Thread: Best way to cut tennons?

Probably depends on how many you need to do. You can cut them quite acurately on a TS without a jig.

However, if you had a lot to cut then a jig would be the quickest.

I've never cut them on a router table so I don't know about that.

You can also cut them acurately with a BS.

Say if you wanted to cut 8 1/2in tennons in the short term, to build a coffee table, how would you do it?

BS.........handsdown, easiest and quickest and also accurate enough as said above if you have a a BS with a good enough fence or you use a jig.

For the mortise use a router set -up. Rout mortise first then fine tune tenon fit on the BS.

Cheers.

Well I'd probably use my TS and my mitre gauge (Incra).

I'd clamp an ofsset block on the fence then set the fence so that the distance from the far side of the blade to the offset block was the length of my tenon.

Then I'd set the blade at the correct height to give me my tenon thickness and "nibble" away the waste on the cheeks using a series of passes.

Use a piece of scrap to experiment with getting the blade height just right.

I cut tenons like this all the time. It's a reasonably quick method.

Other people probably have their own favorite methods.

I always rout the mortices first though.

Gidday

I'm another in the BAndsaw Camp on this one given a choice n throwin in the laziness factor the good old BAndsand delivers the goods every time. Is easier n safest way to do tenons bar a dedicated piece of machinery.

A well tuned bandsaw i'll cut tenons accurately. Set up a microadjustable fance a la MArk Duginski n you can shave tenons in increments of 4000ths to fit a mortise.

...........................Bandsaws the go

Regards Lou

If I had to do something like that I'd probably give the dado set a go. Mind you, not having used it since the Brisbane WWW purchase, I'd muck around with it a bit. Probably using the sliding table on the saw as well.

If I had to set up for a small run of them, I'd cut the shoulders on the table saw or preferrably the radial arm saw (I like to see what's happening ), so they are nice and square, then cut the cheeks on the bandsaw. Without a decent mitre slide on the bandsaw I avoid trying accurate cross cutting, but ripping along the fence is OK for tenons.

Cheers,

seems like the bandsaw is the way to go, if only i had one

Or use loose tenon joinery. Cut the rails to length, cut mortises on both surfaces, whip up a few loose tenons to fit, and presto perfect cheeks with no fiddling around to get the tenons just so.

That's how I'd do it anyway.

Tex

Originally Posted by Tex B

That's how I'd do it anyway.

Tex

Using the patented Bodginator (tm) no doubt.

Some scribed lines and a decent hand-held back-saw, if it's just a few? I also agree with mortices first.

I use my TS and router, but for something different during a rare rainy day iIdecided to cut a few by hand just for the practice. After using power tools for ages it was good to put into practice what I learned in school so many years ago.

If i didn't really have any decent hand saws (a couple of crappy ones ), then would one of those japanese pull saws be the bet if i wanted to try cutting things by hand?

Gudday.
My two bobs worth.

I use a horizontal router table (HRT). It is the design from FWW about 6 years ago (sorry i can't tell you the issue it was in).

I also made a sliding table to work on the HRT on two axis to use it as a morticer. Will post some photos if people are interetsed.

I also use TS and BS and a shoulder plane to clean up either of these. The router table tenons generally don't need any exra work if the stock is dimensioned correctly.

Always mortice first and tenon second!

Cheers
SN