# Mortice and tenon jig (long, with lots of pics)



## Tarkin (4 Apr 2006)

There was a big debate in the forums not that long ago about whether or not the Trend mortice and tenon jig was worth £170 (I don't think it is...). This led to a somewhat heated debate about whether or not you could build you own, with some people saying they couldn't work out how to, and some saying they could.

I've gone and made my own (based on the trend one), well, actually it's two jigs, one for tenon's and one for mortices. 

And don't worry, i'm not going to tell you how to use the bloody thing - David Free has laboured that one long enough! :lol: 

Oh, and if some of the WIP pics look a little contrived, it's because they are....I forgot to take them. :roll: 

*Part one - Tenon Jig*

The base is basically just a t-section of MDF, with some braces, and a right angle support to fix the work piece to so that it's held square, the big hole is for my clamps.







On top of that, the sub-base gets permanently fixed. It's got oak runners to make sure the top-base rides perpendicular to the work-piece. The cut out is to allow access to the work piece and some wing nuts that are under the top-base, and the slots ar for the fixing bolts for the top-base.






The sub-base fixed to the base (lots of base's in this!!! :lol






The top base has a cut out into which the router bit plunges. The top runner is fixed in place, and has a rebate under it to hold the tenon-sizers.






The lower runner is movable to allow for different thickness' of tenon. You can see the wingnuts proping it up which locks the lower runner in place.






All the base's together (finally).






I forgot to take pics of me actually making the tenon sizers, but here's the finished article. The rounded template part is made form acrylic so that the points dont break as easy.










I have sets to make 1/4", 3/8", 1/2" and 5/8" tenons, but making more would be easy. The magic formula for calculating the radius of the template curve is: _radius_ of router collar + _radius_ of router bit + half the thickness of the tenon. In my case, this was a headache, because I use imperial bits and tenon's, but have a 30mm collar on my router... 

Here's the whole thing assembled with a bit of scrap oak ready for a test cut...










And the result:






It made a near perfect tenon first time - if you look closley you can see where the oruter slipped and cut into the tenon... (there's always room for improvment). If you swap the tenon-sizers about (putting left into right side etc.) you will get a square tenon too.

*Part two - Mortice Jig*

Perhaps not necessary, but as i don't like the fence that came with my router, a Freud FT2200VCE (but then, I've never seen a router fence I do like except a porter cable, especially the makita one which is rubbish), I thought it was a good idea. It could also be used as a sort of small router table, cutting rebates and such if you wanted.

This is the (completed) top plate (i forgot to take any WIP pics). As seen for the top, bottom and a close up. The width of the cut out is exactly 30mm (for my guide bush). The 2 small blocks move to create an opening to whatever size I want and lock with bolts and wing nuts. The slots are for moving it across the workpeice.














The base is very simple this time, the holes in the top are for the locking bolts.






The whole thing put together:






And finally, using the jig to rout a mortice for the tenon:










The finished product!






I may well go back and put some hardwood guide strips on the mortice jig like on the tenon one, as I think it would speed up the setting of the jig (which requires a menagerie of gauge blocks!). I suppose you could add thumb screw micro adjusters on threaded rod to the jigs to make it more precise, but I got very good results without them.

Anyway, hope you like the jigs, if anyone wants more details etc, don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers!

edit: fixed the pics... :?


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## PowerTool (4 Apr 2006)

Thanks very much for the (considerable) time you've taken for your post,pictures and practice piece.  

Both interesting and useful.

Andrew


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## nickson71 (4 Apr 2006)

nice work there ......


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## martyn2 (5 Apr 2006)

one of the magazines need to pick it well done I do like to see jigs and other home made tools.

Martyn


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## Chris Knight (5 Apr 2006)

Tarkin,
Thanks for the super WIP photo sequence of an interesting project.

A question that springs to mind is how do you register the parts that need to be morticed?


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## devonwoody (5 Apr 2006)

Superb. Now you can start some projects.


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## Paul Chapman (5 Apr 2006)

Tarkin,

Great jigs and great pictures =D> Thanks for sharing them with us. Commercial jigs tend to be very expensive and many have serious limitations so I am sure your approach of designing and making your own whenever possible is the way to go.

Paul


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## Anonymous (5 Apr 2006)

Tarkin

Fantastic jigs, definitely a better propositioin than £170 for the Trend.

I wondered about setting up for tenons to ensure that they are centred on the wood?

Might just make me a couple of those


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## wizer (5 Apr 2006)

looks really good, something else i;d like to eventually make.


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## Tarkin (5 Apr 2006)

martyn2":20kiz4rv said:


> one of the magazines need to pick it well done I do like to see jigs and other home made tools.



Cheers mate! I dont know if they're quite that good, but i'm really happy with them...beats paying £170 for the trend one (and the less said about leigh the better... :wink: )



waterhead37":20kiz4rv said:


> A question that springs to mind is how do you register the parts that need to be morticed?



Not sure I understand what you mean?



Tony":20kiz4rv said:


> I wondered about setting up for tenons to ensure that they are centred on the wood?



I just use a guage block that is equal to the distance from the outside diamiter of the collar to the edge of the cutting blade (8.4mm IIRC with a 1/2" bit) Since the base moves exacly parralell to the work peice, it is surprisingly easy to line it up in the middle. I may add a thumbscrew micro adjuster on a threaded rod though to make it a little easier.


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## Chris Knight (5 Apr 2006)

I meant, how do you position the pieces to be morticed?


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## Tarkin (5 Apr 2006)

waterhead37":d9y3a5jl said:


> I meant, how do you position the pieces to be morticed?



Ah, I see what you mean! The mortice is maked out as you would any mortice. Then the peice is clamped into the jig so thats its tight to the top (this makes it square to the jig). Becuase it's the jig that moves, it doesn't matter where you put it, just as long as its tight to the frame and the area to be morticed is somewhere within the opening. Then, using gauge blocks, the components of the jig are moved to meet the marked out mortice, and ditto for the tenon jig.

Hope that clears is up!

Cheers.


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## Newbie_Neil (5 Apr 2006)

Tarkin

Well done and thank you for taking the time.

An excellent jig.

Cheers
Neil


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## syntec4 (5 Apr 2006)

Phew! :shock: 
Great work mate. Very clever stuff. thanks for all the WIP pictures, mind If I copy you're design? I could really make use of those jigs. 

Well done 
Lee.


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## Tarkin (5 Apr 2006)

syntec4":6fduf0au said:


> mind If I copy you're design? I could really make use of those jigs.



sure, go ahead, that's why i put them up here, so people coulds see them and build their own if they wanted. If you want any more details about it, sont hesitate to ask.

Glad everybody likes them, jig making is somethin of an enthusiasm of mine, think it stems from enjoying saving money :wink: . I someitmes think I enjoy making the damn jigs more than the project!

Cheers.


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## jim_hanna (17 Sep 2008)

Found this thread when I was browsing, the pics seem to have disappeared.


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## DaveL (17 Sep 2008)

Hi Jim,

Tarkin who posted the pictures has not posted in the last 2 years. The pictures appear to of been on a company server, not a public picture site and they are no longer there, sorry not a lot we can do about it. :evil:


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## Dave S (17 Sep 2008)

It is an unfortunate consequence of a forum which is not able to host pictures directly. Last year I browsed through every thread in the is section and unfortunately a great many pictures were no longer available.

But hosting pictures directly is neither a trivial nor cheap undertaking.

WRT this particular thread - I'm pretty certain that I have this thread in my Firefox scrapbook on my home pc, so if the mods can make use of these at all they are welcome.

Dave


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## wizer (17 Sep 2008)

I am happy to host the pics if yu have them


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## Dave S (10 Oct 2008)

There have been a few requests for the pics from this thread. Since no mod has said yay or nay to me posting them, I am have decided to do so.

I am quoting Tarkin's original post in it's entirety but linking to copies of the pictures on my Flickr account. They may be a little slow to load.

Hope they are helpful, and if Tarkin is still about, thanks for the thread and hope you don't mind me posting this.

Dave



Tarkin":vqtxi3ch said:


> There was a big debate in the forums not that long ago about whether or not the Trend mortice and tenon jig was worth £170 (I don't think it is...). This led to a somewhat heated debate about whether or not you could build you own, with some people saying they couldn't work out how to, and some saying they could.
> 
> I've gone and made my own (based on the trend one), well, actually it's two jigs, one for tenon's and one for mortices.
> 
> ...


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## Rich (10 Oct 2008)

When I click on the small white windows with a red cross in them, nothing happens, why is this?

Rich.


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## Dave S (10 Oct 2008)

Rich":8b2hswri said:


> When I click on the small white windows with a red cross in them, nothing happens, why is this?
> 
> Rich.



probably because nothing is meant to happen?? I'm not really sure what you mean - all the pics load on both my machines under both Firefox and IE7. :?


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## wizer (10 Oct 2008)

fine here

Looks like a good pair of jigs. Not seen them designed like this before.


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## mailee (12 Oct 2008)

I don't know why but I can't see any of the pictures of this jig? Is it just me? I can see all other pictures in other postings, is one of my settings wrong? I am interested by the sound of the jig though. 


Oops! just read the rest of the threads and realised they have been re posted now, sorry.


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## mailee (12 Oct 2008)

Only one word I can say, BRILLIANT!


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## beech1948 (12 Oct 2008)

Tarkin,

I keep getting the message " not able to find on this server" or similar. So I can't see your pics...first time this has happened. Really interested in your pics. Could you post an address where I could visit to see the pics .

Thanks in advance
Alan


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## beech1948 (12 Oct 2008)

Please Ignore last post...I got it sorted.

Jig looks great. I have to make 86 m7t joints next week in a project so I was looking for something like this.

regards
Alan


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## Olari (14 Mar 2009)

.


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## mailee (14 Mar 2009)

Oops!


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