Can I make a tenon with just a regular table saw blade?

[Michael Yadfar]

I'm planning on making my first project this winter, which is a rock maple/walnut table. I've built tables before using mortise and tenon joints, using both a router and chisel for the mortises, and both a table saw with a dado blade and a router table for mortises. That was not in my own shop though.

In my shop, I have a portable Ridgid table saw, which I think can fit a dado blade, but I don't quite remember. I also have a plunge router, but not a router table. Eventually I want to build a router table, but I was wondering if I can get away with using just the regular table saw blade to make the tenons.

[Jamie Buxton]

Yes. Almost all of the time, I make tenons on a table saw. I use a regular combo blade.

[Ben Rivel]

What model is your table saw?

[Pat Barry]

Table saw tenons = yes!

[Bill Adamsen]

Yes indeed. If you also plan to cut shoulder and haunch with the blade, a sled works nicely.

[Peter Quinn]

Works great, I do it frequently for a few odd tenons. A tenoning jig is an obvious way to make a lot of tenons quick, there is another method with a sled or miter gauge where you slide sidewise while advancing forward incrementally, makes a lot of dust but also very good tenons, it was well documented on FWW a few years back.

[Matt Day]

For sure!

Instead of waiting to build a router table, just laminate a couple pieces of plywood together and mount the router to it. Lay across saw horses, and clamp a jointed 2x4 as a fence. Down and dirty but it works.

[Michael Yadfar]

What model is your table saw?

Ridgid 4510

[Michael Yadfar]

I was referring to laying the board face down and making like a million cuts. I guess a jig holding the board side down would make it a lot quicker

[Dave Richards]

You could lay the work face down and make repeated passes but it'll be relatively slow and you'll likely have some cleanup to do afterward. You can make a simple jig to hold the work on end so you can make the cuts much faster and get cleaner results. You could also make a jig like The Ultimate Tablesaw Tenon Jig (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XXftwASnK8) from Workshop Essentials (http://www.workshopessentials.com/shop/index.php?route=common/home)* which improves the accuracy and makes the job much easier. Or you can get commercially made ones.

*No personal interest. Just a happy customer.

[Lee Schierer]

Before I purchased a tenon cutting jig, I used to nibble the tenons with a crosscut blade on my TS. Make the shoulder cut first and then nibble from the end back to the shoulder cut. If you can get a blade with a raker type tooth you will have fewer ridges on the cheeks to clean up.

[Alan Schwabacher]

See the article by Robert Lang "Speed Tenons - Safely" on the Popular Woodworking website. He advocates cutting the shoulder and several kerfs on the tablesaw, but then cleaning up the tenon with a chisel and bench hook. He seems to be responding to Glen Huey's YouTube video "Make tenons using a bump cut."

[Keith Hankins]

Sure you can it's easy. Here's a pic of a jig, i use. Easy to make out of mdf or what ever you have. Make it to fit snug over your fence and add a couple clamps to hold it in place. The pic shows one clamp, but I added a second after this picture was taken. I also included a link to a flat top 1/4" kerf saw blade that makes them perfect.

Link to jig photo:

https://flic.kr/p/fooj5Z

Link to blade:

http://www.infinitytools.com/8-x-24-Tooth-x-1_4-Kerf-Flat-Bottom-Crosscutting-Blade/productinfo/080-250/

[Bill Adamsen]

I was referring to laying the board face down and making like a million cuts.
That works ... it's a good opportunity to make a small sled that you will find useful not just for tenons but other crosscut activities like ... crosscutting, finger joints, dados ... etc. If you use a stop-block for setting the shoulder, be sure the end of the rail or piece is square.

[Prashun Patel]

Taking a million nibbles will require a way to clean up the inevitable lines. You can use a shoulder plane or chisel for this.

There is another option (I am reluctant to recommend this, because I think it's an intermediate/advanced technique, only to be attempted when you understand the risks involved):

The speed tenon. You can google it for instructions how to do it. The issue with this method is that you require a reliable way to provide downward pressure on the board else you can possibly get a little lifting. I tend to make all my tenons by cutting the shoulder @ the tablesaw, hogging the waste out with a bandsaw, then speed tenoning back at the table saw, and finally cleaning up with a handplane. It's a lot of back and forth, but requires no blade changes...

[Michael Yadfar]

The more I thought about it I guess I could technically use my bandsaw too. My only issue with a bandsaw though is the blade always has a slight bit of wander to it

[keith micinski]

I have been using the speed tenon technique for years and didn't even know that's what it was called till this thread. I hate to admit this, but secretly kind of thought I had invented it myself!:)I use my mitre gauge to make the quick cuts and to slide the board back and forth with more control. This is actually one of my favorite ways to cut tenons and I have every other option available to me to cut tenons including a dedicated tenoning jig.

[roger wiegand]

I guess there are other ways to cut tenons, but I do all of them on my table saw. If I have a bunch to do I haul out the tenoning jig (an ancient beast of unknown heritage that weighs about 50 pounds but works like a champ), otherwise I use one of the multiple pass techniques and clean the faces up and get to final fit with a shoulder plane.

[Prashun Patel]

Keith, I am with you. I thought I was cheating when I started doing it. I think anyone doing the nibble, slide, nibble dance realizes quickly that you can clean up the lines safely and efficiently with that technique. It's controversial for obvious reasons. But, I just can't stand set ups and measurements that the other methods require. This method allows a lot of adjustment in shoulder and cheek depth (assuming you have a nice, nudgeable ts fence ;))

[Bill Adamsen]

Speed tenon - I've seen the article and have done them. I've done that same approach for making large coves (haven't we all). But creating all that dust is really annoying. So I typically cut the shoulders and haunch using a sled or just a miter, and then use the bandsaw for the tenon. That combination is exceedingly fast and the tenon - at least with my bandsaw - is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I did a tenon job recently with large shaper cutters and then had to cut the haunch with two bandsaws - so I wouldn't have to adjust the fences - which I found extremely annoying. If I had cut all the tenons the same length, I could have used a spacer block. But I hadn't.

I think Michael asked initially about using the saw as a one-tool tenon maker and either the nibbler approach or nibble with speed tenon should work well ... safety concerns considered.

[Michael Yadfar]

I googled the "speed tenon" and many articles were just mentioning safety factors and alternative techniques. While I'm not 100% sure this is the speed tenon, I belive its the method where you nibble nibble, then sort of run it sideways across the blade to clean up. It looks a bit scary to me, so I like the alternatives of either nibble nibble or bandsaw, then using a chisel/shoulder plane

[Steve Peterson]

I cut them completely on the table saw. Cut all the way around the flats at the required depth. This gives you a clean edge without seeing the teeth marks.

The last step with the parts standing up works much better if you have a tenoning jig. I put in the dado insert so the cutoff pieces can fall down instead of becoming 1" by 1" by 1/8" projectiles.

Steve

[william watts]

Speed tenons seem safe to me, never had a problem, or even a close approach to a problem. The fence can be used as a stop to set the length of the tenon. These are non thru cuts so there's no problem of cut offs flying across the shop. I clean them up and fit them with a shoulder plane or chisel. They can be cut to fit, a few saw marks are ok.

Bill

[Jim Dwight]

My normal way to cut tenons is with a jig that rides the rip fence of my Ryobi BT 3100. I use it's micro adjust to take a little at a time off until I get to the right thickness.

[Jeffrey Martel]

It will be much cleaner if you use a blade with a Flat top Grind (FTG). I use my 24T FTG ripping blade when I'm cutting tenons or dadoes on the tablesaw. No ridges to speak of.