Joinery newbie.

[Richard Hutchings]

Having just finished mortising some pine boards for my cup display, I found I'm not sharp enough. I need a couple of extra chisels ground 17 degrees and a faster way of sharpening. All this talk of sharpening stations and the problems I had, have me making this a priority.

Another issue I had was getting the depth floor of the dados correct. I used a smaller chisel but would have liked ti use my router plane. The blade is too big. Looks like I need to buy a new 1/4" blade for my #71.

I also had trouble getting the tenon shoulders perfect. Small shoulder plane needed or just more practice.

Any way, the project took way to long to complete and there was some wasted, expensive maple.

Thr dados for this were closed at both ends and mainly for alignment purposes as I am adding screws as well. I originally want these to be through wedge tenons but after some failures I cut the tenons short.

I may build another to see if I learned anything.

[Warren Mickley]

For traditional work we use a mortise gauge to layout both the mortise and the tenon. We use a mortise chisel that is the width of the mortise and the tenon, and we set the gauge to the width of this chisel. The chisel is sharpened full flat bevel at 30 degrees or slightly more.

We use saws to cut the tenon, sawing to the line. We do not use routers.

[Richard Hutchings]

None of that works in the middle of a board cutting with the grain instead of the across. More like a dado bur completely housed.

[Jim Koepke]

Another issue I had was getting the depth floor of the dados correct. I used a smaller chisel but would have liked ti use my router plane. The blade is too big. Looks like I need to buy a new 1/4" blade for my #71.

I also had trouble getting the tenon shoulders perfect. Small shoulder plane needed or just more practice.

A router plane is great for the floor depth uniform on dados.

My suggestion would be to get a blade slightly under 1/4", like a 6mm > https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/planes/blades/111326-metric-narrow-plane-blades-for-the-veritas-router-and-hinge-mortise-planes

That will help to keep from chipping the top edge of the dado.

A sharp wider chisel works for me when trimming tenon shoulders.

jtk

[Thomas McCurnin]

Yes, sharp and square solves all sorts of problems.

Yes, a router plane is perfect for tenon cheeks and dados.

For tenon shoulders, make a pencil line, scribe a knife wall with a knife, then use a chisel to deepen the knife wall to hold a saw. Use a saw to cut the tenon shoulders. Before I saw anything, I like to practice on scrap for about 10 minutes to get my muscle memory back, making knife walls and sawing up to, but not over, the line. I dislike shoulder planes.

[Jim Koepke]

I dislike shoulder planes.

Interesting that Stanley marketed them as 'Cabinet Makers' Rabbet Planes', not shoulder planes.

They really do not work as well as a sharp chisel for trimming a shoulder on a tenon. They do work well for cutting a precise rabbet or cleaning up the faces of a rabbet

jtk

[Richard Hutchings]

For traditional work we use a mortise gauge to layout both the mortise and the tenon. We use a mortise chisel that is the width of the mortise and the tenon, and we set the gauge to the width of this chisel. The chisel is sharpened full flat bevel at 30 degrees or slightly more.

We use saws to cut the tenon, sawing to the line. We do not use routers.

I originally dismissed part of this as it didn't apply to my side ways mortise. After thinking on it, I still can't do the mortise layout with a marking gauge but, I probably could have used my widest chisel to cut the mortise in the normal manner but in 2 steps because I don't have a 2" chisel. Basically a short wide mortise if that makes sense.

Cutting and leaving the line was my downfall sawing the tenons. Lesson learned there.

Thanks for your input.

[Richard Hutchings]

Interesting that Stanley marketed them as 'Cabinet Makers' Rabbet Planes', not shoulder planes.

They really do not work as well as a sharp chisel for trimming a shoulder on a tenon. They do work well for cutting a precise rabbet or cleaning up the faces of a rabbet

jtk

Sharp chisel and magnifiers to find the line after sawing as above.

[Richard Hutchings]

Yes, sharp and square solves all sorts of problems.

Yes, a router plane is perfect for tenon cheeks and dados.

For tenon shoulders, make a pencil line, scribe a knife wall with a knife, then use a chisel to deepen the knife wall to hold a saw. Use a saw to cut the tenon shoulders. Before I saw anything, I like to practice on scrap for about 10 minutes to get my muscle memory back, making knife walls and sawing up to, but not over, the line. I dislike shoulder planes.

I'm glad to hear that most/some of you don't like shoulder planes. I don't have one and would prefer to spend that money on wood. Practicing on scrap is something I need to get in the habit of. Thanks for the tip.

[Jimmy Harris]

So much of woodworking is just learning your own personal preferences. There's no real right or wrong way to do something, so long as it works. There are lots of traditions that have different tools and techniques for accomplishing the same thing. And there's no reason you can't pick and choose what you want to use or make up your own way of doing things.

You'll learn more from your own mistakes than anything else. So be proud of your mistakes. Owning them is what keeps you from repeating them. The goal is to make every mistake possible, so you eventually run out of new mistakes to make. Of course, no one lives that long, but it's a noble goal, nonetheless.

[Richard Hutchings]

Ha! There seems to be no end to my mistakes. That said, my recent project looks great from 6 feet away!

[Jim Koepke]

You'll learn more from your own mistakes than anything else. So be proud of your mistakes. Owning them is what keeps you from repeating them.

There are boxes for holding chisels in my shop from my first attempts at making dovetails.

509358

This is an old picture, the box is much fuller these days.

This one and a few others show me how far my joinery journey has brought me.

jtk

[Richard Hutchings]

Looks about like my recent attempt. That's some beautiful birds eye maple.

[Jim Koepke]

Looks about like my recent attempt. That's some beautiful birds eye maple.

I call it birds eye pine. It pops up occasionally in lumber yards. My tendency is to buy it when it shows up and figure out what to make with it later. This was likely some scrap left over from making some shelves.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

Richard, there's a bunch of ways to make tenons. All of them work perfectly in perfectly grained wood. I personally prefer to crosscut my tenon shoulders first and then rip cut the tenon cheeks, and finally clean up with a round nose chisel.

Sooner or later you will cut a tenon on the end of a stick with imperfect grain. Your saw will not track perfectly. You will have to clean up a tenon cheek someday, even when you have done everything correctly.

My first winter dealing with joinery I brought in 8 feet of an 8x8 timber and cut joints in that so I could better see how these pieces work together. I have no regrets, but I am still wearing darn bifocals. That entire timber ended up getting tossed into my woodstove one piece at a time, and it was expensive firewood; but the knowledge and experience is priceless. I did buy a 3" framing slick and got some experience with the slick on 8 in wide tenons.

When I made my first furniture sized piece with M/T joints, I drove straight to my local antique dealer to pick up an inexpensive 3/4 inch chisel so I could "round the nose" or perhaps more correctly "crown the edge" on it. When paring with a crowned edge chisel, whether framing slick or 3/4 inch, it is possible to put all of my energy, all of my force, into a single point on the arc of the edge. I strongly encourage straight ahead only with that feature. Another option is to hold the crowned edge paring chisel firmly down on a finished area of the tenon cheek, and then rotate the tip of the handle back and forth to cut fibers in a way that ignores wild grain and produces a flat cheek surface. Also, when squaring up the line where cheek meets shoulder, being able to rock a crowned edge back and forth on "the line" can often bring home some otherwise tricky grain patterns.

There is plenty of folks out there cutting perfectly valid M/T joints with a dado stack. The wood can't tell the difference.

The main thing is M/T joints get tighter after assembly, no matter which way the wood moves. Warp, cup, twist, it doesn't matter, the M/T joint gets tighter. The one exception would be for the mortised piece to expand in a way that makes the mortise get bigger, or for the tenon to shrink uniformly. But I don't know what those conditions might be. Compare to a half lap joint. No matter which way either piece moves, wood movement in a half lap joint inevitably weakens the joint.

Is a crowned edge paring chisel the best answer for everybody all the time on every tenon cheek? No. It is a pain in the neck to sharpen, and it isn't always necessary. I am far enough along in my journey that when I do have a problem, I often ask myself, "Of the ways to get out of this fix, which tool that should work will be easiest to sharpen?"

Good luck and best wishes. My crowned edge paring chisel has been front and center on my "front line" chisel tray for at least three years now. But I don't remember the last time I had to sharpen it.

509436509437

If I had some maple waste I would think about some shellfish like shrimp or lobster, or some poultry, or maybe even some beef on one of my BBQ cookers. Maple smoked bacon is a thing for good reason, but it is pretty darn mild smoke flavor on pork I think.

[Richard Hutchings]

Never heard of anyone using a crowned chisel in this manner. I have some that need refurbishment and I'll try this one day. Thank you..