Long tenon shoulder marking

[Troywoodyard]

I am making a bed with a renowned panel that is 18" wide... it's the arts and crafts bed from fww last year. How would you mark a consistent shoulder? Typical I would square a line around with a knife but my square is too short... should I mark the 2 9" panels and cut the tenons separately and just edge glue the panel together during final glue up?

[Strokes77]

I am making a bed with a renowned panel that is 18" wide... it's the arts and crafts bed from fww last year.  How would you mark a consistent shoulder? Typical I would square a line around with a knife but my square is too short... should I mark the 2 9" panels and cut the tenons separately and just edge glue the panel together during final glue up?

If the end of the board is square, it's not out of the question to mark it with a marking gauge... 

Otherwise, mark as far as you can with your square, from both edges, then connect the middle with the blade of your square or another strait edge.

[AHill]

What is a "renowned" panel?  I've not heard that term before.

[cwarner]

What I do in similar situations is I will use my 24" steel rule, or another long known straight edge. I place my square on the piece's reference edge, then place my steel ruler between my square and my mark for the tenon shoulder. I place my knife in the mark and slide the square up until the knife contacts the ruler edge. I confirm that the ruler is contacting the square along its length so that i know that the ruler is square across the board. Then I mark the shoulder with my knife along my steel ruler.

[Troywoodyard]

Renowned was supposed to say "tenoned". ?

[AHill]

If you have a marking gauge, and assuming your panel is square to begin with, that's the way to go.  Otherwise, set your square to extend the length of your tenon, then place the square against the panel and a sharp pencil on the edge of the panel.  (short part of your ruler is over the panel).  Drag the square across the panel with your pencil sitting against the end of the ruler.  Done.  Picture shows a longer board but you get the idea.

[Rob Young]

At 16 inch tenon in QS White Oak (making an assumption since you said Arts & Crafts) I'd expect almost 1/4" of expansion/contraction over a 10% RH range.  Seems a bit wide unless there is something in you plan to deal with it.

If you can guarantee the endgrain is square to the long grain side, just run a marking (cutting) gauge.

[Jim Waldron]

At 16 inch tenon in QS White Oak (making an assumption since you said Arts & Crafts) I'd expect almost 1/4" of expansion/contraction over a 10% RH range.  Seems a bit wide unless there is something in you plan to deal with it.

If you can guarantee the endgrain is square to the long grain side, just run a marking (cutting) gauge.

Offhand, I'd suggest a 16-3/4 inch mortise to allow for expansion.
Since the tenons are haunched, the "extra" mortise length won't show. Pretty usual practice.

[Troywoodyard]

That is the bed I'm working on... I'm going with cherry instead of white oak, and I'm shortening tebheadboard and footboard by 2 inches. I'm also making the posts flush with the highest point in te center of the headboard and footboard instead of making them 8" long. I'm also foregoing the inlay and the hand hold. And I'm not using a router. But other than that it's the same bed


I was thinking about making a 3/4" to 1" deep tenon for the central 3-4" of the panel to keep the panel centered... then leave a gap In the mortise on the ends to account for expansion.

I'm using hand tools, so the way I would insure my pieces are square to be able to use a marking gauge would be to square a line across an 18" panel ... maybe I could shoot the ends of the 2 panel pieces to exact length and glue up and hope to get that precise, and then use the marking gauge? I wonder if that or the whole straightedge on a square method would be more accurate?

[Souperchicken]

I'm working on the same bed, also with a list of changes: mine's in walnut, also no inlay or cutouts (I like the look but the wife doesn't), and stretched in width to king size so I'm going to do something beefy for the mattress supports.  I'm changing the post thickness and rail heights to hopefully keep the same general proportions/appearance as Kevin's nice design.  Another change I'm considering is an even wider center panel to keep the proportions.

I'm using a mix of hand and power tools: I'm dimensioning the stock with bandsaw/planer/jointer and cutting to length with a power miter saw.  I'm cutting mortises with a hollow chisel mortiser, cleaned up with chisels.  I'm cutting the tenons on the rails with hand tools: backsaw to cut shoulders and chisels/router plane/shoulder plane to fit them to the mortises.  I can't easily saw the cheeks because the boards are so long.  Right now I have all the posts mortised and the head/foot board rails test fitted, but I still need to adjust some shoulders to tighten things up.  I also had to make extensions for my pipe clamps, king beds are wide!  

To your question, I'm about to start on the panels, and I'm considering using a rabbet plane to make the tenons but it's going to be interesting trying to keep a tight joint over the ~7' of width, the shoulder to shoulder lengths on all the panels have to be really close.  If that doesn't work well I may use a router table since I don't have a table saw.  Once you have your panels marked out how do you plan to cut the tenons?  Are you making mortises for each panel or just using a plow plane to cut a long groove in the rails?