Thread: Draw bored mortice and tenon joints

I am nearly finished workbench 5.0 and some time over the weekend I will put some pics of the finished product on the forum. But in the construction, one of my primary aims was to make it solid. Well it is that. It will not rack or move. In fact it is so heavy it will only just move when 3 men put their backs into shifting it into its final position. And it will not rack either. Part of the solution to this was using large through tenons. I suspect that the size of the tenons and the effective gluing area would have been enough to stop any potential movement. But then I draw bored them also.

If you have not tried using draw bored mortice and tenon joints I strongly recommend that you do a little googling for some video on the technique and give it a go. It makes for a few extra steps per joint but the effect is well worth it. I suppose you could drink a case of vodka and cut the tenons in the dark, while asleep and provided you used draw boring the joints will be strong.

For the lazy ones here is a good link to start with. How to Drawbore a Mortise and Tenon Joint and Make Custom Dowels | The Wood Whisperer

In the bench I made, given that the pegs were 8 mm Tasmanian oak and the tenons where very big, I used an offset of 3/32 inch. One immediate advantage is that once the pins are driven in you do not need to clamp the joint so that on a large project you can move quickly through the glue up.