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Mortise and Tenon wood joinery is one of the most common ways of making woodworking jonts in quality furniture, timber framing and other forms of woodworking. In this video I am completing the other half of the jig making exercise by making a mortising jig. The mortise is this hole in which the tenon is inserted, and often glued or pinned, that go together to make the woodworking joint. There are many, many ways of making mortises from dedicated mortising machines, to using a drill press, cutting them by hand with a mallet and chisel, using a router and more. In this video we will be using the router and manufacturing a simple attachment that is easy to use, and not complicated to set up, to make mortise cuts for mortise and tenon joints.
How to Make a Mortising Jig for the Router
To make the morise jig, I started off with a pices of 1/4" hardboard. I find this is better that plywood for this knid of a build because the hardboard is is harder than plywood and because you will likely have to drill counter sunk holes into the base, you will want something stronger than plywood to take that force.
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The mortise and tenon joint has been around woodworking and timber framing for hundreds of not thousands of years and continues to be a popular form of joinery. The joint can be both hidden or as it is described as "a through tenon" which often means the end protrude through the wood to expose the end of the tenon. Either way the tenon is a very strong joint and when combined with a good quality wood glue, in strength tests with many woods, the wood around the joint will fail before the joint fails.
The disadvantage of the joint is that it does take time to make and often takes some finessing to get a good quality joint, still, the mortise and tenon joint is one of mainstays of woodworking. Like many things in woodworking, pratice are repetition are the key elements of make good quality mortise and tenon joints, and this jig will give you a good head start on making the the tenon part of the joint.
Making Tenoning Jig
For our project today we are making a pretty simple jig that is accurate and easy to use and will give accurate joints without strenuous setup.
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There is nothing more frustrating than trying to assemble parts to a woodworking project and finding out they don't align properly. Many times we blame ourselves for not being more careful in our cuts or for not taking enough time to make proper measurements, but in many cases it's simply that the tools we are using have come out of alignment and need to be re-tuned or re-set.
On the table saw the item that needs to be re-set the most if ... of course the fence. It is the most used item on the table saw and is constantly being moved back and forth and tightened and loosened and all this activity, will, over time create a small amount of wear which results in the fence being out of alignment.
Making a Table Saw Fence Alignment Checking Jig
Every fence for every table saw has some sort of adjustment mechanism. Some are better than others, but all of them can be adjusted. My first table saw has such and awful fence that even when I adjusted it, every time I moved it to a new location, I still had to check and set the front and back separately. It was terribly slow to use, but it was all I could afford and it did the job for me. More advanced and expensive fences are easier to set by simply turning a small set screw but regardless of the fence ... they ALL need to be checked and re-checked from time to time ...
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I am amazed at how many times I need to rip thin strips of wood ... for all sorts of things. Often they are shorter stips, less than 24 inches, but often I seem to make multiple versions of them, like when I am making banding and gluing together many small strips of wood. Then other times I am need a thin strip of wood to cover the edge of a board, like a shelf that I made from plywood and I want to cover the front of the plywood with a nice strip of natural wood. Many, many reasongs for cutting thin strips ...
I remember the first thin strip jig I ever made, it was quick and crude but it worked well until it got lost in the shuffle and probably ended up in another jig or some other project, which mean the next time I needed a thin strip I neede to re-make that jig all over again.
Another Thin Strip Ripping Jig
Later, after purchasing a pair of magnetic switches, I used them to make another version of the thin strip ripping jig. This version worked well, but it was a bit slower and you could rip almost any lenght of wood with it. That jig and article are featured here, and to see the part of the video, you need to move along to 6:50 in the video Thin Strip Jig
The new creation I am making in this episode is a different kind of ripping jig ...