancing act between choosing something that is functional so very strong or something that is decorative because fundamentally that is what all of these joints do sometimes they correlate and look very decorative as well as being very strong in the case of a dovetail joint very high mechanical strength nests and looks very pretty as well sometimes they're stronger more than they are decorative in the case of a mortise and tenon because most of this joint is hidden in here it's not really decorative but it is incredibly strong and then sometimes they're more decorative than they are strong in the case of this miter joint we've got here it's a beautiful way to finish off a corner but in terms of strength not a whole lot in it so your job as a woodworker is to find a joint somewhere along that scale because sometimes it's also a balancing act between something you want and something you need so myself and a lot of you guys will be interested in fine furniture so we want things to look as pretty as possible so we're gonna be pushing more towards the decorative side more than anything and in some cases we might substitute something prettier for something that's actually strong so I'll explain this in more depth as we get through the video but firstly let's look at dovetails so as I said dovetails have a very very high mechanical strength because they can only be disassembled in one way and that is the way that you assembled them they cannot be a pulled apart this way because of the wedge shape of the tails which makes them great when a pulling or pushing force is being applied to this component here the pin side of it this is very important because if you get the orientation to this joint wrong then effectively you've got something that's known stronger than a simple finger joint here let's give you some examples of this an obvious case is a draw it's constantly being pulled sorry I'll flip it around this way it's constantly being pulled and pushed like this so you need to make sure that this component is not going to detach from the front which is why you see them on the side of drawers so much because it is just the joint to use in most cases however and not so obvious applications that joint is on the bottom of a carcass similar to what I did on this magazine raccoons toilet rail hold it here so when you put a book or something in here let's get one a big heavy Makepeace book when that goes in there the force is pressing down on this bottom component here so that means that over time as this book constantly gets dropped in there these joints here are getting quite a lot of stress over time and over the years so that is why I'm at the bottom of this magazine rack you'll see that the tails are facing down like this on the bottom component so as force is being applied to the bottom it doesn't matter because the mechanical strength of these dovetails is going to prevent that bit from being ripped apart from here whereas if I was to cut the tails on the bottom of this give an example of this joint here so currently on the magazine rack we've got it this way there's no way back from birth apart if you have the tails down like this this is the exact way that the tails were pressed in so over time as it gets hit it's gonna start detaching itself like that whereas if I read assemble this no matter how hard I hit this surface here there is not any chance that that is going to be detached from here unless I have some superhuman strength so keep an eye out for that one because that is usually the one that I see people get wrong and obviously the other application that you often see a dovetail used in is on the corner of a box or something like that in this case there's no real stress being applied to it because if I just kind of make a box out of these two the box is just gonna be picked up from the sides maybe from the bottom or something like that there's no force being applied to any of these components so in that case the dovetail is used for being purely decorative you're not necessarily needing that strength whatsoever so I mentioned a finger joint earlier and you might be wondering in what instance would you choose one of these over something like a duck tail joint now I haven't done a tutorial on counting this because it's pretty much exactly the same as a through dovetail you just don't angle the tails like that but this what I meant earlier when I said sometimes it's choosing between something you want and something you need so if you wanted to use a finger joint for the corner of a drawer or whatever what you've got to think yourself is is there any force being applied to this component whatsoever if it's a draw it's gonna be pulled on this face here if it's the bottom of a carcass as stuff hits it it's gonna hit that inside face there and look you'll see it's gonna detach like that so although you want to use something like a finger joint you're probably gonna need to use something like a dovetail because it's pretty obvious that this joint can be assembled this way and it can be disassembled this way so there's no orientation of this that's gonna make it particularly stronger over a dovetail providing you get that orientation right again like I said earlier if you get it wrong there's no real strength advantage of a dovetail over something like a finger joint like this other than the fact the dovetail joint can't twist whereas a finger joint can like this now I've got a lap dovetail joint here as well and this is kind of self-explanatory it is exactly the same strength that's what you'd get on a standard dovetail here however with these you just have the option of leaving the front of the pin board uninterrupted by the end grain of the dovetails like this which is why you see these on the side if drawers so often because if you've got a lovely figure on there the last thing you want is the end grain of the tails poking through or you might do in some cases you do see it quite often but there's no real strength disadvantage to using either of these so next we're going to look at the lap joint which is probably aside from the miter the simplest joint on this table so the lap joint is probably the most basic type of woodworking joint out there and is one of the first ones that you'll learn how to cut but it also carries the least amount of strength to it there's no mechanical strength in this joint whatsoever and there's no friction holding it in whatsoever either similar to what you'd see on a finger joint like this although there's no mechanical strength holding it together you've still got friction there that kind of binds them together like that the only real strength of this joint has is with the glue that holds it together because without that you can move this joint apart in all three axes and because of this this joint is pretty much purely decorative whereas if you wanted something with a little bit more strength on the corner you could choose something like a bridle joint like this which doesn't necessarily have any mechanical advantage over a standard lap joint but it does have friction on its side as well as two gluing faces and it can only move apart in two axes it can't move up and down whereas a lap joint like this you'd be else disassembled like that so similarly if wanted to use a lap joint in the center of the component like this you can now only disassemble this backwards and up like that and you also now have friction on your side whereas something like this there's no friction in it whatsoever this is similar to what we see on the finger joint there's no mechanical strength to it whatsoever the only thing holding those together is a little bit of friction but if you want to go for something a little bit stronger than the lap joint like this you would go for the dovetail lap joining so this not only has friction on its side but it can only be disassembled up in the same way that we assembled the joint so again this is a question between what do you want and what do you need so say you wanted to use a lap joint like this but you're aware that this component here is going to have force applied to the top which means that if that glue joint there fails over time then you're gonna start getting gaps in this joint is gonna disassemble also perhaps this bit here was being pulled back all the time and maybe this caught on something slowly that joint is going to deteriorate over time it would be far better to choose something like a dovetail like that because you have the mechanical strength of it locking it in place and we're gonna have a brief interlude here because what I want to reiterate at this point is that there are no rules in woodworking because there are far too many people out there that tell you what you're doing is wrong even though it's working perfectly fine for you all the examples I'm given to you here are things that you should look out for I have in no means saying that you should not do them because if you wanted to do a lap joint like this then do it but just be aware that that joint probably isn't going to last as long as the dovetail joint this it is completely up to you what I'm telling you here is good practices I'm not telling you what to do so next let's look at mortise and Tenon's so mortise and Tenon's let's just get this one disassembled so as I said at the start these aren't particularly decorative because most of that paint is simply hidden inside the mortise you go through all that effort and it's all hidden like that but what you do gain from this is a hell of a lot of strength so instances where you would see a mortise and tenon joint used would be joining a rail on a chair or something like that to a leg or the rail on a side-table to the leg of it because on these joints especially chairs you get quite a lot of racking movements on them whereas someone sits down the chair kind of skews back and then moves back and forth like that and a table perhaps there's something heavy on the top and it's going to start applying stress these corners as excuse having a tight-fitting mortise and tenon joint like this it's going to prevent any of those forces from breaking it apart not to even mention the massive amount of gluing surface you've got inside there and another place you see mortise and Tenon's is on a doorframe for example so this would be the style going up the doorframe you'd have the rail going across here and you'd have some sort of panel fitted in here and the reason for this is because when constructing a mortise and tenon in the way that I've done here it's very easy to hide the groove to fit the panel in because this little haunch we've got up here you simply continue that all the way down and then the panel slots in there and then to plug this little bit at the top you just cut a little notch on the top of the tenon like that and as you can see it's kind of slotting like that so this joints very strong and because it's so minimal in its assembled appearance it doesn't detract from the panel that may be assembled in here but what if you wanted something that was a little bit more decorative well there's nothing saying you couldn't use a bridal joint for a doorframe because if you think about it think of the forces that are being applied on a door if it's up like this if you've got a handle there it's pulling this component sideways like that which means all the force is on the inside face of the mortise here there's no way that these components are gonna rip themselves apart exactly the same if you were to do the bridal joint on there how's the handle on there those two components are gonna move in unison like that the only real trade-off of using a broader joint in this instance would be cutting the groove on the inside face for the panel because you would either need to do a stopped groove to prevent it from showing on the outside face here or you could do the groove all the way through but then raise the height of this bridle joint up so that you can fit the groove in underneath but then you need to consider does that look a bit weird for the fact that the end grain here isn't quite as tall as this component here it's gonna stop like six millimeters above and the continuity of it might be a bit weird but of course that's entirely up to you there are no rules in woodworking so what if you wanted to do a mortise in the center of the component as opposed to in the corner well to be honest there's not a whole lot of difference between the strengths of doing it there with a mortise and tenon as there would be for doing it with a bridle joint similar to what you'll see on this frame here this joint can only be disassembled in the same way that it was assembled by sliding it in like that you can't move it up and down you can't move it side to side whatsoever exactly the same if you were to do a mortise and turn like that you can only put it in this way not up and not sideways like this so at this point you now have to ask yourself do I want something that is minimal like this I'm just gonna have this component simply butting up against that or do I want the exposed look of a bridle joint where this edge here is interrupted by the cross grain of this one and I can also seal on the end grain here the decoration side of things at this point is entirely up to you because they both have the same amount of strength but what if is somewhere in the middle you want that minimalist look here but then you want this edge to have something fancier in this case you could use a through mortise and tenon like this now you don't have to leave it poking out like I have here you could also playing it flush but now we've got a minimalist look on the top here but you can also see that there's proper joinery in there because that could just be a dowel joint for all everyone else those and you can make this joint super strong by actually applying wedges to the outside of the tenon here which means that you cannot disassemble this joint in any way whatsoever and the through mortise and tenon is exactly what I did on this workbench here you see you've got a dovetail joint here too then this leg cannot be ripped out the front this way but then this through morcín Tennent the reason for choosing that and the reason for wedging it is because as I lift up this tabletop because if the weight of the under frame of this those legs overtime we're going to want to pull away from this top as I'm lifting it up but because I've got this wedged tenon on all four corners it means that this top cannot detach from it whatsoever because effectively this tenon is now dovetail shaped in there this bench is well and truly stuck so that's pretty much it for mortise and Tenon's do you want it to have a minimalist look like this standard one here or do you want to have a more decorative sort of thing with a bridle joint like this or a through mortise and tenon like this just consider the different forces that are going to be applied to it so next we're going to look at miter joints so a miter joint is probably one of the most common joints the simplest joint however is probably one of the weakest ones out there if not strengthened in any way whatsoever because it's pretty much all end grain to end grain contact and if you're not too sure what I mean by this wood is a lot better at being joined when it is land grain to long grain contact like this it can also do it across like this it's not as strong but it still works the main problem here is when these components expand and contract which can be a problem sometimes when you're doing larger bridle joints and joints and things like this you'll see on these I cut them back in December time but now because it's a lot hotter you start getting small gaps and things on the side here but anyway back to the strength of glue what glue is not good at doing is gluing end grain to end gun like this because the glue kind of just soaks in like that you end up getting a dry joint if there was any sort of load being applied to the top of that it would probably just snap apart so the miter joint you've got you've kind of got an essence of the long grain because it is going at 45 degrees but then it's still opening up a load of the tubes going down through the wood here so the glue is gonna soak up and it's not going to be particularly strong so if I've really tried I could probably break this joint apart so that goes to show that miter joints I used pretty much purely for decoration they are not known for their superior strength whatsoever so a common place you see these is on the corner of a picture frame for example and now that you're aware that this joint is incredibly weak you'll probably think oh well in that case I'll just use a bridal joint for the corner of the picture frame because it's strong and it looks pretty nice at the same time but what you need to ask yourself at this point is do you actually need that strength because a picture frame it gets hung on a wall and then it's not moved for like one or two years don't get me wrong this joint is gonna hold over time and it's still probably get it on here and things like that and it is gonna hold but when it's continuous forces being applied to it in the case of the door or if you had a heavy panel or something that was installed in here and it had permanent stress being applied on the bottom as well as those forces that joints probably not gonna hold up so the simplest way of strengthening a miter joint is to use splines which increase the long grain contact within this joint and all you do is you simply cut a slot and then you install maybe a little bit of veneer or something in there and then you've got the long grain contact of this veneer touching the inside of this component which is then carrying across to this component and if you put a few of these splines in here it really does increase that strength of it you can also do this with a table saw or a spindle motor or wherever you want as long as you have something to put in there that it's going to increase that long grain contact you're gonna be able to strengthen that miter and also when you flush it off it looks pretty neat as well because you have kind of like these black inlay lines that are going across there or you can go for something more subtle of course it is entirely up to you so that's a very simple way of strengthening a miter joint but you could also do some sort of miter bridle joint for example it's exactly the same as a bridle joint except this face here you might rip like that then you get the nice clean look on the front face like that but you also have the friction and stuff of the bridle joint holding it together or you could do some sort of mitered lap joint again it's exactly the same thing you carried this component across to that corner there score it down you don't get a lot of long grain surface to glue from there but it's better than what you'd get on the miter joint and as a side note if you wanted to strengthen that joint without any fancy joinery you could use a Festool Domino or a biscuit jointer so that covers mitering a frame but what if you wanted to miter the corner of a box for example this is a little carbon-fiber job' that I started about two years ago and never actually finished but with this the same rules apply you can assemble it with glue like that and then you could strengthen it with splines but in the case of this box or if you wanted the grain to perfectly wrap around the edges having splines in there might detract from the overall look of it ideally you want something that's a little bit more hidden but in the case of this you can't do any sort of fancy mitered Bridal joint or something like that it's instances like this where you could use a secret miter dovetail which I haven't actually shown you how to cut yet because part of the reason is I've never actually tried one before so maybe that'll be a subject for a future video but if you're interested in own how to cut one of those mitch peacock has done a great video and that's all link that in the top corner now but those are incredibly difficult to cut so maybe you might want to go back to just a standard dovetail joint as opposed to a miter like this if you're not willing to strengthen it in any of the other ways unless of course you want to use a Domino or a biscuit jointer so in conclusion as a woodworker what you need to do is find the balance between something that is not only decorative but something that is true and also there's an element of what can you actually be bothered to do in terms of decoration do you want it to be exposed like you'd see on a dovetail joint here or a bridal joint like this or do you want it to be hidden like you would see on a lap stuff tail joint like this or mortise and tenon joint there's no right or wrong answer with choosing either of those but you just need to know the consequences of choosing one over the other and in regards to strength you need to think about the forces that are going to be applied to that component and how you can choose the joint to counteract that and not only counteract it but make sure that you assemble it the correct way so that that joint cannot be pulled apart and if there are no forces being applied to that component being a picture frame or a box or something like that then you literally have free reign of any of these joints choose whatever you want to do you could do something as simple as a miter joint like this or you could do a mixture between a bridal miter joint with draw boards going all the way through it if you really wanted it's entirely up to you the choice is yours as I always say there are no rules in woodworking and anyone that tells you difference that and tells you that you're doing something wrong even though it's working fine for you the only person that is wrong is them so go out there take your time to experiment a bit and make something that's going to last hundreds of years as opposed to five I'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Matt Estlea

Views: 370,607

Rating: 4.9500537 out of 5

Keywords: which woodworking joints should you use, what woodworking joint to use, woodworking joints, woodwork, woodworking, what is woodworking joint, which is the best woodworking joint, best woodworking joint, strongest woodworking joint, dovetail joint, lap joint, hand cut joinery, hand cut joints, woodworking tips, beginner woodworking, wood, woodworking joint for tables, woodworking joint for chairs, woodworking joint for frame, bridle joint, mortice and tenon, rycotewood, diy, build

Id: Pzx6cLTpAtY

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 05 2018