Tips on Mortise Accuracy - Which method?

[Charles Lent]

Alan,

I suggested that the OP consider the Leigh Super FMT for $500 because it is much cheaper than the FMT Pro jig, yet Leigh claims that it has the same capabilities. It's at the upper limit of his budget, but it will do a much better job than the other suggestions that have been offered.

The Leigh FMT jigs do make very precise and repeatable joints. You can make a mortise and matching tenon that can be pushed together easily by hand, and the fit so good that the vacuum created by pulling them back apart will cause an audible pop. The fine adjustment for fit makes this possible. Once adjusted for a desired tightness of fit, you can make them all day long with this same fit. Other than a CNC mill, I know of no other M&T jig on the market that can do this repeatably right out of the jig. The Leigh jigs will do everything that Leigh says they will do. They don't over sell their jigs in their advertising by making wild claims that are only possible under perfect conditions, as many other manufacturers frequently do. I have both an FMT (now called FMT Pro) and a D4R. Whenever I have had an error with either jig I have always traced it back to operator error. It has never been a failure of the jig. I wish some of my other woodworking equipment worked this well.

I don't work for Leigh Jigs and I never have. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

Charley

[John Gornall]

I'm totally positive on my FMT. I initially used a Makita 3612 router with great succes but it was heavy so I got a mid sized router and ran into trouble. I went back to the Makita and all was fine. I found that the smaller router, a very popular brand, had play in the plunge. One plunge rod was solid in a bushing but the other rod just passed through the casting and had a lot of play. I have tested a number of router brands and found play in many. A router with a precise plunge is essential with the FMT. Like to hear that "POP' when I pull a tennon out of a mortise - perfect fit.

[joseph f merz]

I love these Jigs .I started getting more furniure projects needing mortise/tenon joinery .I was looking at the different tools out there to purchase and there are some real nice ones .But the ones i liked were getting up there in expense .Then I realized a Domino [festool] wasn't so expensive [relatively ]. I have had it a few weeks now .It has certainly made fast work in the projects it has been used on .bummed that my lamello biscuit joiner is sitting unused more now .not to say one is better then the other -they are just different .though the domino limits my tenon size it is remarkable easy to use .

[John Piwaron]

I love these Jigs. Though the domino limits my tenon size it is remarkable easy to use .

Festool is introducing a larger Domino machine if that's of any help. Just out of curiosity, have you experienced the fence slipping issue? I did with mine, I nearly returned it because of that. That was February of this year. Fortunately I found a solution before it came to that.

[Myk Rian]

You don't need to fuss too much with a mortise. The tenon shoulders cover it anyway. All you need is it going straight.

[Charles Lent]

I have recently used my FMT to do some floating tenon joinery. It does a good job at this too, but of course the floating tenon stock can't be made with the FMT. For the tenon stock, I used my planer to cut the stock to thickness, then cut them to width on the table saw, and finally rounded the edges on the router table. This worked well, but the fit wasn't as perfect as with the FMT made tenons. Why floating tenons? That's a good question. I did it more to see how well it would work than to fit a specific need. The results were acceptable, but my floating tenons did not end up fitting as well as the tenons that get made by the FMT. When you do it this way you are depending on many tools to prepare the floating tenons and setup errors, however small, can affect the outcome. When using the FMT for both the mortise and the tenon you are using the same setup to cut both, so there are no accumulating errors. I bought my FMT several years before the Mortise Pal, the Domino, and similar floating tenon jigs became available and I just wanted to try floating tenons to see if floating tenons are any better. A friend has a Mortise Pal that I have played with and it does work good for cutting the mortises, but you must still make your own tenon stock and get it to fit the mortise correctly. I haven't tried a Domino yet. It looks interesting, but none of my friends own one so I can't borrow theirs to try.

An FMT Pro jig is expensive, and I probably wouldn't own one today if I hadn't taken on a job that required cutting over 1600 M&T joints, a daunting task with the conventional M&T joinery methods that were available 9 years ago. My FMT jig easily paid for itself with that one job.

Charley

[Mark W Pugh]

I haven't got one of these, but it looks like it may be a future purchase.

http://www.generaltools.com/870--EZ-...IG_p_1295.html

Or, you could build your own jig.

http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/Ma...uter_9064.aspx

[Jerome Hanby]

If you get that General jig, I';d love to know what you think of it. I keep seeing it int he WW mags...

I haven't got one of these, but it looks like it may be a future purchase.

http://www.generaltools.com/870--EZ-...IG_p_1295.html

Or, you could build your own jig.

http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/Ma...uter_9064.aspx

[Charles Lent]

Be careful...The General jig is very similar to the Trend jig that I had. They don't have the adjustment that lets you fine tune the fit of the tenon to the mortise. The only M&T jig that I know of that has this capability is the Leigh FMT system, either the Super or the Pro version. With these other jigs you will get a joint that's close, but it may be either too tight or too loose (more likely too loose) and you will have to come up with ways to shim the fit if you want it better. I was so unhappy with my Trend jig that I threw it in the corner and left it there until a friend came by and noticed it. He wanted to try it, even after I told him why it was in the corner, so I gave it to him. I hated that thing.

Charley

[Chris Padilla]

Festool is introducing a larger Domino machine if that's of any help. Just out of curiosity, have you experienced the fence slipping issue? I did with mine, I nearly returned it because of that. That was February of this year. Fortunately I found a solution before it came to that.

John, can you explain a bit more on your fence slipping issue with the Domino? I think if it isn't properly supported, it can cut non-straight mortises due to tilting of the Domino body but as long as you pay attention, you can correct this.