Today I was able to do both tenons for the supporting rail (rail? stile?) for the step stool I’m building. It’ll be a through tenon and have wedges when it’s done. I also had time to do one mortise today.
This one looks pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. However, TOTAL DISCLOSURE: The other one didn’t go as well. My line on the cheeks weren’t very straight so the tenon narrows at it nears the shoulders. This, my friends, is not good. I might not need to fix it, though, since there probably won’t be any wobble. The direction it would wobble will be held in check by the dovetails. The only force really being put on this rail will be along the top and bottom of the tenon, and not on the cheeks.
Still, if I sense movement once I’ve done the second mortise and dry-fit it together, I may glue a shim on at least one of the cheeks and re-cut it to be more square.
All in all, a good day in the shop.
5 comments
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July 12, 2008 at 8:38 am
Rick Waters
Hey! That looks nice! Great work. I’d love to be able to say I could cut a tenon by hand.
Again, great job!
July 12, 2008 at 11:14 am
Shannon
Very nice work. I have only done a few of these by hand and they didn’t look that good. I am anxious to try using my new router plane for this operation too. There was mention of that in the last Pop Wood mag.
July 12, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Kaleo Kala
Sorry Eric commented on the wrong post, this is a nice looking tenon, now let’s see the mortise?
July 12, 2008 at 6:40 pm
marc
Seems like it should be so simple, but dammit, its not. lol. You did a great job with that one dude!
marc
July 13, 2008 at 6:24 am
Eric
Looks good man! Can’t wait to get my shop/area set up to do some hand cut stuff myself. Keep it up.
Eric