Shopsmith Forums

mickyd wrote:Well, for someone who dished out a little over $500 on a headlamp for my road bike (bicycle), I guess you eventually graduate up to that expense after realizing the deficiency of past sub-par quality purchases. I'll let you know when I get there on a chisel.

And I thought motorcycle parts were expensive. Only one thing wrong with a bicycle, no MOTOR!;)

I have used the loose tenon methods many times. If you only have a couple of joints, the time making the jig to cut matching mortises in both sides of a joint would take longer. If you have lots of mortise tenon joints I definitely recommend making a jig and cutting matching mortises in all pieces. The loose tenons can be mass produced once the tenon board is sized to fit the mortise. I leave the mortise with rounded ends and roundover all sides of the tenon board with a router before cutting the tenons to length. If you leave the tenon slightly less width than the mortise, you will have some play in assembly. All mortises are the same width, depth and length - unless you have other requirements - and all loose tenons the same.
Forrestb

forrestb wrote: All mortises are the same width, depth and length - unless you have other requirements - and all loose tenons the same.
Forrestb

That's kinda what I was thinking -- almost like wood lego's..

I suppose next time I could have used my Shopsmith biscuit jointer which I've never used (and have no biscuits for).. That may have been a less painful road for learning perhaps but learning is good!

Farmer, Chuck, Et all are right, do the mortise first. I have not done a lot of these, but I never got what I thought was a good fit doing it the other way. I am not as talented as some of these guys, but even I was not happy with the fit of tenon first. This was also before I had figured out how to sharpen a chisel, so that was part of the problem! I did a bed for my daughter and used a slot along the whole board and filled in between the slats. Even there, cutting the slot first, I had to do a bit of adjusting to get everything to fit.