Thread: How do people make rounded tenons?

I've not done it but I've seen a simple jig for use with a bandsaw for making a round tenon on a round piece of stock.

Going with your idea of putting a piece of hose over the square stock would make a temporary round piece I guess.

If you can get hold of Mark Duginske's Bandsaw book it's detailed on pp240-242.

Other than that, what about using a lathe?

I posted this for RichardL, for his plasma screen table.
It'll work quite well in your situation.

Using a top bearing style flush trim bit, cut out a template from scrap nail it to the end of the leg then make a small platform with a say 100~120mm hole for the router to sit on, put the whole lot in a vice with the leg flush with this platform, you will need to account for the thickness of the temp plate depending on the cutters lenght, ie if the cutter has a 20mm cutting edge and you want a 20mm high shoulder a 3mm thick template will do, but if its a 30mm cutter you'll need a 10mm thick template.

I've done it a few times on a tablesaw, just with a normal blade (just more passes). Its like a reverse lathe.
The stock needs to fit snugly inside a length of pipe (ie. polypipe), real snug it and helps to cut the timber square & to size). Poke the timber in with the end to be tenonned protruding. I made a fixed fence or box for the mitre slide to locate the pipe but allow it to roll on the saw table. The fence is set at the tenon length or a bit more, then the depth adjusted. A few passes over the blade with a roll of the pipe will give some idea of finished diameter... adjust blade to suit, resulting in a diameter to fit spade bit or whatever. The pipe is slid in and out as you proceed back and fwds, to machine down the whole tenon. I don't do that while engaged with the blade. Pretty primitive with some cleaning up to do, but it works.
Should I add it takes a firm grip and control of the timber so the blade doesn't do the spinning for you?!:eek:

Cheers,

That sounds dangerous!

There's a couple of round tenon/dowel makers reveiwed in the current (I think) Aus. Wood Reveiw. Mount in a vise and work like giant pencil sharpeners, with the square stock held in a cup chuck type thing in a hand drill. Veritas also have drill mounted tenon cutters that work on the same principal, but with the tool in the drill and the stock in the vise. Seem to work fine from what I gather.

As Craig says, Duginski uses a method involving a V-block (bandsaw two pieces of pine about 200mm long to 45o, and glue them together to form the 'V') to present the length of the tenon at 45o to the blade - repeat four times (one for each corner) and you have a good approximation of a rounded tenon (may need a bit of help with a rasp or file), but it works very well, and leaves a nice glue squeeze-out channel as well.

Thanks for the info. I'll check out the Veritas one - should have realised the Duginski one - got the bandsaw DVD ...didn't think to apply this from rounding over rectangular tenons to actually making round tenons - maybe I could build something like the V block but that allowed more angles - sort of indexing function

Cheers.

My method will do rectangle shapes easily as square... even do round and triangle shapes, also no extra finishing is needed as is accurate as the template you make... last time I did it I used a steel washer for a template!
I you have made rockers M&T jig you already have the job 3/4 done(or a Leigh FMT jig).

Myself - I use a jig, a tendon cutter and a drill press to cut them most of the time. Other times I just chuck it into the lathe and spin it. Others I rough down on the saw then finish it with a knife.

Paul

Brett
when I needed to do make some I used a tenon cutter like this
matched with the corresponding forstner bit for the mortise

ian

I've got the plans for Rockers jig - just haven't got off my a#%! to put it together yet. The tenon cutter is interesting and might be worth a go, looks more like it's capable of creating a square cheek as opposed to the rounding of the Veritas one. Funny I've never noticed these in the Carbatec or Timbercon cattledogs...

I'd just use a bastard file to get the square tenons pretty much right, apart from close to the shoulder, and clean up with a chisel.

Setting up a machine sounds like too much work for me, especially as the tenons won't be seen and the rounded tenons don't have to be perfect anyway to create a solid joint.

I have a knife with four different 1/4 rounds.one of which always does the trick,on my spindle moulder.