Mortiser Recommendation

[Steve N]

Have you considered a horizontal router mortiser instead?  Unless you absolutely need really deep, square ended mortises the horizontal router mortiser is superior in every way.  Take a look at my design.   I also make an upgraded model, available with flat or tilting X-table, that looks like this:



If you have an interest in this one, send me a PM.  

John

I am a seriously underutilized owner of John's marvelous horizontal router. Because I haven't used it enough it escaped my thoughts. John is correct, that this is a solid option for any M&T work, plus a good many other tricks and treats that can be done here. Quicker, more accurate simply because of how it works. If you are looking to change tools I would suggest this as it will do your M&T, Plus. Flat M&T's are fairly straight forward, but without an engineering degree, or breaking a sweat you can do angled on this as simply as if they were flat. To sum up what you can do, it will fill in for a M&T machine, a Domino, and do a few things sideways, yet secure, that might not be standard fare for a hand held router, or a router table.

[Tapper]

Like Steve, I'm also a "seriously underutilized" owner of one of John's machines. One of the often overlooked benefits of using loose tenons (which this method does) is that all your material can be cut to final length without having to allow extra space for the tenons; this really simplifies the measuring and cutting process IMHO.

As a side note, I've worked with John on a couple of projects online. He's very honest, very clever and will stand behind all if his work and products. My suggestion is that you at least give it a serious look. I have no financial or other interest in this whatsoever.

Doug

[jteneyck]

Thanks for the kind words, Steve and Doug.  Just to clarify, you can make integral tenons with the horizontal router mortiser.  If you look at the pictures on the website link you will see how it's done, pretty much the same way you would do it on the table saw using a dado blade, only these come out much smoother.  I rarely use integral tenons because loose tenons are so much easier, as Doug pointed out, but if you like, want, or need integral tenons, it's easily done. 

The tenon will end up with square shoulders while the mortise will have rounded ends.  You have two choices.  You can round over the shoulders of the tenon with a rasp, file, and/or sandpaper, or you can square the ends of the mortise with a chisel.  Either is fast and easy.


John

[Steve N]

I have no financial or other interest in this whatsoever.

Doug

Sheesh Doug, he pays me 25 bux a sale






















I swear that is not true, but I couldn't resist. As Doug says, John is a very straight forward honest guy that just so happens to make a fabulous product here. I seriously don't get a cent for saying that. The beauty of this is John's tool is so good he doesn't need to pay me to say how good it is.

[Steve N]

You have two choices.  You can round over the shoulders of the tenon with a rasp, file, and/or sandpaper, or you can square the ends of the mortise with a chisel.  Either is fast and easy.
John

3 choices John. Your mortise will have round shoulders coming from a round router bit cut. You can make a rectangular shaped tenon. If it is cut to fit tight into the largest portion of the mortise, the under width tenon won't allow for shift, because it is tight to the sides of the tenon. Glue does the rest. I can cut tenons faster on the TS than I can scoop out mortises using any method by far. I'd use your tool to mortise, and the TS to tenon. Properly cut the tenons just fit, with a smallish scoop on either side, but the shoulder covers that, and as said glue holds them well. If you felt it was a critical joint for strength, you could always pin it, but the few I have done are quite sound. If you have a lot to do, try it

[jteneyck]

Yes, that's a perfectly logical approach.  I thought that anyone who wanted to use integral tenons would want them to fit snugly, just because.  But except for thru tenons, I always make the tenon narrower than the mortise to allow for wiggle room during assembly. 

John

[Curlycherry]

I had a benchtop Delta and it was great until I got my Powermatic. That PM was great until I got my Leigh FMT jig. For accuracy and tight fitting, nothing can touch the FMT. I was very satisfied with my FMT until I got a Festool Domino. Speed, accuracy and holding are the benchmarks of the Domino. I was happy with my small Domino maker until I got my DominoZilla. I LOVE that thing. A friend is using it right how for a counter top and he skoffed at it and snorted at it. Then he used it to make one joint and he was sold.

So for me, if I am going purist route, I make real M&Ts on my FMT.

If I want to cheat a little I use floating tenons on the FMT.

If I want to get r done then the Domino comes out. I have never had a domino joint fail either. I've got two pieces of 6/4 cherry joined with 3 dominos that I challenge people to try to break. About 30+ people have tried, none have succeeded.

[frigator]

They had an interesting article in the February issue Of FWW saying that tight fitting joinery is a must and we really need to avoid the wiggle room with the mortises. Ideally the gap around the tenon should be no more than 5 thousand. When the gap is doubled in size the strength of the joint decreases by 21% according to the article.

Also some have advised only putting glue on the tenon which decreases the strength of the joint by 50% according to this article. I got a domino three or four months ago but I still prefer using the LeighFMT for my mortise and tenon work. My main complaint with Loose tenons is it takes longer to glue the joint up if you put glue on both the mortise and tenon.

[Curlycherry]

They had an interesting article in the February issue Of FWW saying that tight fitting joinery is a must and we really need to avoid the wiggle room with the mortises. Ideally the gap around the tenon should be no more than 5 thousand.  When the gap is doubled in size the  strength of the joint decreases by 21% according to the article.

Also some have advised only putting glue on the tenon which decreases the strength of the joint by 50% according to this article.  I got a domino three or four months ago but I still prefer using the LeighFMT for my mortise and tenon work.  My main complaint with Loose tenons is it takes longer to glue the joint up if you put glue on both the mortise and tenon.

I did the experiment with my FMT jig where I changed the settings by 0.002" and observed what happened.  I had a 3/8" by 1.5"  by 1" M&T and the first joint was too tight I could not slide the pieces together. Made the tenon 0.002" smaller and it slid in but was very tight. Like spit on it and it probably would have locked up. Next tenon was 0.002" smaller and it slid in and had no noticeable wiggle. Turn the piece over and it stayed in place. Made one more 0.002" smaller and it went in with a wiggle and when turned over it fell right out. It was not an acceptable joint.

[jteneyck]

They had an interesting article in the February issue Of FWW saying that tight fitting joinery is a must and we really need to avoid the wiggle room with the mortises. Ideally the gap around the tenon should be no more than 5 thousand.  When the gap is doubled in size the  strength of the joint decreases by 21% according to the article.

Also some have advised only putting glue on the tenon which decreases the strength of the joint by 50% according to this article.  I got a domino three or four months ago but I still prefer using the LeighFMT for my mortise and tenon work.  My main complaint with Loose tenons is it takes longer to glue the joint up if you put glue on both the mortise and tenon.

Yes, you want a snug fit between the sides of the mortise and tenon.  This is where the router excels; it produces very consistent width mortises, and you can plane or drum sand loose tenon stock to the exact fit you want.  What the article doesn't talk about is that you want smooth mating surfaces.  Of course we all know that.  This is where the router really excels, and where the chisel mortiser is really poor.  There's no cleanup required for mortises made with a router; there always is with one made by a chisel mortiser.  And if you use loose tenons there's no tenon to clean up or tune to fit to the mortise nor to repair if you screw it up.  

It does take longer to glue loose tenons into both mortises compared with an integral tenon.  But the time savings upstream in being able to cut rails to final width w/o having to consider the tenon length, and in using one set up to cut both mortises (at least with my machine) rather than two completely different setups if using a chisel mortiser to make the mortises and a table saw or something else for the tenons, more than makes up for the few extra seconds it takes by a huge margin.

The Domino is a great machine, but it's a one trick pony and it's really expensive.  The FMT can do a little more but is still expensive.  You can do so much more with a horizontal router mortiser and you can build one like my original design for less than $100.  That particular machine is now about 6 years old, has cut thousands of mortises, and is still in use by the friend I gave it to after I came up with generation 2.

John