Mortise and Tenons

[ChrisA Edwards]

I'm completing my first project where I've got a lot of Mortise and tenon joints.

I cut the Mortise with a Mortise machine, so they are very neat and accurate.

Meanwhile the tenons all fit, but some feel a little loose for just Titebond wood glue.

On these, would I be better off using an epoxy or some kind of bonding material that will fill gaps around 1/32".

Thanks

[Cary Falk]

Epoxy would work or you can glue some wood on the tenons and recut so they are tighter

[jerry cousins]

this is my "i must admit solution" - when the tenons are just a tad wiggly i will sometimes take thin piece of cardboard and saturate it with glue - afix it to the tenon and then spread glue in the mortise as usual - no failures yet. i find that the cardboard from brusso hinge packages are usually the right thickness.
jerry

[Phil Mueller]

Another fix is to glue on a piece of veneer.

As you can see from the responses so far, we all have “fixes” because we’ve all been there :o

[Floyd Mah]

I just finished doing a glue up of a door, made with mortise and tenon joinery. My tenon sled wasn't tuned up properly so some adjustments were needed to fix the resulting tenons. I decided to add some wood to the tenons before planing them down. I didn't want to use cardboard and I didn't want to just add extra glue. After a bit of head scratching, I grabbed one of my larger Stanley bench planes and made some large shavings from some waste stock. It turned out to be easy to produce shavings of the proper thickness and I used the shavings to repair the tenon's thickness, using the same glue as for the final assembly. The shavings were about 4" in length and maybe 1/32" in thickness, exactly what I needed for the repair. Note that you have to glue the shavings to the tenons and let that dry prior to final planing and gluing.

[Frederick Skelly]

I just finished doing a glue up of a door, made with mortise and tenon joinery. My tenon sled wasn't tuned up properly so some adjustments were needed to fix the resulting tenons. I decided to add some wood to the tenons before planing them down. I didn't want to use cardboard and I didn't want to just add extra glue. After a bit of head scratching, I grabbed one of my larger Stanley bench planes and made some large shavings from some waste stock. It turned out to be easy to produce shavings of the proper thickness and I used the shavings to repair the tenon's thickness, using the same glue as for the final assembly. The shavings were about 4" in length and maybe 1/32" in thickness, exactly what I needed for the repair. Note that you have to glue the shavings to the tenons and let that dry prior to final planing and gluing.

+1. I do this as well.

[Bill Adamsen]

No harm or shame in building the tenon up using the same wood to get the proper fit. I do it if necessary. Someone here once described the proper fitting tenon as “one you could hammer in with your hat.”

[Dan Jansen]

I try to peg all my M&T joints since my tenons aren’t always perfect.

[glenn bradley]

I glue scrap to the cheek(s) and re-cut as others have described.

[tom blankenship]

Hi Chris,

I just take the removed cheek of the tenon and glue it back on, then recut.

Tom