Thread: Biscuit joint - Advice needed please

Mark,
The first and obvious thing we need to know before any advice is what is it going to be used for and how strong does it need to be? second question that comes to mind is how thick will the base be and what is it going to be made of?

Hi Thanks for the reply.
I am making a stand light so there is no load on the joint. The plan is to make them out of Hardwood, may be beech, oak or ash. I have just finished making one out of pine (if I made a mistake it was not too costly) and I used a mortice/tennon joint for that. The base is approx 36mm deep. I was thinking that using a buscuit joint may save time

Appologies for the lack of detail. New to woodworking.

A bit more info needed here .
How tall is the post and what is it's intended use .

Mark,

I think a couple of 10 mm diameter dowels is the way to go. They would be much less tricky than a biscuit joint in that situation. Drill the holes in the post first, and then use metal dowel centres to mark the positions of the corresponding holes in the base.

Rocker

Hi Rocker,

Many thanks!!!

I will give that a try.

Mark,

If you have a drill press, you could make a simple jig yourself that would do the job for drilling the holes perpendicular to the bottom face of the post. Drill a 10 mm hole on the drill-press into a scrap of hardwood, and then attach another piece of scrap at right angles to the edge of the first piece of scrap. the second piece is used to clamp the jig to the post. Clear as mud?
Otherwise, I use this dowelling jig: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...80,42311,42319 .

Rocker

If its going to be a lamp (stand light = lamp i think??) then why dont you just put a couple of long screws in from the base up into the post? Easy, quick and bound to be stronger than biscuit joints. If I understand your purpose correctly, you would never see the screwheads, because they would be on the bottom of the base.

TommyC,

Screws driven into end-grain have virtually no holding power, unless you insert cross dowels to provide cross grain for the screws to bite into. However, bolts engaging with metal cross dowels would be a good solution.

Rocker