Thread: Tenon machine brainstrusts

I'd take my hat off to anyone who could answer your question without a picture of the machine.

Originally Posted by jack620

I'd take my hat off to anyone who could answer your question without a picture of the machine.

Ha Ha. That's right .

Sorry am new, I hope this attached and helps.
As can see the motor is at its limit up against
The sled rail.

Originally Posted by Danny83

Hi all.
I recently inherited a tenoning machine.
I will be using 38 - 40 mm thick stock in the efforts
of constructing sashs/doors, however would
Prefer to use stub tenons 8mm thick up to 30mm length as I do not have a chain or chisel morticer at my disposal.
The problem I have is once passed the top and bottom tenon
Cutters I can not bring the 120mm vertical scribing/coping cutter
close enough to my tenon, without the sled
clashing with a small turn wheel on scribe/coping motor
Adjustment, then all out collision/no more travel on motor.
I'm quite the way off to the tune of about 80mm, not helping the scenario is the length of the tenon heads, and I did toy of the idea of changing them in the effort to bring the stock closer to the scribing spindle, however with no thread on the tenon spindles(internal thread, counter sunk fastened to the cutter), and what appears to be a brazed key steel on each I figured changing tenon heads may be to hard basket, and I think even after doing that the tenon may still hit any spacers/nut on the coping spindle as it's only about 45mm of coping cutter after a 35mm spindle.
Ideally to make this work I would need a cutter up to 280mm in diameter, now the protective guard around the back end of this motor would accommodate this, however how realistic is this having a such a wide diameter cutter, is there any pros/cons, recommended no. of teeth, I just thought I would do some investigative work before throwing my life savings and a couple of kids and dogs at the toolmaker.

Many thanks in advance and I hope I posted
This in the right place.

Pictures of the machine and what brand and model is it ?

Some of your questions don't make sense to me .

Like this .

"The problem I have is once passed the top and bottom tenon
Cutters I can not bring the 120mm vertical scribing/coping cutter
close enough to my tenon, without the sled
clashing with a small turn wheel on scribe/coping motor
Adjustment, then all out collision/no more travel on motor."

Is it a home made machine gone wrong?
Tenon machines are normally designed so scribe cutters are well within reach of the tenon shoulders .
Clashing with a turn wheel ?

This may help?
When asking questions, one thing about the forum I learned a while ago . Keep it simple . Not to many all at once on one post. specially the first post. Start off with one or two main ones and lead in to it with that can work better than a whole lot which can end up being confusing.

Originally Posted by auscab

Pictures of the machine and what brand and model is it ?

Some of your questions don't make sense to me .

Like this .

"The problem I have is once passed the top and bottom tenon
Cutters I can not bring the 120mm vertical scribing/coping cutter
close enough to my tenon, without the sled
clashing with a small turn wheel on scribe/coping motor
Adjustment, then all out collision/no more travel on motor."

Is it a home made machine gone wrong?
Tenon machines are normally designed so scribe cutters are well within reach of the tenon shoulders .
Clashing with a turn wheel ?

This may help?
When asking questions, one thing about the forum I learned a while ago . Keep it simple . Not to many all at once on one post. specially the first post. Start off with one or two main ones and lead in to it with that can work better than a whole lot which can end up being confusing.

Thanks for the reply!

I've attached a few photos and hopefully it makes sense to anybody.


Certainly not a Frankenstein machine.
Brand appears to be Sarmek, couldn't find any info at all on it.

On the photo ive removed one tenon cutter for the purpose of seeing the spindle length, and I've just placed a 140mm cutter on the thread of the scribing spindle for the purpose of seeing how far off its reach is.
Photos will also show how close already the scribing motor is to the sled rail.

I hope this helps and many thanks. I hope I kept it simple this time danny

Another photo

Love to help but WA is just too far away

World's Away.

Originally Posted by Danny83

Ideally to make this work I would need a cutter up to 280mm in diameter, now the protective guard around the back end of this motor would accommodate this, however how realistic is this having a such a wide diameter cutter, is there any pros/cons, recommended no. of teeth, I just thought I would do some investigative work before throwing my life savings and a couple of kids and dogs at the toolmaker.

Got it in one. Tenoners use fricking big tooling and, if it will fit in the guard, it's designed for it.

ScoSarg in the UK sell 275mm Whitehill heads for less than you might expect.
1 1/4" bore Whitehill Tenon Disc D=275 B=30 d=1 1/4" Alloy | Scott+Sargeant IE
30mm bore Whitehill Tenon Disc D=275 B=30 d=30 Alloy | Scott+Sargeant IE

EDIT: Just check your spindle speed to make sure it doesn't exceed the 4000 rpm max rating

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

Got it in one. Tenoners use fricking big tooling and, if it will fit in the guard, it's designed for it.

ScoSarg in the UK sell 275mm Whitehill heads for less than you might expect.
1 1/4" bore Whitehill Tenon Disc D=275 B=30 d=1 1/4" Alloy | Scott+Sargeant IE
30mm bore Whitehill Tenon Disc D=275 B=30 d=30 Alloy | Scott+Sargeant IE

EDIT: Just check your spindle speed to make sure it doesn't exceed the 4000 rpm max rating

Thank you for your time and taking the time to send the links, very much appreciated, I am however curious on anybody's thoughts on a brazed wing cutter of this size?
Is this a stupid idea? And likely never been done for any obvious reasons?

You could, but you'll want to make sure it's balanced. Much easier to work with a pre-balanced body and just weight balance the knife sets before installing them.