Question regarding strength of Mortise & Tenon Joint - (See details in body)

[George Bokros]

I am building a smaller version on a display cabinet that was in the August/September 2012 issue of Woodsmith magazine.

Here are the details -

The cabinet has a sliding door that goes all the way across the front and slides to one side to access the items inside the cabinet.

Stock is 1" thick

Door is rail and stile construction using mortise and tenon joints to join the rails and stiles

The tenon is 1/2" thick centered on the thickness and 3" wide.

There is a dado across the rail and the stiles for the drawer slide that is used to slide the door open and closed. The dado is 7/16" deep and 1 13/16" wide. The bottom edge of the dado is 7/8" from the bottom edge of the rail and 1 13/16" wide.

With the tenon being centered on the thickness the outside face of the tenon is 1/4 inch from the outside face of the rail. They cut a 7/16" deep dado in the face of the rail which reduces the thickness of the tenon to 7/16" thick with no outer wall on one side of the tenon.

I think you are taking out a major part of the tenon so my question is --- Is this a strong joint??

I hope I have explained this clearly.

Thanks

[mike holden]

Sounds like what you are left with is a halving joint. Since all it supports is the door, unless you are going to hang from it, it should be strong enough for the purpose.
Mike

[Prashun Patel]

How strong does it need to be? It's a cabinet door that isn't even on a hinge. There is no force on that joint.

[George Bokros]

I am also thinking that the drawer slide will add some if not all of the strength back to the joint.