BeadLOCK

[Locutus]

have any experiences with this? Is it worth the money?

[Swingman]

Only you can determine that, but don't be scared of it. There is certainly nothing wrong with using this variation on "loose tenon" methodology.

If you don't have the tools or skill to do the usual M & T joinery, or the equipment to do make tenons for the more prevalent method, you should find it a viable option.

[Charley]

The beadlock system is an incredibly easy way to do floating tenon joinery. The amazing thing about it is that you can make the mortices with nothing more than an electric drill, a 3/8" or 1/2" drill bit, and the Beadlock fixture for that size, held in place with a clamp. I've had one (mine will do both sizes) for several years and use it frequently. In fact, I have even purchased the 3/8" special router bit so that I could make my own 3/8" tenon material.

There's only one thing that I felt needed improvement with their fixture and the fix for it was easy. The alignment mark/hole is a D shaped hole. The flat side of this hole has to be aligned with the mark on your board. It is a bit difficult to get positioned correctly because the straight edge of the hole that you have to align to your mark isn't bright or contrasty enough. I fixed this by filing the plating off of the top surface of the flat side of the hole with a small file (I just put a small bevel on the edge). This gave me a bright clear edge line that made it much easier to position the fixture accurately.

Using the Beadlock jig is simple. Hold your boards together in the position that you want them joined. Make a straight line mark across the joint where you want the centerline of the tenon located. Align the straight side of the jig's D hole edge to your pencil mark and clamp the fixture to your board. Drill 3 holes through the jig's drill guide into your board. Loosen the thumb screws and slide the drill guide to the second position. Drill 2 more holes through the drill guide. Loosen the thumb screws and move the drill guide back to position 1 and redrill the original three holes to clean them out. Remove the clamp and jig. Then do the exact same procedure to the other board. Cut the supplied tenon material to the proper length and then assemble your joint with glue and clamps. It's so easy that I once had my 7 year old grand daughter help me. She drilled about 40 perfectly aligned joints with no problems and no help from me.

[Lee Michaels]

Go look at

is some good stuff there.

I have worked on several projects with the bead lock tenons. They all worked well. One was to join together several arc shaped peices for a circular solid wood desk top. We had to do some fancy blocking to do the clamping and glueing. But once it was done, we were able to use a circle jig and cut a perfect circle.

Another good use to make up things that need to be broken down for shipping and put together for display. You glue in one side and leave the other free. Maybe sand down the loose one a little bit.

I guess what I like the most were the curious folks who wondered how the peice was held together. Of course, I tell them tall tales of wooly mammoth glue.

[Toller]

Is it all much different than putting in a few dowels? I can see that allignment is easier because all the dowels have to be perfect or they won't work, but otherwise...

[Swingman]

"Toller" wrote in

Yep ... for starters, more glue surface area, which equates to a stronger joint.

[Locutus]

Well, it looks to me that it would be about like using 4-5 dowels..

[CW]

Pretty much the same thing. What is a Beadlock? Bumpy loose tennon. What is a loose tennon? Elongated dowel.

[Leuf]

The premade tenon stock is fairly expensive, and if you have a router in which to use the bit to make your own tenon stock then you may as well just use the router and a jig to make normal floating tenons. So in a nutshell, if you have a router you don't need it, and if you don't have a router you're better off putting the money towards one.

-Leuf

[CW]

Kind of like, if you don't know how to ride a horse, a car is a viable alternative.

[Max Mahanke]

I've used the Beadlock jig and the alignment problem is actually worse than you pointed out. We all figured out right away we had to file a bevel on the straight edge of the hole. (I even painted mine white) The real problem is you have to flip the jig over to do the mating hole, i.e. leg to apron joint. So you align the leg and apron, place a straight mark accross the joint and you're off. But on one side you're sighting above your mark and on the other side, below the mark. I even tried filing a V notch in the center of the flat to try and determine if I was exactly on my mark and it still doesn't always yeild a perfectly aligned joint every time. How much does this problem misalign the joint? - just enough to irratate the hell out of me. In frustration I sent Beadlock a product improvement suggestion complete with statement of the problem, solution, and drawings. Simply rotate the D window 90 degrees and put a V notch dead center like an open gun sight. I never heard back from them, not even so much as an acknowledgement that they had received my suggestion. Presumably they've already manufactured a bagillion of them in China and don't want to hear about it. I'm currently stress testing the jig in my driveway every night when I come home. Parking my pickup on top of it hasn't seemed to improve its accuracy any so far.

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[mac davis]

what's a biscuit jointer?.. *lol* Mac