M & T alternatives?

[Steve Cox]

I am working on a bid for a window seat. It will be approximately 24' long and run around one inside corner. The customer wants it in a craftsman style, a Frank Lloyd Wright design is the inspiration, basically it looks like a Morris chair. It will have 3/4" spindles spaced 3/4" apart. As I started to work on this I came up with an approximate number of 450 mortise and tenon joints:eek: . I don't own a mortiser, purchasing one for this job might be an option but I thought I'd throw this out there for any alternatives someone may have. BTW cutting a groove and using spacers is out. It won't work visually for this customer. Wood will be cherry.

[Nick Mitchell]

Definitely sounds like you have the justification for a Leigh FMT.

Congrats on the job.

[Richard Wolf]

I agree with Nick. The Leigh FMT is pricey but it works very well. The learning curve is not as bad as the dovetail jig and once it is set up the M & T will go very quickly.

Richard

[Keith Christopher]

I have also seen these done by making a dado as wide as the tenons in the rail. spacers are made the same thickness and placed in between the tenons at glueup.

[Mike Cutler]

Steve. Eventually you will find a need for a dedicated mortiser, you may have found it already. The FMT is certainley a nice mortise and tenon fixture. I've never used one, so I don't know how well it would do repetitous, evenly spaced mortises. Hopefully someone that has one can answer.
I find that a dedicated mortiser, and a tenon jig on the tablesaw are hard to beat for this type of work. No slam on the FMT intended.
The current project I'm working on has 250 seperate pieces, and over 375 mortise joints of one form or another. The majority being a standard blind M&T, so I know where you're coming from bro' on trying to find the most expedient method. I wish I knew of one.
I've attached a pic just to give you an idea of what I've been "struggling with. It still has a lot of work left yet to do. I use a Delta 14-651, with an XY sliding vise, and a Delta tenon fixture for the TS. I've also got an FMT knockoff homemade jig that I've used on this project. Not as nice as an FMT, but it works. Oh yeah, and an assortment of chisels, files, and a shoulder plane.

[Steve Cox]

Looks like lots of work Mike. Just for fun, this is what the customer sent to me and said he wanted a window seat like the one in this room.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/vr/wright/wright_main.asp

[Greg Mann]

Steve,

I have had my eye on the FMT for a while myself, and your project would justify it as much as any would, but, if most of the joints are going to be the same, you might be just as well off with a couple purpose built jigs with templates. Something on the order of Pat Warner's designs. Now mind you, I would not want to discourage your aspirations to increase your arsenal, but the FMT would probably be most valuable for its versatility. Repetitious cuts could be done for a lot less. OTOH, it's the shear volume of work that makes the purchases easier to justify, right? :D

Greg

[Mike Cutler]

Steve. You may want to PM Kirk Constable (KC) here on the board. He does a lot of fabulous mission style work in mesquite, and he may know a trick or two to save you time.

[Steve Hooper]

Good Morning Steve:

SWMBO has ordered radiator covers for “This Old House”. Most will be paint grade
(Picture enclosed). [IMG]
The vertical bars are about 1 ¼” wide. The first couple covers used biscuits to attach them. I found that it required a fair amount of handwork after the glue dried, so I started making M/T joints.
I have a xyz vice mounted on the MT tool (this really works well).
The joints are hidden and the mortises are a bit wider (left to right) than the tenon.
The tenons were done on the table saw with a dado blade. I set it up so that I could make one pass on all four sides of each end and have a completed tenon.

The bars are set into their mortise with a bit of glue, aligned as needed and pinned from the rear.

There are several completed in this old house, several more ready to paint. There two to build in a window seat style, and two in the dinning room which will be cherry.
I’m currently getting orders for other Old houses in Oak.

Steve

[Bob Winkler]

Have you considered a loose tenon? I've used the beadlock jig in the past and find it easier to drill holes than to cut and fit tenons- and I have a mortiser with an xy table. The mortise is easy- it's fitting the tenon perfectly that always slows me down (and usually frustrates me to no end).

Bob

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I'd buy one for sure....I like David Mark's Multi router (or whatever he calls it).

[Steve Cox]

Thanks for the replies folks. Several of you listed the Leigh FMT jig. I have a real hard time with the idea of spending the same money for a router jig that I can get a dedicated 1hp motor, cast iron table, tilting table mortiser for. Are you really telling me it's that good? I have not used a mortiser or this jig so it might be. Loose tenons might be an option but the spindles are only 3/4 x 3/4. My thought is that is a little small to be hollowing out and putting in an appropriate sized loose tenon. I guess i'm leaning towards a mortiser but I will try and see if Leigh is here at the WW show this weekend. Any thoughts on a benchtop mortiser vs a floor model? Floor model would be Powermatics. Benchtop?

[Nick Mitchell]

Steve, the FMT is a bit more than a "router jig". It's made to last and has one huge advantage over a mortiser; it does the tenons too :cool:

[Tim Sproul]

It does the tenons WITHOUT changing the jig........

I'd also consider a carbide spiral cutter to go with the FMT. And get a couple in case you get a bit overly aggressive when routing.

[Greg Mann]

I agree with Nick and Tim that the tenoning capabilities should not be overlooked. While a dedicated mortiser would give you square corners and eliminate the need to round over the tennons, The FMT renders that moot as well. You also would not be dealing with dulling of the mortise chisel and bit over the time needed to make this many cuts. When you look at the investment for the FMT against a dedicated mortiser AND a commercial tenoning jig it's not so bad. I watched this machine demo'ed at the Leigh booth a while back and it is a very impressive machine: fast, well-designed, and very flexible. My only caveat, as I stated before, is that IF all, or most, of your cuts are the same, you could make some purpose built jigs to cut round shouldered mortices and tenons for next to nothing. But then, you can't submit any gloat photos.:D


Greg

[Mike Cutler]

Nick and Tim. How would you set up the FMT to do repetitive evenly spaced mortises in the edge of an 8' board? I do a fair bit of M&T's, and have more to do in the future, and I am always looking to find different methods. I've never used the FMT, but from looking at it, it appears to be a pretty rugged, well built device. I looked at the website but did not see an example.
Steve. I use the Delta 14-651 benchtop mortiser. It works well, but once I added the XY sliding vise it negated the feature of the taller fence. I have heard good thing about the ShopFox also.It doesn't come with 4 chisels like the Delta, but in all honesty the chisels that came with the Delta aren't that good. I have to hone and dress them quite often, or the mortise is frayed. I'm going to try the Fisch chisels in the near future to compare quality. The Clico chisels are supposedly nice, but they are expensive, and the angle is different requiring a specific honing cone, also expensive. If I were to buy one now I would get one with a tilting head. My current project requires some 1:6 thru mortises, and the Delta doesn't tilt.

[Ralph Barhorst]

I would not use a M/T joint in this application. Your only using 3/4" material and the final mortise would probably only be 3/8" square.

IMHO if would be easier to use 3/8" dowels. It would be much easier to make a small jig to drill the holes and the actual drilling would go quickly.

The only thing that might be a little difficult is squaring the parts during assembly.

[Dennis McDonaugh]

That's a hard decision. Floor model mortiser or FMT, FMT or floor model mortiser? I think I'd go with the mortiser. I've never used a FMT, but I can't see it being faster than a dedicated mortiser, especially a floor model with a built in XY vice. You can cut the tenons with a dado blade on the table saw pretty quickly too. Pretty much cut, flip, cut, flip, cut flip, cut flip, next.

[Steve Cox]

Cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip, flip end for end, cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip. That's just for ONE! Only 225 more to go!:eek: That's why I got into this business, for the variety:D !

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip, flip end for end, cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip, cut, flip. That's just for ONE! Only 225 more to go!:eek: That's why I got into this business, for the variety:D !

Steve, we could give you a nickname like that guy in the McDonald's commercial -- Flipper!

[Tom Jones III]

I second the dowels. Alternatively, I would put loose tenons in that were visible from the back. These would eliminate the squaring issue. Remember that the only force on these parts is downwards when someone sits down. The joint only needs to be strong enough to hold the part in place.

[Greg Mann]

While dowels would be fast and easy, it may be more difficult to maintain orientation, getting everything aligned and keeping a loose pillar from twisting.

[Mike Vermeil]

Without a dedicated mortiser, no question about it, I'd do dowels. A simple jig to drill into the ends of the spindles on the drill press, and a board clamped to the first and last spindless during assy to keep them all square is all that would be needed. Doweling would also be much faster than mortise & tennon, no matter how you cut them.

[Alan Turner]

If the back is not visible, then you could jig up a vertical drill press table, and use a tenon cutter to make an intregal dowel, TS to esgtablish the shoulder, and drill the "mortises", and pin from the rear. Pretty quick and dirty, and probably no new major tools. If the back is visible, then a 23 ga. pin nailer would fix the orientation of the verticals pretty quietly.

[Steve Cox]

Dowels are starting to sound good. I have vise for the drill press used to center holes when drilling pen blanks that would work for the spindles. A simple dowel jig for the horizontals, chisels for the frame pieces (I can do 15, just not 450:) ) and voila, I'm there. Pin them from the back to keep the sindles from rotating. I like this! Thanks everyone!

[Tim Sproul]

Nick and Tim. How would you set up the FMT to do repetitive evenly spaced mortises in the edge of an 8' board? .

Put a stop out away from the FMT. Cut up some scrap blocks to the length of the interval. Cut mortise, remove one block. slide work over. cut mortise. remove one block. slide work over....kinda hooked on the repetitive theme going on :)