production run gone wrong

[RayV]

Had to cut the tenons on the aprons for a set of tables I am making...

Carefully checked the height of my blade then lowered a touch for the test cut. Made the first cuts then flipped over and as predicted the tenon was too wide. Raised the blade and trimmed again, repeated until the tenon fit correctly.

I then proceded to cut the tenons on the remaining seven aprons. After finishing all my cuts I discover that the first piece I used was slightly thicker than the others causing all of my other tenons to be too narrow.

Moral of the story Check the thickness of all of your stock and plane them to the same thickness before working them. I guess that is why they say 1 by stock is *approximately* 3/4.

[Leon]

Yeah, LOL That production stuff demands uniformity. Or Get yourself a Domino. :~)

[George]

Solution to the problem. Make all tenons a tad over and run your shoulder or rabbet plane across them to fit to the mortise.

If you think solid stock is fun, try some of the Chinese ply.

[Swingman]

"RayV" wrote

To be happy camper/wooddorker with positive bank balance, consistently cut $tock too long, too thick, too wide ... trim to fit.

[Larry Blanchard]

Glue a piece of veneer to the narrow ones.

[bridgerfafc]

I made myself a set of spacers to put between the (swapped) outer blades from my dado set. voila! stock-thickness-independent tenons of consistent size.

[RayV]

That is a great idea! You should send that in to the magazines, one of them is bound to publish it and send you a check or even a free tool...

[B A R R Y]

It's been published before.

[Leon]

Should work well unless the tennon needs to be centered and the pieces are not the same thickness.

Actually a RAS saw with a dado set would solve the inconsistent stock problem. Tennons would be centered and the same thickness regardless of stock thickness.

[Doug Miller]

Centered, yes.

Same thickness regardless of stock thickness, clearly not.

[Swingman]

Except, that while a good method for cutting tenons on the table saw, it's already been in woodworking books and magazines for decades. :)

You still need to address the many other project perils inherent with your original problem of inconsistent stock thickness ... a good idea being to mill your stock to consistent dimensions to start with.

It you do use these type jigs with stock of inconsistent thickness, be sure to remember to pick out a "reference face" on each workpiece and stick with it so that things like planned apron 'reveals', or lack thereof, will be consistent.

[mac davis]

I feel your pain... Main reason that I recently bought a planer, also..

When possible, I prefer to over head route.. partly to see what the bit is doing, but mainly because the shopsmith uses 1/2" bits and the router 1/4"..

I made about a dozen small drawer fronts from oak scrap and decided that I'd run them through the shopsmith with a round over bit to give me a more finished look.. drawers were for the shop..

I realized too late that when overhead routing, your stock thickness is MUCH more critical than face down on a router table..

Some edges were barely touched, some rounded, some had lines from the bit cutting too deep.. It was a lesson that I needed to learn..

Things that don't kill you wear your ass out... (senior version)

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

[SonomaProducts.com]

Yeah this is an old trap that lots of us have fallen into.

It is OK to just dimension all the stock to the same thickness for a project. I sometimes use this method and even do some extra pieces just for safety. However, the most accurate approach is to devise a milling plan that ensures you get a repeatable thickness regardless of stock variance. This requires that the second cut is indexed from the face of the first cut.

Of course an easy approach is something like an FMT or Multi-router. Another is the dado trick mentioned.

For an indexing method I have used a tennoning jig and modified it so I did the fisr cut in the normal manner and then added a block at the bottom so the second cut actually indexed off of the previous cut. You have to have a second shim up higher that is thinner by approx the difference in the first cut. Hard to explain here I guess.

You can do the same thing with a dado on a RAS. Do all the first side cuts. Then build up base to place the first face on (face down). It can also act as a stop to line up the shoulders if you set iu up right but I usually have a stop at the end during both cuts which is easier. Again, not to easy to explain but the distance from the base to the dado cutter above is consistent so then is the final face to face dim.

[Stephen Bigelow]

That doesn't seem to stop the mags I get. It is a rare day I see an original tip in those rags.

[B A R R Y]

True!

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[charlieb]

If you'd used the Festool Domino you could've avoided three problems

1. by using loose tenon joints rather than mortise and tenon joints there'd be no test cuts, no tricky set up
2. as long as you reference off the "outside" face it doesn't matter how thick the stock is.
3. if you reference off the top edge of the apron part and the top of the table leg you don't have to worry about a gap between the top of the leg and the top of the apron

You also don't have to mess with "visible length" PLUS the tenonS lengths. And if you screw up the location of a mortise you can glue in a loose tenon and Do Over - nice to have an UNDO ability. Screw up a tenon and you have to either make a new part or "adjust" it's partner to match the screwed up part.

Oh - and it's almost impossible to be injured by the DOMINO - the nasty spinning carbide thing is either IN the wood or BEHIND the face of the tool - inside where it can't bite you.

charlie b

[SonomaProducts.com]

Sheesh, you should be in their marketing department. I've read about these (Domino) here and in print, saw a in-depth demo at AWFS and still never wanted one. It just looked too much like my expensive biscuit cutter that spends most of its life collecting dust.

Now I want one.

[Leon]

LOL, I have 2 "Biscuit Cutters" and a Domino. It really works much much better than the biscuit. If the competition ever builds a cheaper version down the road I suspect the Plate Joiner will be history. It's kinda cool also using the Domino to make "through tennons" which the Biscuit Cutter could not do too elegantly. :~)

[RicodJour]

I'm guilty of double-dipping. I've sent in the same tip to two magazines and got paid each time.

R

[RicodJour]

That's what I thought about a plate joiner until I found out otherwise...

R