Most Efficient Tenon Fitting - Hybrid technique
#11
Still working on the mission style media cabinet with a dang whole lot of mortise/tenons.  For fitting tenons, here is my process.  How can it improve?

Mark shoulder lines with a knife directly from workpiece, stack em together, mark em together.  
Cut the 4 shoulder cuts using the Table saw, stopblock, and crosscutsled.  set blade to just under marking gauge depth lines.
Use the Tablesaw/sled combo to nibble away the waste from the cheeks.  I dont have a dado stack, I know that would make this go faster.  not worried about smooth surface because I'll trim with router plane.

After all of the shoulders are cut, I come to the workbench.  
I pick up the actual piece that's going into each hole, and mark the width of the tenon directly from the piece.  
Use my saw to rip the width of each tenon.  
Spin the workpiece in the vise so I can cut the rest of the shoulder, angling away from the shoulder line.  
Pare it flush with a small chisel.  
Flip the board, cut the other waste, trim with chisel. 
Now the shoulders are perfect, the width is perfect.  Next is width.
Hold piece horizontal in vise trim width with router plane.  (This is the step that perfectly centers the tenon in the workpiece.  Such that I don't need to mark anything, except to set the height of the blade of the table saw to get it close enough to trim with router plane.)
Test fit, but should be perfect.

This process takes me just a few minutes per tenon once I'm back at the bench for fitting.

What can I do to improve, or what am I not thinking of?  Did I describe it well enough?
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#12
Everyone gets to do these things however suits them. I just tackled several dozen tenons and I cut the cheeks at the bandsaw, which I would guess is faster than the TS nibbling thing.

I often think about efficiency in the shop but keep reminding myself that just avoiding errors is probably the most efficient path, so I try to focus on not screwing up. This does not always work.
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#13
(03-21-2017, 12:31 PM)Strokes77 Wrote: Still working on the mission style media cabinet with a dang whole lot of mortise/tenons.  For fitting tenons, here is my process.  How can it improve?

Mark shoulder lines with a knife directly from workpiece, stack em together, mark em together.  
Cut the 4 shoulder cuts using the Table saw, stopblock, and crosscutsled.  set blade to just under marking gauge depth lines.
Use the Tablesaw/sled combo to nibble away the waste from the cheeks.  I dont have a dado stack, I know that would make this go faster.  not worried about smooth surface because I'll trim with router plane.

After all of the shoulders are cut, I come to the workbench.  
I pick up the actual piece that's going into each hole, and mark the width of the tenon directly from the piece.  
Use my saw to rip the width of each tenon.  
Spin the workpiece in the vise so I can cut the rest of the shoulder, angling away from the shoulder line.  
Pare it flush with a small chisel.  
Flip the board, cut the other waste, trim with chisel. 
Now the shoulders are perfect, the width is perfect.  Next is width.
Hold piece horizontal in vise trim width with router plane.  (This is the step that perfectly centers the tenon in the workpiece.  Such that I don't need to mark anything, except to set the height of the blade of the table saw to get it close enough to trim with router plane.)
Test fit, but should be perfect.

This process takes me just a few minutes per tenon once I'm back at the bench for fitting.

What can I do to improve, or what am I not thinking of?  Did I describe it well enough?

I think I understand you.  Have some questions and comments.  On the TS, are you gang cutting?  Or cutting each piece one by one?

I find I can skip the individual fitting to the mortise.  What I have is a marking gauge with several beams.  Each beam has two pins set the exact width to match a mortise chisel. As long as with either TS or Handsaw I cut to the marking gauge line it fits.

When you cut your shoulders on the TS, try making the cut just a hair too deep.  Does two things.  First, when you rip the cheeks the waste will just fall off when you are 1/8" from the shoulder:  you don't have to clean up with a chisel nor do you accidently saw into your shoulder.  Second, as you know, solid registration is sometimes fouled by little fibers in the corner which is why your chiseling has to meticulous.  If you're using a TS to make shoulders, an extra 1/32 depth does nothing harmful and you have perfection registration with no chiseling.
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#14
Agree with the post above, everyone has their own way.  If you look down to the mortiser post, 3/18, there is some information about doing a lot of M & T joints.

I cut all the mortises first.  Gang mark them if only making a table.  I used a story stick for the chairs currently under construction. 

What I do:  Since I do a lot of Arts & Crafts tables, I tried to figure out some way to cut them repeatably and minimize hand work.  I made a small cross cut sled for the table saw and spent some time to make sure it was square to the blade.  So I have a stop on one side to fix the length of the tenon.  I put the piece in the sled, blade height to just cut into the final tenon thickness, the run the part.  I normally run one side, flip it to the opposite side, and cut that. Then I do the same on the other end.  If the cut on the narrow side is different than the wide side, I cut all the flat pieces first, then go back and adjust the blade height for the narrow side and do all those with the new set up.  Cut all of the parts at one setting, then adjust blade height for the other.  With this set up, I have a very clean shoulder, no trimming required.

Now to finish the tenons, I have the Grizzly tenon jig.  I run test parts until I have the width correct and they fit into the mortise.  Cut one side, flip around to cut the other side, do the opposite end.  I always make sure I have scrap parts with the same dimensions as the project parts to help in set up.  Once you have the width correct, adjust the blade up high enough to cut into the kerf of the shoulder.  You will now have a clean tenon with no hand trimming.  Adjust the jig to do the same on the sides.  

This may seem like a lot of trouble, but I am cutting 16 tenons/chair and I am making four chairs, or 64 - not counting prototypes.    

 I have the back leg angled back about 8 degrees from vertical but that is another story. 

Good luck..Tom
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#15
(03-21-2017, 06:48 PM)jgourlay Wrote: I think I understand you.  Have some questions and comments.  On the TS, are you gang cutting?  Or cutting each piece one by one?

I find I can skip the individual fitting to the mortise.  What I have is a marking gauge with several beams.  Each beam has two pins set the exact width to match a mortise chisel. As long as with either TS or Handsaw I cut to the marking gauge line it fits.

When you cut your shoulders on the TS, try making the cut just a hair too deep.  Does two things.  First, when you rip the cheeks the waste will just fall off when you are 1/8" from the shoulder:  you don't have to clean up with a chisel nor do you accidently saw into your shoulder.  Second, as you know, solid registration is sometimes fouled by little fibers in the corner which is why your chiseling has to meticulous.  If you're using a TS to make shoulders, an extra 1/32 depth does nothing harmful and you have perfection registration with no chiseling.

Yep, he said it all before me!!!
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#16
I love talking about this stuff with you guys.  always so knowledgeable.

Tom - I feel like what you are talking about is very efficient.  To do it this way, I would need to start with my parts all the same length.  I typically don't mess with this, because with hand tools I just work to the shoulder lines, and don't worry much about the tenon length.  Can't use the stop block on your cross cut sled jig, nor can I use the Tenoning jig unless my parts are cut to accurate size first.

Interesting idea about just cutting the shoulder a hair deeper.

I'm not gang cutting anything; if that means cutting multiple pieces together... I am however, cutting all of the shoulders at the same time before moving to the next task.

Nibbling the waste is probably the most tedious part.  Although a dado stack would make much quicker work of this.  

I dont think i've thought of or tried using the bandsaw to help me with this joint because my bandsaw isn't setup very well, need to spend some time with it.  But, I don't particularly like loud dusty tools...

This is fun, thanks for helping me go through my process guys.  I'm always interested in studying and learning best practice.
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#17
I use the bandsaw because the table saw is a louder and dustier choice. I find it leaves as clean a cut as needed though perhaps not quite as clean as a tenoning jig at the table saw would leave. I do have a carbide tooth band which helps.
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#18
As the posters above say, there are many different approaches.  In terms of consistency, if you are using the TS to cut the tenons, you need to consider some jigs to speed up the process.   I use a home made tenoning jig, something like this http://www.finewoodworking.com/2008/04/2...noning-jig  and a DIY version of the kerfmaster  http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/f...maker.html.    If all the tenons are the same width, you don't need a kerfmaster, instead, spend the time to dimension a spacer, which is a piece of scrap to the exact thickness  so that you can cut one cheek with the stock held in your tenoning jig, and the second cheek by adding the spacer to the tenoning jig.    Using the spacer guarantees all the tenons are the exact same thickness, as long as all you keep the registration face of each piece of stock closest to the jig.
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#19
Hi Strokes,

I always cut the mortices first.  Make sure they are consistent and in the right location.  If they are offset, triple check that they are off set in the right direction before cutting them.  Do not ask why...   

That will define your tenon dimensions.  

Slightly confused by your reply regarding part dimensions.  When I make something that requires stretchers or aprons, I dimension all of them at the same time to fit the project.  Like for my current table, rectangle shape, aprons are 12 + 7/8 + 7/8 = 13 3/4"  12" between legs, two tenons of 7/8" on each end.  The short side is 9 1/2 + 7/8 + 7/8 = 11 1/4".   All done before the next step.  

Different length aprons.  On my cross cut sled, I set the stop to cut the tenon length so I don't care about how long the parts are, they just stick out the side.  

After you cut the tenon thickness and make sure it fits into your mortise, you have to determine the width.  I just mark them with my combination square and hand cut if there are only a few, reset the tenon if there a lot.  You can even just split them and pare with a chisel if you have the shoulder cut.   I never try to individually fit each joint but some paring will be necessary as the mortices are not always cut as beautifully as seen in Fine Wood Working.   

I just did some aprons out of tiger maple.  Wood was in shop for many months.  They fit fine when first cut, now are too tight, most likely due to stress relaxation in the wood.  I brought them into the house by the pellet stove to see if They will shrink enough to fit.  

If you watch Roy Underhill, he will just split the tenons after the shoulders are cut and do a bit of paring.  Fast method, not quite good enough for quality work.  I made an assembly table out of 2 x 10 dimensional lumber from Lowe's and did just that.  Mortices look like they were cut by a maniac, tenons and not very  tight but work when wedges were driven into the tops got better. Dovetail and cleat cut into the bottom to keep things kind of flat.  (Note:  Derek said, "Those are not sliding dovetails!  I don't know, looks like a dovetail joint and it kind of slid together? 
Wink )   Beat it up a lot, holds up fine.   So even crappy M & T  joints are pretty strong.
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#20
(03-21-2017, 06:48 PM)jgourlay Wrote: ...an extra 1/32 depth does nothing harmful and you have perfection registration with no chiseling...

Actually what this does is effectively reduce the thickness (and therefore strength) of the tenon by 1/16".
Wood is good. 
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