Help making a Round Tenon

[Clint Schlosser]

I am building a baby crib and this is my first furniture project. After some confusion over a jig described in the instruction sheet I branched off on my own and I may have placed myself in a corner.

What I need to do now is create a round tenon from the below picture on both ends of the slat. Does anyone know a technique, jig or otherwise that may help do this without multiple steps. I have about 80 of these things to do to finish the project.

[Frank Drew]

Clint,

If I understand you correctly, how about drilling the ends of the slats to accept lengths of appropriately sized dowel material?

[Michael Weber]

Maybe a jig to hold the slat while it rotates against a straight router bit in a router table? I built something like that to make round dowels from square stock and it worked well enough.. http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=53. For sure it would be a simpler solution if you had done it before you shaped the slats.
Okay, after consideration that won't work since you will need a flat transition to the slat from the tenon. Maybe something similiar that would allow the end of the slat to approach the end of the bit rather than the side?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Clint,

What's the diameter of the round tenon that you need?

Could you buy a plug cutter that diameter. If you have a drill press, turn the table vertical. Make a real basic jig that you could bolt to the table. Clamp a slat in the jig and put the plug cutter in the d/p and drill the tenon on the end of the slat.

[Greg Sznajdruk]

Have a look at this site.



http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=42292&cat=1,180,42288

Greg

[pat warner]

One templet (router) method; requires the work be held vertically.

1) Find center of stock.
2) Drill a hole of diameter = to the hole of a washer, bearing or machined doughnut.
3) Screw the round object to end of stock.
4) Trim with collar cutter combo or shank bearing trimmer. A platform jig (http://patwarner.com/images/tenonmaker1.jpg)of some sort is essential.

Twin tenons (http://patwarner.com/images/joints.jpg) on end of walnut stick were created as above.

[Greg Cuetara]

Clint,
I finished the Rockler crib plan about 12 months ago. The plans called for making a jig on the router table and then sanding the tenons round. I didn't quite like that idea on the amount of slats I needed. I went out and bought a tenon cutter from Lee Valley and a forsner bit...it made cutting the tenons very easy. The end result was not a perfect flush sitting tenon due to the way the tenon cutter works but i think it came out very nice.

Check out Lee Valley....
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=44248&cat=1,180,42288,45539

I used the 7/16" mini tenon cutter. I also have it sitting around my shop with a brand new blade if you are interested let me know and we might be able to work a deal.
Good Luck and post pictures.
Greg

[Gary Herrmann]

If you don't have a lathe or a friend with one, get a tenon cutter. As others have mentioned, LV sells a good selection.

[Gene Michael]

I had 46 shop made balusters to cut tennons on. Bought a plug and tennon cutter set from Woodcraft that did the job very well. Each cutter has 4 to 5 cutting teeth which distribute the cutting stress evenly (as opposed to plug cutters with only one cutting surface). Built an adjustable jig on the back of my drill press table to hold the balusters and relocated the drill press so the head would swing over the jig. It took a little trial and error and some patience, but it got the job done. Good luck with your project. Be sure to post some pics when it's done.

[Clint Schlosser]

Thank you everyone for the helpful advice. I have been in the shop all day and I am almost done. I ended up using the dowel and drill method. It has turned out really well. In the future I may end up using the tenon cutters from lee valley.

Again Thanks to everyone!