T he C o mp l e t e G ui d e tO

JOINT-MAKING

JOHN BULLAR

CONTENTS
Introduction 8

Tools & materials Handsaws for joints Bench planes Chisels for joints Routers and router tables Bandsaws Power tools Marking tools Wood types Wood movement the joints Hand-tooled Joints Halving joints Bridle joints Mortise and tenon Locked mortise and tenon Single large dovetail Row of dovetails Fine dovetails Lapped dovetails

10 10

Machined Joints Biscuit joints Dowelled joints Domino joints Slip joints Bandsawn dovetails Box comb joints Scarf joints Scribed joints Routing mortises without a jig Routed dovetails Modern knock-down fittings Straight-line Joints Edge joints Rubbed joints Screw and glue joints Coopered joints Housings and groove joints Spline joints

76 68

12 16 20 24 28 30 34 36 38
42 44

76 80 84 86 90 94 98 102 104 110 114

118 104

44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72

118 122 126 128 130 134

10

Special Joints
42 138 134

Green woodworking joints Cornice joints Angled joints Chair joint Huanghuali chair joint

138 142 146 150 154

158

38

76

Display Joints Puzzle scarf joint Bevel-top dovetails Butterfly joint Twisted dovetails

158 162 164 166

118

Glossary Suppliers About the author

138

168 170 171 171 172

Acknowledgments Index

158

If the saw is allowed to drift off course it is difficult to recover, and even then the resulting kerf will be crooked. This means that constant attention is essential to keep the angle correct so every stroke follows the line. Approaching the bottom of a cut, the saw must be held level to prevent overshoot on either side.

The finger and thumb pinch the board to guide the blade at the start of a cut.

Here, furniture maker Martin Grierson demonstrates how arm and saw blade form a straight line as he crosscuts against a bench hook.

TIP

Sawing is a three-dimensional task. For tricky cuts this requires the head to be positioned directly over the blade. Wood should be secured low in the vice or tight against a bench hook to prevent vibration. An option when sawing at awkward angles is to tilt the wood in the vice so the blade is kept vertical. This can simplify the operation and ensure all matching cuts follow the same angle.

To judge the kerf accurately, you need to be able to see it with both eyes.

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the complete guide to joint-making

Fine adjustment
With the plane assembled it needs to be adjusted. The first stage is to hold it upside down and sight along the sole while turning the depth adjustor. The tip of the cutter should poke evenly through the mouth by a fraction of a millimetre, and then be backed off so it barely protrudes at all. Fine adjustment is made by planing an offcut of wood. You need to plane with the grain; sometimes it is not clear which way that is, so try both ways. Once the surface is flat, tissue-thin shavings should spill out. The lever needs careful movement to level the cutter to an equal depth on each side.

Hold the plane upside down and sight along the sole while adjusting the depth of the cutter.

Once you have adjusted the plane and the surface is flat, you should see thin shavings appear.

Planing faces and edges

Plane the face of a board in one pass along its length. Press down the front, supporting the weight of the back of the plane at the start of the stroke, then press down the back, supporting the planes front, at the end of the stroke Make a series of passes side by side across the boards width.

HINTS & TIPS

To straighten the edge of a board the plane needs to be held level. The body of the plane is pinched at the front while the fingertips beneath steer it against the wood. Planing two edges together helps them match when they are joined.
Planing the edge of a board with the fingertips steering from underneath.

17

TOOLS FOR JOINTS

If the saw is allowed to drift off course it is difficult to recover, and even then the resulting kerf will be crooked. This means that constant attention is essential to keep the angle correct so every stroke follows the line. Approaching the bottom of a cut, the saw must be held level to prevent overshoot on either side.

The finger and thumb pinch the board to guide the blade at the start of a cut.

Here, furniture maker Martin Grierson demonstrates how arm and saw blade form a straight line as he crosscuts against a bench hook.

TIP

Sawing is a three-dimensional task. For tricky cuts this requires the head to be positioned directly over the blade. Wood should be secured low in the vice or tight against a bench hook to prevent vibration. An option when sawing at awkward angles is to tilt the wood in the vice so the blade is kept vertical. This can simplify the operation and ensure all matching cuts follow the same angle.

To judge the kerf accurately, you need to be able to see it with both eyes.

14

the complete guide to joint-making

Fine adjustment
With the plane assembled it needs to be adjusted. The first stage is to hold it upside down and sight along the sole while turning the depth adjustor. The tip of the cutter should poke evenly through the mouth by a fraction of a millimetre, and then be backed off so it barely protrudes at all. Fine adjustment is made by planing an offcut of wood. You need to plane with the grain; sometimes it is not clear which way that is, so try both ways. Once the surface is flat, tissue-thin shavings should spill out. The lever needs careful movement to level the cutter to an equal depth on each side.

Hold the plane upside down and sight along the sole while adjusting the depth of the cutter.

Once you have adjusted the plane and the surface is flat, you should see thin shavings appear.

Planing faces and edges

Plane the face of a board in one pass along its length. Press down the front, supporting the weight of the back of the plane at the start of the stroke, then press down the back, supporting the planes front, at the end of the stroke Make a series of passes side by side across the boards width.

HINTS & TIPS

To straighten the edge of a board the plane needs to be held level. The body of the plane is pinched at the front while the fingertips beneath steer it against the wood. Planing two edges together helps them match when they are joined.
Planing the edge of a board with the fingertips steering from underneath.

17

TOOLS FOR JOINTS

Machined Joints

The slip joint is a wide, flat, machine-cut joint, easily repeated for small batch jobs such as the corners of cabinet frames. It has the same basic geometry as a bridle joint, but is made in a very different way. Its wide, thin proportions give it a massive gluing area. With the aid of a bandsaw and after a bit of preparation time, you will be able to make a series of identical well-fitted slip joints, each one taking just a few minutes to cut. Once one joint fits well, the rest follow automatically.

Slip joints
Prepare the wood
The slip joints main use is for the corners of low-profile frames. Frames need good stable wood that will not twist or bow when moisture level changes. In this example, I used straight-grained oak. You might prepare your wood with hand tools or machines, but if you use an electric planing machine, it is best to finish with a hand plane afterwards. Work with the grain to remove any surface ripples.

1 Lay the sawn wood flat on the bench against an end-stop. Plane end to end until long, wide shavings curl out of the mouth these prove that the surface is flat. Turn the wood over and plane the other side until the thickness is suitable and even. I planed the oak down to 18mm (3/4in) thick.

2 Stand the wood on edge against a stop. Pinch the front end of the plane between your fingers and thumb so the fingernails guide its sole straight along the narrow edge of the wood. Turn the wood over and repeat until the edges are at right angles to the faces and parallel to each other.

3 A well-adjusted bandsaw is a pleasure to use, and essential for accurate work. Use a fresh, sharp blade and check that the tension is firm but not too tight. With the machine unplugged, pinch the blade and wobble it. There should be a few millimetres of bending movement in the blade with little or no rattling from the guides. The blade should move freely up and down without sticking.

4 Check that the cutting edge of the bandsaw blade is vertical to the table. Larger machines have adjustments that can be used to correct misalignment in the tracking if necessary. Smaller ones should be accurately preset. The guides may need readjusting as well.

5 The angle of the blade from side to side is fixed, but the angle of the table can usually be adjusted by releasing a clamp beneath it. The table must be precisely at right angles to the blade even if this means the table is not perfectly horizontal.

Thin and thick shims

6 Bandsaw blades have teeth that are set alternately to left and right. This makes their slot, known as a kerf, slightly wider than the blade and prevents it from jamming. You need to measure the thickness across the teeth to see how wide the kerf will be. Alternatively, cut a short slot in a piece of scrap wood and use this as a thickness gauge.

7 You will need to make a pair of thin shims, the same thickness as the kerf cut by the bandsaw blade. Shims are pieces of waste material used as spacers when cutting the slip joints. In my case, the thickness was 1.2mm, and I cut out a piece of mounting card for the shims. Do not worry too much about measuring this accurately when you make a trial slip joint you may find you need a slightly thinner or thicker shim to make the finished result tighter or looser.

8 The peg in a slip joint does the same job as the tenon in a mortise and tenon joint, and a pair of thick shims are used to set the thickness and position of the peg. I recommend making the peg one-third of the thickness of the wood. For this, each of the thick shims must be one-third of the woods thickness. I used 6mm MDF to match the 18mm oak.

87

SLIP JOINTS

Machined Joints

Marking and positioning

Cutting the peg

9 Unlike handcut joints, which rely on accurate marking, slip joints are largely self-aligning once everything is set up. The only mark required is the depth of the joint, which you gauge by laying the end of one piece of wood on the edge of the other, then running a pencil line against it.

10 The bandsaw fence is clamped and positioned with one thin shim plus the wood thickness away from the blade. I use a homemade fence for this kind of work because it is more rigid.

11 Place one thick shim against the fence to position the wood for sawing the outside of the peg. Feed the wood slowly into the blade as far as the pencil-marked depth.

12 Place two thick shims plus two thin shims against the fence to position the wood for sawing the inside of the peg. TIP

13 Place one thick shim plus one thin shim against the fence to position the wood for sawing the outside of the socket.

14 Place two thick shims plus one thin shim against the fence to position the wood for sawing the inside of the socket.

In this example, I cut the peg before the socket, but the sequence does not matter. It is important, however, that you make all the corresponding cuts before unclamping the bandsaw fence.

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the complete guide to joint-making

Removing waste

15 You now have four slots or kerfs, carefully spaced so that the inside of one pair matches the position of the outside of the other pair.

16 There are several ways to remove waste from the socket. I carefully slanted the angle of the wood to allow the bandsaw to cut away the waste, then nibbled down to the line with fine movements. If you do not have much experience in using the bandsaw, it may be better to remove the waste with a drill before bandsawing, then chisel down to the line.

17 The waste from either side of the peg is removed with a single saw cut. This can be done using a sliding fence on the bandsaw table, being particularly careful not to cut into the thin peg itself. Alternatively, use a tenon saw.

Fitting and gluing

TIP

Be prepared to experiment at first the secret of making well-fitted slip joints is in the thickness of the shims. Once the shims are correct, keep them safe; all the slip joints you make after that will fit equally well.
18 The two halves of the joint are now ready to slip together. Ideally, this will be a firm fit with even contact all over the peg and socket sides. If the fit is too tight, the joint will be forced apart. The solution is to increase the thickness of the thin shims. If it is too loose, these shims need to be made thinner. Brush glue inside the socket that way any surplus will be pushed into the joint as you close it, rather than getting scraped off on the outside. 19 Clamp the slip joint with softwood pads to spread out the pressure while the glue sets.

89

Slip Joints