Thread: Joinery for bath stool in wet area

Something like this.
Mortise and Tenon - Fox Wedged (aka Jigoku-kusabi) - YouTube
Should not need glue as far as I can see for your application. Never been brave enough to try them myself as when you bang it home it aint coming out again.
Regards
John

That’s the one!
Very clever joinery.
Looks pretty finicky though. I think I’ll just use the domino!

The foxed wedged tenon is a good solution. Doing them on an angle lends more difficulty on assembly since the sides are inserted at opposing angles. Whether you do it foxed wedged or floating or fixed tenons, the angles mean the stretcher below can't be fully seated when you insert the sides into the top, and all the joints have to be wiggled together bit by bit simultaneously.

I agree that you don't want the side's tenons piercing the top and exposing their end grain to water.

Another Japanese joinery option is to use a sliding hidden dovetail, like this:

Desk 3.0 - Design 3 - Big Sand Woodworking

But doing those dovetails at an angle would certainly be a challenge!

I'm looking forward to seeing what you decide.

Another interesting solution!

I've decided to just go with floating tenons. Good advice about wiggling the joinery home in small increments. That'll be tricky, but less tricky that the other solutions, especially given the angles.
I'm gonna mock it up with some cheap stock before I try it with Cypress.

I'm sure I'll share some pics when it's all done!

how do you do floating tenons/domino on the angled connections? eg the legs to the top or the bottom rail to the legs?

Been thinking about through tenons for that application and as the wood has natural resistance to moisture in any case getting the end grain wet should not be a big deal. Treenails got used in boat building for hundreds of years. The water would be keeping the joint tight.
Regards
John

Originally Posted by orraloon

Something like this.
Mortise and Tenon - Fox Wedged (aka Jigoku-kusabi) - YouTube
Should not need glue as far as I can see for your application. Never been brave enough to try them myself as when you bang it home it aint coming out again.
Regards
John

I was sort of thinking the same but do through mortice with hardwood wedges, glued with epoxy.

When I was a kid in a rural area, most families still had one or two house cows. My grandmother hand milked her two cows morning and evening 365 days a year using a small wooden milking stool. Every one had almost identical stools.

Milking Stool.jpgGeneric Milking Stool

The stools were almost always made from huon pine, the legs were from branches adzed to approimately round and they were wedged into holes in top - highly polished from 100 years of use!

When I first visited Japan as a student in 1968, I was surprised that almost identical stools were in use in most sento and onsen (public baths and hot springs) except that they were made from hinoki. I was last in Japan just before lockdown and, alas, 90% of onsen stools were plastic - progress?

In both cases, the stools almost always had three legs as they are stable on uneven ground.