Cutting tenons quickly and safely

[jteneyck]

 That makes sense Barry.  I used a less-refined version of your method once before.  The responses above are great if I was looking at a long horizon ahead for furniture building, but it's late in the game for me.  Hand sawing skills for cutting tenons are not easily acquired.  I agree that my bandsaw is probably the tool for this task.  At least the cuts will have the fence to help maintain parallel cuts.  Blade choice would be important.

You are much more likely to get uniform tenons with a dado blade in a TS than with a bandsaw.  Yes, a well tuned bandsaw will do the job, but is yours well tuned?  The probability of success is much higher on your TS.  

John

[Tapper]

Sorry, I totally forgot about the old Delta style mortising machine you are probably referring to. If that's the case then yes, cutting tenons on a tablesaw or fine tuned bandsaw is definitely the best solution.

John's machine still is a great option IMO and takes a lot of the guesswork and fiddling out of the equation.

Doug

[Handplanesandmore]

Late to the party. Just get a festool domino machine, and be done with it. No other way is faster and cooler.

[Dave Diaman]

You are much more likely to get uniform tenons with a dado blade in a TS than with a bandsaw.  Yes, a well tuned bandsaw will do the job, but is yours well tuned?  The probability of success is much higher on your TS.  

John

John is right. The table saw with a dado blade is a much more accurate and reliable way to cut tenons. I have literally cut 10 of thousands of tenons with a dado blade. I also have one of John’s mortise machines and it is my go to machine for cutting mortises. The only time I don’t use it is if I’m cutting really large tenons like you would see on a bedpost. It would still work for that application but I have found more efficient ways to cut large mortises. I’ll have to look around and see if I have some photos of the process I use.

[joe1086]

Nice to see you back Dave. Always enjoy your set up/project pics.

[jteneyck]

It's pretty obvious that my Horizontal Router Mortiser (HRM) cuts mortises for use with loose tenons.  It does that job very efficiently on anything that can be brought to the machine.  And it does it part after part without having to layout the mortise on the parts.  You do that on the first part and never again until you move on to a new size mortise.  Some typical matching 1/4" mortises in two parts to be joined with a loose tenon.  



Slip in a loose tenon, which you can make any size from project scrap, and it's ready to glue up.  And on the ends of rails, it's easier to clamp the workpiece on the HRM than to try to hold a Domino up to it.  Also, once the workpiece is clamped to the HRM sliding table, making the cut is safe and requires no holding/plunging of a router like on many router mortisers.  When you need to do dozens of parts lifting and guiding a router is a tiring and potentially dangerous undertaking.  



I see no advantage over loose tensons, but if you want to cut integral tenons, the HRM is well suited for that task, too.  





Whether cutting mortises for loose tenons, or mortise and integral tenon joints, the HRM gives you clean, parallel cuts, with no paring or clean up required for a precise fit of the tenon.  





I'm happy to sell you a HRM, but you can build one for not much money and a day or two of your time from the SketchUp model at the bottom of this page  on my website.  If you don't use SketchUp, I can send you PDF files for the major parts.  

John

[Bob Vaughan]

There's always the old fashioned way.  Use a single end tenoner.