How to speed up mortise and tenon joinery?

[fobos8]

Hello all

I just finished the leg joints for my dining table. There are 8 haunched and mitres mortise and tenon joints.

Everything fits fine and looks tidy but it took me bloody ages. I have a few other table to make and I'd really like to know how I could speed up the process. It took me 2 whole days!

All the mortises were done by using router and by squaring the rounded ends with a chisel.

The tenons were roughed out with a sliding chop saw with the depth stop set. The were finished on my Festool MFT by running my router over the guide rail and over the tenon cheeks. The rails were to long to pass over a router table so it was easier to slide the router over them.

The thing that took the longest were the fine tuning of fitting the tenons to the mortises.

When I fine tuned the first tenon on my router set up I lowered the height of the router 1/10 mm at a time until I got a perfect fit. Should I then have stuck with this setting and gone cut all the tenons the same? When I cut the first tenon I raised my router height and then lowered it a 1/10mm at a time again on the next tenon to get a perfect fit and so on for all the others.

Is it quicker to cut all the tenons slighly 1/64th over size with a router and then fit using a shoulder plane?

Is it quicker to have round mortises and round my tenons?

Can anyone make any comments of how to speed any or all of these processes up.

Have thought about Domino but for large pieces like a 1.8m by 1m table I think the dominos are too small.

Have thought about the Leigh FMT but I think a 12mm tenon is too small and the rails are too long aswell.

Kind regards, Andrew

 

[big soft moose]

personally i'd do the mortices with a power morticer (the clue is in the name) that way the corners will already be square and you'll save the time spend squaring up

I'm also in the minority (possibly of one) who also use the morticer to cut the cheeks of the tenon then use a bandsaw to remove the waste - its unconventional but fast, repeatable and (assuming your marking out is right) accurate

 

[MikeG.]

With multiple M&Ts to do, I would make a template for the router for the mortices..........but not square up the corners. It is much easier to round over the corners of the tenons. If you need to go deeper than an extra-long cutter will allow, the drilling out and chiselling is so much easier when you have the routed hole as a guide.

Tenons are really quick and easy (and accurate) with a radial arm saw.........just about the only reason for having one rather than a SCMS in my view. I would expect to do 8 M&Ts in half a day, maybe, at a guess, using this method.

Mike

PS I've also done it BSM's way in green oak or in other big sections of timber. Very quick, but not quite so accurate would be my personal assessment.

 

[fobos8]

Mike

What method do you use to round over your tenons?

When you do your tenons with your radial arm saw I gues your just doing multiple passes to remove the stock. Aren't you left with ribbed saw marks all over your cheeks.

When you establshed the perfect cutting depth with you saw for the first tenon do you stick with that setting for all the others or do you fine tune each one?

Cheers, Andrew

 

[mailee]

I use a bench morticer for my mortices and a tennoning jig for the table saw. If the rails are too long for the tennoning jig I then use a Steve Maskery tennon jig with the router. HTH :wink:

 

[Mike Wingate]

I use a powermortiser for the mortiser. Cut the shoulders of the tenon on the bandsaw using the fence and mitre gauge. Set up a depth stop behind the blade, and cut the cheeks against the fence. I have used the RAsaw for the tenons with a wobble attachment. So much dust. I can cut the mortises with the RAS with the chuck and a lip and spur drill, as a horizontal borer. The speed is not fast enough to use an up spiral router bit. Have you seen
Matthias Wandel's site
http://woodgears.ca/slot_mortiser/index.html
There is a you tube vid of his machine in use. Look at his other stuff. Amazing quality.

 

[Chris Knight]

Like Mike - for such a job I cut the mortises with a router and round the tenons with a rasp.

Your method for fine tuning the tenons sounds OK and I wouldn't normally both to check/change settings for each one unless I was unhappy with the mortise cutting - as below.

Mortises can be cut out of true with a router even using a half inch bit if you try to take large cuts in one go. I prefer a series of passes taking not more than 6mm depth at a time. Some suggest that it is better to plunge the bit to full depth just like drilling holes and then to join up the holes so cut. I have found this does not work for me and I get mortises out of vertical - very noticeable when the tenon is on the end of a long rail!

 

[PAC1]

I use a mortiser (Axminster) to cut square mortices and haunches and then cut tenons up to 100mm on my tablesaw currently using my adaptation of Steve Maskery's Ultimate tenoning Jig. This allows the thickness of the tenons to be correct everytime because I have a spacer for every mortice bit plus the thickness of my saw blade.

 

[woodbloke]

M/t's do take me a bit of time to do...but then I don't do them regularly, but only as each project dictates. If I had to do them on a day to day basis, then a dedicated mortiser has to be the quickest way for the mortises and a well set up bandsaw for cutting the tenons. I think that once both machines were set up, you could probably bang out a m/t joint in a couple of minutes - Rob

 

[OPJ]

If you're routing mortises with rounded corners then, I think it makes sense to round off your tenons with a rasp, as suggested. It is much easier than chopping in to a load of oak and it should save you some time.

All your mortises should be the same width/thickness and so, all your tenons should be cut to the same setting as well. If you only had one or two to trim then, I would just use a shoulder plane. Provided that your stock was accurately prepared to the same thickness, you shouldn't need to reset the depth of cut each time, unless I'm missing something...

If you've got a bandsaw, you could try ripping the cheeks on that. I would still prefer to cut the shoulders on a SCMS or RAS, as I don't always find the bandsaw accurate enough for this.

Another option might be to create your own 'loose tenons'. You'd need another jig to cut the mortise in the end of the rails although, because of the length, that may not be practical on this job. You could then thickness some stock to fit and round the arrises over with a router and/or table.

 

[Benchwayze]

M/t's do take me a bit of time to do...but then I don't do them regularly, but only as each project dictates. If I had to do them on a day to day basis, then a dedicated mortiser has to be the quickest way for the mortises and a well set up bandsaw for cutting the tenons. I think that once both machines were set up, you could probably bang out a m/t joint in a couple of minutes - Rob

Me too on this one. Once a bandsaw is set up for tenoning, it's a piece of cake.

If I were to round tenons, I would do it the Kelly Mehler way. Pare the corners off downwards, and then round with a strip of coarse belt abrasive. And do them all at once of course.

Regards
John

 

[Chems]

buy a domino. . . . . . . . .

 

[MikeG.]

buy a domino. . . . . . . . .

:roll:

For anyone else who doesn't want to cut and paste that into a Word document, then change the font size, just to be able to read it:

buy a domino. . . . . . . . .

Mike

 

[TrimTheKing]

buy a domino. . . . . . . . .

:roll:

For anyone else who doesn't want to cut and paste that into a Word document, then change the font size, just to be able to read it:

buy a domino. . . . . . . . .

Mike

Or just click 'quote' in the top corner of the post Mike.

Much quicker

 

[Chems]

Teheheh, seemed like the obvious answer. I like making mortice and tenon, but I love my domino more.

 

[Alf]

Did you really need to read it to know what it said, Mike? :lol:

 

[woodbloke]

Have thought about Domino but for large pieces like a 1.8m by 1m table I think the dominos are too small.

Andrew

Dominos have been considered, but are 'persona non grata' :wink: - Rob

 

[MikeG.]

Did you really need to read it to know what it said, Mike? :lol:

Fair point, well made.

Mike

 

[Chris_belgium]

Made a lot of mortice and tenon joints lately, using a router for both the tenon and mortice.

Lot's of pics and info in this topic:

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34019&highlight=gate+driveway

First attempt took me 1 hour to make big m&t 75mm deep 80 long 25 wide, last ones maybe forty minutes, for these ones I drilled out the waste and then cleaned up the mortice with the router, went really fast.
Because the mortices were that deep I had to first cut them 40mm deep with a normal cutter, then put an extension collet in and do the remaining 30mm. If you have longer cutters/powerfull router, I'm guessing, 25-30 minutes for a big m&t, wich is pretty fast imho.
I also cut the mortices square with a chisel wich took some time, rounding over the tenons with a rasp is a good Idea wich I will use on my next projects.

 

[johnf]

I'd use a slot morticer for the mortices and a dado cutter in the table saw for the tenons round the corners with a rasp or maybe loose tenons