Floating tenons?

[Robert Bledsoe]

Hi everyone. I have been reading this forum for a while and really enjoy reading everyone's stuff, and have learned much from everyone on here.

I wanted to seek yalls opinion on how best to tie together a wall clock I am working on. The picture attached is a profile view of the wall clock. There are two parts to the clock - the top housing the mechanism and bottom where the pendulum will be. The sides are mitered frames with glass acting as a "panel." Separating the sections is a partition. I was thinking about using a floating tenon or dowels going all the way through the partition and into the top and bottom frames to tie it all together. Does anyone have any comments or other suggestions?

[Mike Cutler]

It should work fine, either dowels or floating tenons.
You'll have to pay attention to grain orientation to be sure the tenon, or dowel, is glued to face grain and not an end grain.

[glenn bradley]

I use floating tenons quite a bit and have always had good luck with them. No failures to date; some under some reasonably stressful use (Maloof-like table leg joints, table aprons and even picture frames). Sounds like a good solution to me.

[Peter Quinn]

I'm wondering what the partition is made of. If its solid wood, you have a wood movement issue. The partition will move across the grain, the mitered frames connected to it along their length will not move significantly in that direction. This sets up a fight, something is going to lose. I'm thinking you could make the dowel holes in the front tight, make the holes or slots in the rear loose so the partition panel can move. Or you could glue the two panels together along their edges, make a groove in the sides of the case to the inside, and float the partition as a panel, then wrap the outside with an applied molding? Depending on what the visual is on the front of the clock, you could dovetail the front of the partition into the clock case, glue that connection, and let the back float. Or you could use a piece of plywood veneer both sides and edge banded and glue this in as originally planned with dowels. But if you glue solid wood in the two directions I see there I suspect the partition will either crack or break the glue joint eventually.

[Robert Bledsoe]

Thanks for the insight Peter! I will have the think about things to avoid any problems. What if the grain on the partition was oriented to run from the back of the clock to the front, so that the expansion would occur across the face of the clock rather than the depth? (I realize that this would bring up issues for routing, finishing) etc. That way, the miter frames, the partition and the back of the clock are all moving in the same direction (across the width of the face of the clock). With regard to the front of the clock, there are two doors that could be affected by such lateral movement. However, they will only be opened once every two weeks or so to wind the clock, so the only real concern is whether the lateral movement will be enough to cause cosmetic issues. I have tried to find a wood movement table, but have been unable to find a good one. What do you think?

[Peter Quinn]

I think it would work running all the grain the same direction but then you will be viewing end grain as the molded face on the partition, which has it's draw backs. I'd rather float the partition in a groove as a panel.