Chopping Mortise and Tenon Joints By Hand
This project has had more than its fair share of challenges. First the dovetails that needed to be cut by hand and then the tails that were cut standing on a stool with the six foot board clamped to the top of pallet rack. Now the through mortises that add strength to the carcass and keep the bottom of the case from sagging also need to be cut by hand because the board is too wide to use our mortiser.
Chopping Moritises
To make the layout and chopping of the mortises easier, I ran a stop dado in the top and the bottom of the case referencing off the fence to ensure that they are in the same orientation on both boards. I laid out the tenons on the two vertical boards, scribing them with a marking gauge slightly more than the thickness of the horizontal boards, so that the tenons stand proud of the top and bottom and can be planed flush. Then I cut them on the table saw standing them vertically and using the miter gauge to run them across a 3/4″ dado blade. I was not too concerned about the size of the tenons because I was going to scribe the mortises directly from the tenons.
After scribing the mortises, I used a forstner bit to start the mortise and finished it with a mortising chisel and mallet.
After the mortises were chopped, I fit the tenons taking care that the mortises bottomed out the same time that the front shoulders closed up.
Everything went together without a hitch, but if I were to build a case piece with similiar construction I would shoulder tenons so that I would be less concerned with gaps opening up. Also, I would have used Tage Frid’s technique of cutting the tenon diagonally and wedging it to add strength and close up any gaps.
Still learning…
-CB-
Tags: Case Piece
