Angled mortise and tenon joints

[Mark Nudelman]

I'm making some plant stands which will have legs splayed out at 7.5 degrees from vertical. There are two sets of horizontal rails joined to the legs by mortise and tenon joints. (Each set of rails is an "X" shape, so diagonally opposite pairs of legs are joined by a rail, and the two rails intersect.) Normally when I make (non angled) mortise and tenon joints I cut the tenon shoulders on the table saw, then the cheeks with a tenoning jig on the table saw. The mortises are cut with a mortising attachment on my drill press. Obviously all these steps need to be modified to cut the angled mortises and tenons for this project. The obvious approach seems to be to cut the long shoulders with a miter gauge set at 7.5 degrees, and the short ones with the saw blade tilted at 7.5 degrees. The cheeks are a bit trickier -- I guess I need a jig to hold the rail at 7.5 degrees from vertical on my tenoning jig. And then another jig to hold the legs at 7.5 degress from horizontal on the drill press table to cut the mortises.

Does this sound like the right approach, or is there an easier way to do this?

Thanks for your advice.

--Mark

[Peter Ashby]

Easier? buy a mortise & tenon jig for a router, there are various available, some cost more than others.

For your equipment though that sounds like the best approach, its what Norm does after all ;-)

I once cut angled joints by hand, it was in treated softwood, an underframe for a skate ramp for the youngest. I used a hand tenon saw, a bevel, a drill in a frame, a mortise guage and a chisel. The tenon was the easy bit. The angled mortise was done like this (shallow angle as you can imagine). I drew the angle on the side of the piece and set out the mortise with the guage. Then with an appropriate forstner bit I set the depth using the marking on the side and roughed out the mortise. cleaning up the sides was easy, I did the slope by running the chisel along the slope of the bevel (you could cut an angled piece on a table/band saw). That worked fine, I pinned the mortises and four years in the outside in the north of Scotland and they are still fine.

Peter

[Schroeder]

Another option is to use "loose" tenons. I made a similar plant stand with

7 degree angles and the loose tenons made the job incredibly easy...

Schroeder

[Mark]

I've made a fern table before which meets this desciption. Angled tennons are tough. My preference is to angle the mortise. I assume the table on your drill press tilts. I have a dedicated mortiser and a mortise attachment for my saw which makes either significantly easier. The mortise attachment is a Shop Fox which sells for around $60. You'll want one of these to do the angled tenons. Mark