Thread: Tenons on radial arm saw

That is not a great amount with a good hand saw you could cut them before the radial saw could be set up.
les

Do you have a router of some desription. Because I set up my router in a table and tenons are easy as to cut on a table router.

Agreed that all can be done with a router, however, no problems cutting tenons on a RAS.

Set the depth of cut required, set the length [if the RAS has been set up correctly - to cut square vertically and horizontally then the shoulders should be perfect], make a series of cuts to remove the waste [how close or overlapping the cuts are will determine how little/much cleanup is required to get a good fit], flip the timber over and go again - piece of cake. Second, third ....50th all the same.

A couple of requirements to save yourself some time later.

Ensure that the timber you are making the tenons on is dimensioned through a thicknesser - saves any unnecessary dimensional cleanup later if surfaces are required to be flush - cut your mortises first - I use a router but there are other ways if you don't have one - the router gives perfect depth and width. Mortises first and then match the tenon to it.

Regards,
Bob

I have cut tenons with that evil machine, the RAS. The process takes a few steps.

1 Cut all pieces to exact length including the length of the tenons.
2 Set a stop block to give the length of the tenon repeatability.
3 Adjust the depth of cut.
4 Cut two opposing shoulders to the correct depth.
5 Change the depth of cut and cut the two remaining shoulders.
6 Install a stacked dado or rip blade in the RAS
7 Set a stop block to give the length of the tenon repeatability.
8 Adjust the depth of cut.
9 Cut the cheeks of two opposing sides of the tenon
10 Adjust the depth of cut.
11 Cut the two remaining cheeks of the tenon.

OR

Use the above to justify buying a router and router table.

BTW - My RAS was a Craftsman model from the mid 1970s. The arm elevating crank was 8 turns per inch. It is worth the time needed to calibrate the arm elevation mechanism. If you KNOW that one turn equals 3 MM, the final adjustment is much easier.

BTW2 - Before cutting tenons, you should check the alignment of the RAS arm for being parallel to the table top. If the parallelism is off, the tenon may turn out to be a parallelogram in shape.

I cut four today using my old De Walt 110. I did exactly what Bob38S says. Used a thicknesser for the material with enough left for some sample cuts. Used the blade to cut the rebate in small increments for all sections on one face, used a left over piece to test fit the resulting second cut and then, when happy with the fit, flipped over and did the same again to the other side of the tenons.

The resulting finish does leave saw marks and is as not smooth as other methods however, these are all internal and you can achieve a good tight fit. I like my RAS.

Hi Trollhameran,

I do not have a table saw and have done a fair share of tenons on my RAS, and rebates, half lap joints etc. Piece of cake like Bob38S said, and quick. And yes, all stock was thicknessed prior, and yes the RAS was set up correctly, square in all directions and parallel table / headstock.

I was not entering my cabinetry into a competion, (no prizes for stuff Pops built), so perfection was not my aim.

You can use a special blade, (single blade) that gives a flat profile, very smooth surface, but I just used a combination blade to take me quite close to the final dimension and then cleaned up the cheeks with a chisel or plane to suit the mortice. The shoulders were crisp and clean and square.

Oh, yes, on pieces I was concerned about, I used a thin sacrificial packing piece against the fence, just a bit of pine to prevent/limit breakout on the far face.

I also like my RAS.

Cheers
Pops

Thanks for all the replies and advice, I think I'm going to go ahead and cut them on the ras later today and see how it goes, I've marked out all the shoulders so I can see pretty quickly if anything goes out of line and then correct it.