tenons

[Ralph Butts]

About a year ago I purchased a sliding table saw and started the process of learning different ways of accomplishing old task on the table saw. One of those tasks was creating tenons. I used to create tenons with a tenoning jig or a dado set and miter gage. After I got the slider I started to use my router table and a CMT tenoning bit which by the way is pretty slick. Since I picked up a shaper I want to use this tool for tenoning. I think it will provide more versatility and it's a much more stout machine. My question or I guess the first question I have is what kind of tooling are folks using to make tenons on the shaper? I have thought of using a single insert cutter (I have a CMT) and make two cuts to form the tenon with a coping sled. Can I use two of these heads and make the tenon in a single pass with spacers? Is it more common to utilize a rebate cutter or two to accomplish the cut? I plan to use a PM2700 with 1-1/4" spindle(already own I should say).

[Rod Sheridan]

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Hi, here's a 125mm rebate cutter installed in the tenon hood on a Hammer B3 Winner.


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Here's the tenon table attached to the sliding table. The tenon table has a sliding cover with the opening in the center, this covers the cutter when you're loading or removing a piece from the sliding table. Keeps your fingers safe.


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Here's the fence and stop attached.

More photographs in my next post......Rod.

[Rod Sheridan]

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Here's the hold down clamp, workpiece and backer board. Note that the cutter is covered while you're loading the work piece.

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Here's a view of the cutter and work piece with the clamp removed for clarity.


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Here's a view of the completed tenon.

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A view of the rail and style..............regards, Rod.....

P.S. Yes of course you can use 2 heads and a spacer, it's quick and accurate, and is insensitive to changes in material thickness if you reference off the show face.

[Kirk Poore]

If your machine will handle stacked heads with a spacer, I'd use that. It will give you good results even if the board thickness is off a little. A tenon that's too thin isn't much good.

Kirk

[Ralph Butts]

Rod that is quite a nice setup. I just purchased my first Hammer machine an A3 41. Not much use for creating tenons however. I really like the slider functionality and tenon table setup on your combo. With money invested in my PM2700 I don't see that as an available function for my unit. From what I see you are making two passes to sneak up on the tenon thickness. Is there a decided advantage to this method over using another cutter head to make the tenon in a single pass?

[Ralph Butts]

Kirk, by specs I have 6" under the nut according to the PM website. I don't know if I can fit 2 CMT 692.013.14 cutter heads will fit within that space. I will have to take a close look at that once I can get back out to the shop.

Can you ellaborate a bit on why I would get better results using this method. I would have thought that using a single cutter and sneaking up on the height would produce a better fit than fiddling with the spacer(s) between the cutters. Thanks

[John Zahurak]

Hi Ralph - I use the dual cutterhead approach on the shaper with spacers. I got mine from Rick at Laguna tools. It works great: clean tennons and shoulders dialed in to my mortise method. - John

[Ralph Butts]

Hi John and thanks for the response. I am using a benchtop hollow chisel mortiser. Can I expect that the spacer width correlates directly to the chisel size or is the setup more involved than that? Sorry for being a bit remedial but this is where I thought it would be better to use one cutter and adjust to fit by raising or lowering the cutter head.

[Rod Sheridan]

Ralph, I've used 2 cutters with a spacer and it's the preffered solution as the tenon thicknes is independant of the work piece thickness.

As for setup, all there is is height adjustment on the spindle, the tenon thickness is determined by the spacer.

In this case the grooving cutter is just slightly thicker (0.05mm) than the tenon to allow for fitting and glue.

As I was making an odd sized, one off frame, I simply elected to use a single cutter..............Rod.

[Jeff Duncan]

How large a tenon are you trying to make? Tenons like what Rod has shown can be done pretty easily on your shaper, though I wouldn't try to go too much larger. Once you get into big tenons there are large tenon discs which are pretty expensive and require a big shaper to run. For something the size shown above a single pass will likely be your best bet.

good luck,
JeffD