Pretty tenons

[John Piwaron]

Without a doubt, some of the prettiest tenons I've ever cut. The shoulders and cheeks were cut with a router while the board was laying flat. Since 4 of the pieces are 5 feet long and 2 are 7 feet, I had to stand them on end (or nearly so) to cut the notches. I used a shop made template. And a face shield when I did the notches since the cut was at eye level for me. Chips flying everywhere despite using a Festool router and vac. Without the shroud even Festool can't get all the chips. The wood is cherry.

good tenons.jpg

[John TenEyck]

Pretty indeed.

John

[Drew Pavlak]

Nicely done! I love working with Cherry.

[Michael Peet]

Those are really nice-looking, John. Reminds me of the cover of the last Lee Valley catalog with all the cool joinery on it.

Mike

[Shawn Pixley]

Very pretty. Sometimes you have to step back and admire the simple things.

[scott vroom]

John P, what did you use to cut the notches in the tenons? What's the project?

Really nice work.

[John Piwaron]

John P, what did you use to cut the notches in the tenons? What's the project?

Really nice work.

I made a jig that's nothing more than 2 pieces of 3/4" MDF joined at a right angle. I used that to make the tenon by placing it at the end of the board where the shoulder would be and then used a Freud mortising router bit guided by that jig (template) to make the cut. Flipped the board over and repeat.

For the notch I stood the boards on end in my bench vise and used that same template, into which I had made a slot in it's center, clamped to the board located where I needed the notch and used that same router bit to cut it. That was at eye level. It worked great. I used a face shield to keep the chips it was making out of my face.

The project is a bed.