Mortise with dado blade?

[Bruce Rowen]

Howdy,

I was pondering the other day about various pieces of "mission style" furniture I'd like to build someday and thoughts of lots 'o M&T joinery came to mind...

Of interest is where this style of stuff uses lots of rungs (for lack of the proper word) that are trapped between two rails. Think of a crib or jail cell 8^)

Consider a part that has standard 3/4 inch thick by, say, 2 inch rails of some length that need to have a dozen or so mortises cut for 3/8 inch square tennons. This could be the side of an end table or a cabinet door. Has anyone here done this by taking a rail piece, planing it to 3/8" + 3/16", and cutting the dozen mortises with a dado blade? After the cuts are made, another rail of 3/16" thickness is glued to the dado'd piece to make a 3/4" thick rail with centered 3/8" mortises.

Assume the sides without rungs are hidden or otherwise so the through hole created will not show.

If you have done this does the glue line created hide well enough to be a non issue, assuming the rail is made from like grained stock (or even resawn 1" stock)?

Is this nuts or a sound method for making a gazillion mortises in a rail without a drill press or morticing machine?

Thanks!

-Bruce

[Wood Butcher]

No, you're not nuts. A couple of months ago I posted the message below. It describes a method very similar to what you are proposing.

Search the archives for "Mortising press vs. Drill press with mortising bits?" if you want to see the *hole* thread.

Art

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[Bruce Rowen]

Thanks Art!

I guess most everything has been done at a one time or another. One issue I see with your method is that the insert strip needs to have an exact fit with the dado groove and you have the potential to leave two glue lines. This way does solve the problem of mortise depth over what I was considering though. Another thought is to cut the dados in the rail like you are making a box joint. Do this on 3/8" stock, then slap on a solid piece of 3/16" stock (or thicker and then surface plane down) onto each face of the now-notched rail. This would allow for blind mortise holes and avoid having to selectively fit spacers, at the cost of extra dado cutting and possibly greater wood waste.

Me thinks I have to get out and try variations on all this....

-Bruce

Wood Butcher wrote:

[John Siegel]

[Lawrence L'Hote]

I made a set of nested end tables using the method described above. With the dark finish, the spacers in the groove are only noticeable to the very close observer. Personally, I don't like this method of making the spindle(?) mortise/tenon and haven't used this method since. Following is the pix:

[Eric Lund]

Then there's the futon sofa/bed. It's a Wood or Woodsmith pattern. It uses a slot, but there's nothing between the slats. After glueup, they recommend a couple of finish nails in each end of the large slats, and a nail in each end of the arm slats. It turned out nice, and everyone loves it, but I'll be damned if I'll go that route again.

Cheers, Eric

[Bruce Rowen]

Larry, On a side note, the A&C lamp in your nesting table picture; did you make the shade and if so what did you use for the frame parts?

Thanks,

-Bruce

Lawrence L'Hote wrote:

[Lawrence L'Hote]

Nope, I didn't make the lamp. I got it from The Bright Spot Folks

Shade is brown patinaed copper with mica. I suppose one could fabricate the shade with some 16 oz(24 guage) copper and several places sell the amber mica for reasonable cost.

Larry

[Wood Butcher]

Damn. Hit send instead of edit.

The bed is made from red oak, no stain nor pore filler, 3 coats of Deft gloss.

Art

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