M/T how to?

[Jim Murphy]

My FDIL (future daughter in law) wants me to build a support understructure (table) for a marble tabletop she has. The tabletop will be 36x72. She wants completely straight, square legs (think 4x4 post) and simple rails. I'm befuddled on the best way to go about ruining valuable wood on this thing.

I'm thinking that the legs will be built with a "core + wrap" method, using a 2x2 glueup core and facing it with mitered material to make a 3.5" square leg.

My first inclination is to M/T the rails into the legs. But I'm waffling on how to cut the tenons in an almost 6' long piece of material. Tenoning jig is out, obviously.

I considered loose tenons, but I've never held my router horizontally (to mortise into the endgrain of the rail) while running and don't plan to start now. Nor have I routed while standing on a ladder. Ain't gonna try that, either.

I guess the router with perhaps a rabbeting bit is one way to go, but I fear that absent some sort of elaborate setup jig to guarantee repeat cuttings, I would end up with seriously mismatched tenons.

Maybe the bandsaw is the right way to fly with this. Fence + stop?

Who has done this, and let me hear all about the DAMHIKT tips.

Thank you for your input.

 

[MikeH]

Jim,
I'm building my workbench with M/T joints and on the rails I actually glued 3 pieces together. I left the center piece long as the tenon and all I need to do is clean up the shoulders of the tenon.

Not sure if this is the best way, but since my rails are 60" long I didn't have many other choices.

HTH,

 

[DavidF]

When I did the 6' long bed rails recently I did mount my router horizontally and that worked well, but you could cut the tenon shoulders on the Table saw with a sliding cross cut box and then route the waste away with the router, that would probably be my choice in this case. A stop block in the cross cut box will ensure that all the shoulders of the tenon match up when you flip it over.

 

[jeff...]

Jim I rough out on the TS, run the edge of the board against the side of the blade till it hits the fence continue to move back and forth and forward slowly and carefully, once it's roughed out and oversizeed, I sand it with rough paper wrapped in a square block back to the line to finish it off. It's medevil no doubt but seems to work pretty well for me on those long stretchers. It's better than how I was doing it rough carving them out with a circular saw which was more caveman era...

Thanks

 

[Joe Scharle]

If you could find someone nearby that has a Shopsmith, you could use the horizontal boring mode to drill out the mortises. Then square them up by hand to fit your loose tenons. I built a grape arbor using 12' 4X4s this way.

 

[cpowell]

I have done the same type of work on large bed frames.

I do the cheek cuts on the TS using a miter gauge. I set the fence and clamp a block to serve as a final depth stop, ensuring all tenons are the same length. If I don't have too many tenons to cut, I have always used the TS and nibbled away until I got the blade height just right. Tom Hintz does a great job describing this method here http://www.newwoodworker.com/tipsmortenon.html. The nibbling technique is time consuming but dead nuts accurate and creates perfect joints for me.

When I constructed the base for my workbench I made the full depth cheek and shoulder cuts on the TS then cut away the shoulders and cheeks using the BS with a stop. Make sure the BS blade is tensioned and supported by the guides to prevent blade wandering and this works just fine. I cut mine a smidge heavy and cleaned with a very sharp chisel...a hand plane would be better but I didn't have one suited for the task.


Chuck

 

[jeff...]

I have done the same type of work on large bed frames.

I do the cheek cuts on the tablesaw using a miter gauge. I set the fence and clamp a block to serve as a final depth stop, ensuring all tenons are the same length. If I don't have too many tenons to cut, I have always used the TS and nibbled away until I got the blade height just right. Tom Hintz does a great job describing this method here http://www.newwoodworker.com/tipsmortenon.html. The nibbling technique is time consuming but dead nuts accurate and creates perfect joints for me.

When I constructed the base for my workbench I made the full depth cheek and shoulder cuts on the TS then cut away the shoulders and cheeks using the BS with a stop. Make sure the BS blade is tensioned and supported by the guides to prevent blade wandering and this works just fine. I cut mine a smidge heavy and cleaned with a very sharp chisel...a hand plane would be better but I didn't have one suited for the task.


Chuck

Chuck that's how I do it cept a sand to final size and here I thought I was being midevil, thanks for the link :-D

 

[woodnick]

Check my post on 11/14/2007 Woodnick

 

[DaveO]

Straight edge clamp, router with a straight bit, and some same thickness stock to help support the router. Hand saw to trim the narrow side cheeks.
Or a Stanley #78 and #93

Dave

 

[cpowell]

Chuck that's how I do it cept a sand to final side and here I thought I was being midevil, thanks for the link :-D

So...great minds think alike?? :lol: :lol: :lol:


Chuck

 

[Ozzie-x]

I will vote for tablesaw the shoulders then bandsaw off the waste, the secret in this being a well tuned bandsaw. I just completed a project with ~54" rails and had the same [STRIKE]problems[/STRIKE] challenges. Normally I would have gone the TS/BS route, except the shoulders were kicked 10 degrees, bandsaw blade was shot, etc, etc, so I just marked them and cut them with a tenon saw. Cleaned up and fine tuned the tenons with a #140 block plane, and they fit well. To make the long rip cuts in the tenons, I stood the rails and a 2x4 up in my bench vice, clamped the rail to the 2x4 up near the cut, then stood on an OSHA approved sheetrock bucket to saw.

 

[newtonc]

I have always cut 75% of my joinery by hand.I don't see an equal.
To bad you're over a 4 hour round trip from me.Those tenons could be cut by hand before any jig/router/TS could be set up.

 

[jeff...]

So...great minds think alike?? :lol: :lol: :lol:


Chuck

Yeah they do :-D. I thought one day hey I have this spinning blade on a table you know why not use it? And the cool thing is it worked, go figure...