Cross Grain Floating Tongue Joints

[Biliphuster]

So, as I was working on something recently I needed to join two boards together but I knew they would be getting rough treatment, so I thought about doweling them, or ideally tongue and grooving. Alas, whilst I have a plow plane I have no way to make the tongues unless I want to cut them out as super long stubby tenons. I had seen recently in "Modern Practical Joinery" a joint for such an occasion with a loose tongue floating in a double groove. Closer inspection of the image showed that the tongues were cross grain to the boards they were joining. This seemed like a good idea so I gave it a go.

I first planed up a small board to the right thickness (1/4") to act as the tongue. The board was 4" wide and I wanted to join a stretch of 20" so I sawed some sections from the end and inserted them in the grooves. The fit was not great for all of them, but I made sure the one at the front was tight as it would be exposed.

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The other component had differently oriented boards, so I could cut the tongues on the end of the boards and they were only 8 inches or so. The glue up was a little wacky though

The I traced a grid on so I could draw a symmetric curve

Some shaping with drawknife and spokeshave

And complete

With a close up of the finished joint

Edit : Looking at the pictures I see it still a bit dusty and the neoprene I used as washers has got everywhere!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I've done the tongues with ply cut on the diagonal before. Easy. Nice work but sorry, it's ugly as sin.

 

[custard]

You've done an excellent job there Biliphuster. That's some very neat shaping work, it all looks very uniform and professional. Well done!

=D>