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Turned Mortise & Tenon Joints

I have a joinery job coming up which will necessitate around 40-50 mortise and tenon joints to be cut out. Now apart from the fact that this will be a mind-numbingly boring task, it will most likely take forever. Is there any good reason why I shouldn't make round mortise and tenon joints, turning the tenons (see, it's not quite off-topic!) and simply using a forstner bit for the mortises? The only reason why it wouldn't be quite as good as traditional m & t joints is that round tenons could potentially be more susceptible to rotation in the mortises but decent glue-up and tight-fitting tenons. together with a screw or dowel driven laterally through the tenon when it's in place should get rid of that. Apart from the fact that turning a round tenon on the end of square stock might be a little tricky I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be a good idea. Can anyone spot anything I might have missed? Any reason why it's not used more often - is it just that most woodworkers probably don't have access to a lathe? Thanks in advance.

Kind regards

Ron Headon Swindon, England

Reply to
Ron Headon
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Ron,

Why not eliminate the tenons altogether and just use dowels? There are a number of jigs that will allow you to position the dowels accurately in both pieces of wood.

Harry

Reply to
Harry B. Pye

You don't even need a lathe. There are tools that, I think, fit on the end of a portable hand drill which cut a tenon. There are a lot of folks (here in the colonies) that like rustic furniture in their remote cabins for both porch and interior furnishings. This furniture is made from branches with the bark still on and the ends are joined in the manner you described. The only difference is that a natural limb would not be true enough to use a lathe for the tenon, so they use the tool I described. Some one else may know what it's called and where you could get one. I think it would be faster than using a lathe. The only problem is that the ones that I've seen taper the limb rather than providing a sharp shoulder.

Gene

tight-fitting

Reply to
Gene

Ron Headon wrote:I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be a good idea. Can anyone spot anything I might have missed? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ As far as I can see, the only thing you may have missed is that it's done all the time on chair-leg stretchers. :-)

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Leo Lichtman

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jduprie

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