Cutting mortises

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Phil
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Cutting mortises

Post by Phil »

I am making a table that will have mortise and tennon joints connecting the rails to the legs. I drew a rectangle 1" x 4" and used the fillet tool so I won't have to cut a tennon with rounded corners. This leaves an amount of material that I would have to remove. I drew a small rectangle in the area I need to remove, (the small green box at the right end of the top rectangle). Next I used the weld tool to create a more suitable end. The lower drawing shows the tennon in red and how it will fit into the mortise on the right end as compared to the left end. I will have a very small corner to remove with a file or coarse sandpaper.

Phil
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Sample Tennon.PNG

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Adrian
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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by Adrian »

Did you try the T-bone fillet option?

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adze_cnc
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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by adze_cnc »

How about just cutting the rectangle and cleaning up the mortise corners with a good sharp chisel?

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highpockets
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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by highpockets »

Or radius the tenons.
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Phil
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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by Phil »

I considered all of these options;
Thanks for your input gentlemen. My option is very similar to the T-bone, I don't know how much difference it make but the T-bone removes more material. Chiseling, I have 8 mortises each with 4 corners. I would have to chisel 32 corners - no thanks. Radius the tenons - how do you radius a tenon with a CNC?

Phil

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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by 4DThinker »

If you can clamp your stretcher vertical you can make your tenons with rounded corner on the CNC. I do this all the time when dogbone or t-bone fillets on the mortise corners aren't acceptable.

4D

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Phil
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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by Phil »

4DThinker wrote:If you can clamp your stretcher vertical you can make your tenons with rounded corner on the CNC. I do this all the time when dogbone or t-bone fillets on the mortise corners aren't acceptable.

4D
Thanks but this is not an option - the rails are almost 7' long.

Phil

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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by 4DThinker »

Using the 2-sided project setup, a moulding tool path and a couple of pockets you can get very close to a complete rounded edge tenon. The attached sample used a 1/4" ball nose bit but you could use a smaller bit and have less work to clean out the corners.
2-faced tenon.jpg
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2-faced tenon 4D.crv
(158 KiB) Downloaded 192 times

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Phil
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Re: Cutting mortises

Post by Phil »

Thanks 4D, I considered rounding the ends like that on my router table. I went with my "modified T-Bone" as a way to minimize hand work. I'm pleased with the results. I was able to knock down the corners of the tenons in seconds with 80 grit sandpaper.

Phil

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