It has been several months since I have built anything large, October last year I think. Anyway my wife wants more storage in her quilting studio and I designed a couple of two piece cabinets that will be painted to match all of her other studio furniture. As usual I am using my front and back face frame methods of building the cabinets with all mortise and floating tenon jointery and dado and grove jointery, and some lap joints on the back frame.
Anyway about 18 floating tenons, and 11 dado/groves. Nothing but wood and glue so far for this particular cabinet. Three to go with two of them being taller with glass doors.
A test dry fit to make sure all of this fits as planned.
formatting link
Glued and in the clamps.
formatting link
Where this will eventually end up.
formatting link
The color will be mint green but I use different colors to distinguish different materials so that when I import from Sketchup to Cutlist Plus I don't have to identify the material again for each piece.
Are you sure you are posting this to the proper group? It as nothing to do with politics or the price of gas.
I like the idea of them. We're going to be moving my wife's sewing room and she wants one wall to be display cabinets. I'll have to study your design to see if I can steal your ideas.
Time and again, I've paid attention to many of you all's use of floating te nons, though I may not have commented. I don't recall using floating teno ns in the past, but I have lately, and I've seen or understood how well the y perform by you're and others working, explanations and results.
Lately, I tried hand cutting mortises, for loose tenons, in the walnut tres tle tabel top. Did okay, but I'm sure a jig and plunge router would have done a better job, making for the top's edges to be a better aligned (even) , than with my hand job. In essence, I am not totally pleased with my han d cut mortises, despite their being fairly good.
I don't have a plunge router. I suppose a plunge router (and jig) is much more convenient/efficient, than using a standard router, for cutting these mortises. Kinna like a few years ago, I finally bought a biscuit jointer and found it easy to use and using biscuits, to be much more convenient tha n the job of drilling and using dowels.
I suppose it'll be a while before I make any more mortises for floating ten ons, and I may invest in a plunge router, then.
Your project reminds me, again, to think about getting a plunge router. I 'm lacking the skill and experience to use one, also, as readily as I use m y standard router.
As always, Leon, your projects are great, in more ways than one.
Might want to consider building a router table and putting a router lift in it. Gives you very, very precise control--with a good lift and a good fence you can position to 1/128 of an inch or better. You can DIY the lift if you want to, there's a brief discussion at that lists most of the available lift plans.
I know a lot of people say that you can't blame your tools if your project does not come out right. I say if you don't have the right tools it takes way too long to prove the previous comment.
I can cut many of these type mortises as quickly as cutting a slot for a biscuit and much more accurately with the right machine.
These would be difficult to cut accurately even with a plunge router.
Sonny wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
I think this is why floating tenons is a "modern" technique. If you're working by hand, it's much less effort to cut one mortise and one tenon, than to cut two mortises and a longer tenon piece.
Yeah, and in conjunction with what Leon said "that you can't blame your too ls if your project does not come out right" and working "with the right ma chine."
Long explanation, here. Other things involved in my thinking and with this table project (reminded by Leon's mortises and tenons, again), kinna brought all my issues/problems to the fore..... *Issues/problems with this particular table project.
I initially thought my table project was fairly straight forward... and it is, but subsequent (changing) circumstances didn't allow for my execution o f the building processes, as simply as I had envisioned, because of those u nforeseen, unanticipated changes.
I had/have no written plans, only a visual idea of the finished product. Then, I visualized-worked backwards, in my mental planning, as to each task to be done, in order to accomplish the end product. With each individual task, I did measure, calculate, mark, scribe, etc., but the general plans/ schematics were in my head.
1) The table top boards: Rough cut 2" thick, 11'10" long, about 19" wide; air dried for 2 yrs before beginning work; After drying, they were planed to 1 3/8" to 1 1/2" thick. There was some slight variation in the planed thickness, along the length of each board, because of 1) the large size of the boards and ....
2) Despite the boards being stickered, well, when air dried, and, after hav ing been planed and the mating edges jointed, there was still some slight w arping/waviness (not bad) along their lenghts. I had thought the irregul ar surfaces could be corrected, at least to some extent, with the mortise & tenon applications.... the remainder of the correction being to sand the s urfaces, along the mating edges, until even.... And, essentially, this ha s happened. However, there has been some unexpected other "influences" th at has crept into the mix.
Unexpected "influences":
1) My initial "design idea", for the table top, was to keep each board sepa rate from the other, i.e., not glued together, because each board is so lar ge and heavy and each board will expand & contract(humidity/temp). Each ta ble top board weighs about 75lbs, I'm guessing. It would be difficult to move that large of table top (the table disassembled), if the three boards were glued into one piece. So I decided to abandon the glued-up assembly and have the boards assembled separately. This separate assembly plan pr esented another issue, with respect to expansion/contraction movement.... t here would be open "cracks" (separation) along the mating surfaces. This/ these "opening" events will likely have to be corrected by, periodically, m anually closing the mating joints, from time to time. I don't want to hav e to do this "manual closing".
2) The use of loose tenons came into play for the unglued top boards assemb ly..... sounds easy enough, problem solved! My hand cut mortises and teno ns didn't completely solve the problem, as well as I assumed. The boards are still moving, i.e., expanding and contracting. Would better-cut mortis es have helped the problem? Probably, but probably not completely. Shou ld I have invested in a plunge router and jig, as I had thought, back then (months ago)? Back then, I had thought hand cut mortises would have been good enough, so I dismissed the new tool purchase.
For their 11'+ length, I have 7 tenons along each mating edge. Bottom-sid e view of the table, scroll right for second pic. The tenons are 1"W X 3/
8"thick X 2"L.
formatting link
I think my walnut table project is worth the effort to get the right tools for the job and/or have the correct skills to perform the tasks at hand.
Leon's cabinet project, again, made for my re-evaluating the things (tools) I need to seriously consider, when doing some projects. I am discovering that this table project is not as some of my past typical, run-of-the-mill "primitives". I need a better approach, better skills and/or appropriate tools, to accomplish what I want.
There have been a few other things, with this whole project, that has not g one as smoothly as I had envisioned. I blame the large size of the boards for some of the issues.... the slab leg units are still drying, moving/war ping, a bit; the trestle board is still "moving", also. I ask myself, woul d having kiln dried the lumber made for more stable lumber? With this proj ect, I am having to tweak my knowledge(or ignorance?) and skills, an in-pro gress job, in and of itself.
And highly likely to be plenty sufficient to do the job.
Taking a look at xrays of M&T joints in antique furniture will disavow you of the idea most old time woodworking was somehow the epitome of precision when done by hand.
Sure, there are a few bespoke "master works" with precision joinery, but most product of the old time woodworker wouldn't pass the muster of today's imaginary magazine standards, which are driven by advertising dollar, in pursuit of a perfection that rarely ever existed in practice.
Heck, put an x-ray to my mortises and you will see that one side of the joint, usually the end of a board, has an exact fit Domino mortise and the opposite mating side has an elongated Domino mortise, width wise, to give me a touch of wiggle room during the glue up. Precise fit between the mortise and floating tenon is not at all necessary in this regard. It is helpful however if the distance from the reference surface is dead on so that mating pieces outer surfaces share the same plane. ;~)
Actually, the mortises and tenons fit well, together.... tenons have a nice tight fit into the mortises. The mortise slots' alignments, from board t o board, is perfect. I had expected these "fittings" to fix the subtle/sl ight warp (waviness-misalignment), of the boards surfaces, to be better cor rected. It is the degree of the non-correcting, that I am not totally ple ased with.
And thanks for the vote of confidence, that they are plenty sufficient.
Leon's comment:
give me a touch of wiggle room during the glue up.
At one time, I had thought to glue the table top boards together. Their s ize made me rethink that. For smaller boards, gluing is fine, but maybe n ot for these large of boards, planks.
I may reconsider gluing them. Another option, I had considered, was to ins tall 4 or 5 dutchmans along each mating joint, on the underside of the tabl etop. Not sure how well top-surface dutchmans would look, for secondary d ecor function. Wonder if 4 or 5 topside dutchmans would be overkill, look inappropriate for decor? Maybe 3 per joint topside and 2 per joint botto mside. Don't know if I can do justice to this project, with exposed dutchm ans, as well as George Nakashima would do, but the more I think about it, t he more appealing it is. I do pretty good dutchmans, also. There's one o n the underside of one board, securing a check.
You have heard Swingman and I say this at least once before. ;~) In my very early years I started a project from a few measurements and a picture in my mind. The projects came out well but took for eeeeeeever. Then came the computer and CAD, my first computer was in 1986. I was building serious furniture 8 years before that. I went through probably
5~7 different brands of CAD software including AutoCAD LT. All were an immense help.
Then about 8~9 years ago Swingman and I tried Sketchup one more time. I think both of us had tried earlier versions and removed them but the last time we both saw improvements and have not looked back. Adding simple to use 3D greatly improves the ability to see exactly how a project will look in its finished form. Additionally you literally build your drawing as you would your project in the shop, piece by piece as components. so add dutch-mans in the drawing and see for yourself it they will be too much. ;~)
Another thing I like to do for my customers is draw the room that the piece of furniture will fit into so that they can see the scale to the room shape and size.
The link below is to a pretty complex drawing. This drawing is our home with my garage shop and all of the furniture that I have built, for our home. I have on occasion changed the color of a piece after placing it this model as the original color did not go well. FWIW every thing you see that is placed in the house model can be removed and edited. Basically all of the furniture can be moved, rotated, disassembled and viewed in explicit detail exactly how it was built. In fact if you look at the top floor, my wife's quilting studio, you will see again the model of the cabinet that I am currently building.
Sketchup is a free program and a priceless tool, not to mention a lot of fun.
I learned the other day, it is still "a lot of fun" if you fall out of practice with it! ;) Maybe part of it was the new version seemed a little bit different that the old. I recall I used to be able to have a bunch of bottons on the *left*, but I couldn't figure out how to get them there. I am using a version I downloaded in 2015.
Sonny wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
I'm always impressed by folk that can do that sort of thing in their mind. I can't - I have to draw everything out on a piece of paper, front, side, and top views, with dimensions.
Curious how you planed them. Do you have access to a monster power planer, or a wide belt sander?
Not sure I'm actually following this, but could you peg the tenons from below, and keep the joints tight that way? Then all the movement would be at the outer edge of the table.
Nevermind, I found it. It's called "Large Tool Set". It's easier to find when you aren't trying to get something done.... ;) I've always used Large Tool Set, so things were a little awkward not using it.
You can also move toolbars around. There is a thin dotted line at either the left or the top of a tool set. If you place the the cursor over the thin dotted line you will see a four arrow symbol like the one shown with the move tool. Hold the cursor down and you can then move the tool set. You can place tool sets almost anywhere. I.e. at the top, left, right, bottom or floating around.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.