Thread: Mortise & Tenon Jig

Johnno

I, for one, am always interested in any jig that can help me form accurate mortice and tenon joints. I still feel that I need all the help I can get in this regard. However, when I look at some of these "professional" jigs, such as the Trend one in your link, I quickly lose interest. They not only appear excessively complex, but they are very expensive for what they are required to do (this one would likely run to well over $600 if available in Oz).

I would be very interested in hearing (and seeing) jigs made by the readers to this bulletin board. No doubt these can be elegantly simple and cheap to construct.

I have built my own morticing jig (based on one designed by Pat Warner, http://www.patwarner.com/morticer.html) and will post some pictures once I have a few available (I am still using non-digital technology).

Seen a couple of tenon jigs that work this way.

I imagine you'd need to use these things performing a climbing cut, otherwise you'd end up diving into the tenon all the time even if you did attempt a gorilla grip to prevent moving away for the template.

I suspect because of this some people would become very dis-enchanted very quickly as some people are dead set scared of the climbing cut.

I also notice there are no warnings on the site of the method required for successful operation.....

Am I correct in my suspicions ?

Cheers Ray

I gotta agree Derek, that any tool that allows you to complete your tasks in a reasonable and safe manner is worthy of consideration.
This jig with it's price will undoubtedly fall by the wayside unless given good reviews for its worth.
A lot has been written by router afficionado's of making your own jigs in numerous publications but people will also buy for convenience of use by seeing the true worth in a tools given application.

Thats why some years back I considered the outlay for the Leigh Jig and its accompanying accoutrements that allows it to achieve the multiple functions that it does.
Admittedly the templates for the Leigh are also expensive, but more robust and at a similar price to the one posted, quicker and more versatile in the set-up in my view.

Ray, the climbing cut is naturally an unsafe practice and folk are right to be scared of it but with the practice of bracing the router, and in your own stance you can overcome your fears and with caution can achieve a clean cut required for your joints.
I use it in most cuts on the Leigh templates to avoid tear-out.
Cheers

John,

I too use the climbing cut extensively, especially with dovetail jigs, and bearing guided cutters on pieces you don't want to risk tearout with.

It's just that with the tennoning jig the bit is trapped between the work and the template, usually with a climbing cut you end up driving away from the jig etc.

Dunno, just seems a tad more unsafe than the usual climbing cut.

Cheers Ray

Hi

I'm new to woodworking, started around 12 months ago. I just bought this jig. The quality as with all Trend tools is very good, but as usual (for me anyway) the instructions are really poor. It looks far too complicated.

If anyone can point me in the right direction for using it, or knows of any online videos, faqs, etc, would be most appreciated.
Cheers

I built my own router tenoning jig which worked on the same principle as the Trend jig some time ago, but eventually gave up on it because I found that the inaccuracies introduced by using router guide bushings made the jig inherently inaccurate. I now use a table-saw tenoning jig based on one described by Brad Schilling in Fine Woodworking #154. My jig is a refinement of Schilling's in that it incorporates a dial gauge for micro-adjustment. This enables the jig to reliably produce tenons whose thickness is accurate to plus or minus 0.03 mm. An article on my tenoning jig will be published next year in Australian Woodworker. Meanwhile, anyone interested can get a copy of the article by emailing me, [email protected] .

Rocker

I bought one of these at the Melbourne WW Show. It does a good job but it took me ages to get the setup right. The instructions are lacking.

I kept getting twisted joints. They have a guide that you line up by eye with the centre line of your tenon. After 37 goes to get it right, I gave up and marked a centre line in a scrap the same width a my work peice. Using the morticing bit and drilling holes until they were centred on the line at both ends. It is now set for 19 mm stock and I'm not really looking forward to setting it up for a different width of timber.

After buying the jig, I bought 'Woodworking With the Router: Professional Router Techniques and Jigs Any Woodworker Can Use' off of Amazon. They have a number of jigs and methods to do MT joints including plans for a horizontal router table. Knowing what I know now, I would build one of these jigs instead. This book is also full of great ideas for using your router in waysyou never dreamed off.

This probably doesn't help, if you've already bought the Trend MT Jig.

Grunt,
I built one of those horizontal router jigs you mentioned, but was not very impressed with it. I have come to the conclusion that the quickest, easiest, and most accurate way of cutting tenons is with a table-saw tenoning jig. To get clean tenon shoulders, you need to cut them on a table saw anyway, so you might as well do the whole job there, rather than fiddlng with router jigs. I found I could cut reasonably accurate tenons with a router on my morticing jig (see the jigs forum), but that it was better to do so on the table saw. My table-saw tenoning jig is similar to Wayne Davy's, but is made out of MDF, and incorporates a dial gauge for accurate positioning of the jig fence.

Thanks for the tip, the horizontal router table looked so nifty in the book.

My only problem is my Triton Table with the Ryobi Saw with the patented bendy blade, which is great for cutting curves, but sadly not so for straight lines. I'll have to be nice to my wife for a while and see if I can get the money together for a real table saw.

Grunt

Yes, you can cut beautiful tenons on the router table, and you do not even need a jig!

I noticed my post from June 2002 above, where I said that I had made a special jig for my router for tenons. At that time I was building a jarrah bedhead 2 metres wide and did not feel I could get the accuracy any other way (the timber was just too unwieldy). The jig worked very well, but I would not recommend it for any other purpose, that is, for shaping tenons of timber around 1 metre lengths.

To cut tenons on the router table without a jig all you require is a straight bit. Set your router for the desired depth of the tenon shoulder (but I would sneak up on this in a few cuts). Place a stop (e.g. the router fence) behind the bit at a distance that will cut the desired length of the tenon. Now use a mitre gauge (or alternative) to run the timber over the bit. This will produce one side of the shoulder. Flip and finish.

However, I prefer to cut the shoulder depth on my saw table and then finish either with a tenon jig on the tablesaw or just mark and cut on the bandsaw (this is the easier of all methods). Or use a Japanese tenon saw to cut it freehand. All of the above are fine-tuned with a shoulder plane (e.g. Stanley #93).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Grunt,

You don't realy need a real table saw, you just need a real circular saw. I had a Makita mounted in my Triton Table and was having the same trouble with bendy cuts, but when I bought a real saw like the Triton all my troubles went away. As far as tenon jigs goes have a look at my post in home made jigs under "Another Tenon Jig"

Regards

To add another spin on this I think that most jigs, including those by pat are way over the top in complexity or dollars for my liking (other than the better of the dovetail jigs). If I was cutting small mortice & tenon joint all the time I might think otherwise.

Most off the shelf jigs are limited in the capacity of timber they can handle – the first and greatest drawback of all for the work I do which include the occasional table, bed frame, etc. It is these situations that I most need the strength of this joint, however in these situations the dimensions of timber involved is normally greater than the capacity of the jigs.

As such I’ve moved away from cutting tenons and opted for floating tenons of late. I keep a ready supply of mdf for jigs and simply knock up a jig to match the required mortice dimensions. If need be I can use the router horizontally with such jigs clamped to the end of long rails (>1.6m) that are difficult to accommodate on my small saw bench, the even smaller spindle morticer table or in the other jigs discussed.

I agree that floating tenons are the way to go for bed headboard and footboard rails. I routed mortices in the ends of the rails of this bed by clamping them vertically in a vice, clamping my morticing jig (see jigs forum) to the rail, and then standing on my workbench.

HI all,

just a quickie,

can someone please explain 'floating tenon' with a drawing or link to same.

Thanks

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Always willing to learn