Basic Tenon Cutting

Your new tenoning jig is designed to make tenon cheek cuts only, and generally, cheek cuts are made before the shoulder cuts. This procedure will guide you through three parts; A, B, and C to show you how to cut your first basic tenon.

A. Preparing the tenoning jig and workpiece:

Note: The shoulder cuts and angle cuts are made on the table saw with the miter gauge.

1.Select your mortise and tenon joints, and draw the cutting lines as shown in Figure 16. Make sure to account for the thickness of the saw blade.

—For the strongest joints, select joint loca- tions that are free of knots and twists.

—Tenons need structural and cosmetic shoulders to hide gaps that may occur as the wood shrinks.

—When joining parts of the same thickness, make the tenon the same thickness as the tenon walls.

—When joining parts where one piece is larger than the other, make the tenon as thick as possible.

—Make the mortise 1⁄8" deeper than the tenon to allow for the glue to squeeze out.

Figure 16. Tenon layout.

H7583 Tenoning Jig

WEAR your safety glass- es when you perform any assembly, operation, and maintenance. Failure to comply may result in serious personal injury.

2.Plane a wood base stop to the thickness of the tenoning jig base, and mount it to the front of the table saw as shown in Figure 17. The base stop prevents cut off pieces getting trapped between the saw blade and the work support plate.

Base

Stop

Figure 17. Base stop attached to the table saw.

3.Cut a wooden spacer block the same thick- ness as the tenon plus the saw blade. Screw through the holes in the work support plate to attach the spacer block (see Figure 18).

Figure 18. Work support spacer block.

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