joint advice for bench

[haggisbasher]

Evening all

looking for some advice/help. I am building my first project and its a mobile bench. I wen and got the timber for the frame on saturday and it is all cut to length ready for joints. The plan I am basing my design on uses single sided tenons on the rails in mortices on the legs. the legs are 95 x 95 and the rails are 70x45. The mortices are designed to meet in the middle and be mitred.

the problem is that this would be 60mm deep and 25mm wide and I have no easy way of cutting this. I have a 1/2" plunge router but its not going to plunge 60mm with standard cutters. I have a small benchtop drill press but it only has a 50mm stroke. Lastly I don't have any decent chisels or the skills to cut them entirely by hand.

what would you suggest? is a 25 x 50 tenon strong enough? would dowelling it help.

Original design used 70 x 70 legs so I was ok but the timber merchant advised that the 70x70 they had was twisted and warped and it was, but they reckoned the 95x95 was good.

my newbie inexperience didn't think about the joint when deciding that heavier was better in bench.

Helppp

Cheers
Tom

 

[engineer one]

well tom, i would from personal and recent experience, think it might be worth trying to do it by hand.

i would think with a decent 1/2inch 12mm pig sticker you could cut each mortice in about 20 minutes. it ain't too difficult.

go for it mate. you know you really really want to. :lol: :twisted:

paul :wink:

 

[MooreToolsPlease]

I'm just curious why you are going for single sided tenons?
If it was me, I would probably build it around the tools at hand,
I would probably use a standard tenon, with a 15mm mortice. use the router and make them 50 long.
I would probably peg them too for added security

 

[Paul Chapman]

I agree, make them around the tools you have. With a plunge router you should be able to cut accurate mortices and I would think that 50mm would be OK. As Matt suggests, you could peg them with dowels as well.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[ByronBlack]

hi Tom.

I've had this very issue - only I was cutting into beech, but in the end I used a drill-press with a sawtooth forstner, cutting in from both sides. If you make a table and fix a small block of wood on the table you can get quite good repeatibility by cutting in both sides.

Otherwise a router fence setup might do the trick. If you look in the thread that I started which was talking about an axminster morticer, you'll see loads of idea's.

One of the ways I took to do a few of the mortices was to drill out most of hte waste with a brace and then square up with a chisel.

Btw, you rails seem quite skinny?

(In the end I took the route to use nuts and bolts, if you're not too worried about the design, this is a much easier task to undertake.)

 

[haggisbasher]

well I've got to admit I cut it all to length and planed the ends by hand and it was very satisfying, if hard work. I don't have any decent tools only big shed cheap stuff used for diy, I have a cheap and nasty hilka plane, so thats probably making it all the harder. My woodworking mojo was definitely good this weekend.

Excuse my ignorance but whats a pig sticker, I am familiar with bevel edge and firmer pattern chisels but after that I'm lost.

Cheers
Tom

 

[engineer one]

no ignorance mate, just different terminology for different usage.

mortice chisels are i am told known as pig stickers. don't know why you should want to stick a pig, but they are more square and thicker than a normal chisel.

paul :wink:

 

[ByronBlack]

a 'pig-sticker' is an older style mortice chisel - basically has a massive wedge like rounded handle as opposed to a slimer section that you find on more modern mortice chisels - you can whack them really hard.

Tom, if you wanted to put it together easily with basic tools, you can do something like i've done recently:

All you need is a drill to bore the holes for the bolts, and either rough out the recesses with a drill and chisel or make a router template like I did, it's quite a quick solution and i'm pleased to have gone this route.

Hope that is some help.

 

[haggisbasher]

mortice chisels are i am told known as pig stickers. don't know why you should want to stick a pig, but they are more square and thicker than a normal chisel.

thanks for that

Btw, you rails seem quite skinny?

They are a little but it is an enclosed style which will be enclosed with 18mm ply or mdf so the racking resistance will come from that. I also need to be able to move it around to make best use of space so weight is a slight issue. I didnt intend the legs to be so heavy but because I am relying on off the shelf finished timber I took what was straightest on the basis that as a beginner big straight is easier to deal with than small warped/twisted.

I'm just curious why you are going for single sided tenons?

Only because that was the detail on the plan I am basing my project on. In my ignorance it seemed strong and therefore suitable for a bench. I also admit to thinking that it would be relatively easy to make.

Cheers
Tom

 

[RogerM]

Tom - why not use worktop connectors like this?

I've just replaced one of the curved plates that sit in the recess with a large washer. Simple, strong, cheap and easy to dismantle or alter at a later stage if it needs to be. Simple stub tenon that is there to stop twisting as much as anything, and shallow mortise can be chased out with a router or chopped out with a chisel. Possibly more functional than elegant - it depends what you are trying to achieve I guess!

This just one of a series of pics that I have taken for a WIP thread on building a"New Fangled Workbench" but haven't got round to posting it yet!

 

[haggisbasher]

heres a pic of what I am trying to emulate

Byron thats a really elegant solution I like that.

Roger thanks for the pic I think that might be a way forward, I was hoping to not rely on hardware but I think i may have been a little ambitious in my initial assumptions I am still considering the option of chopping them out by hand, it would be a good learning experience and thats really the point at the moment.

And if I managed to get it done imagine the mojo points.

[/img]

 

[George_N]

I have a small benchtop drill press but it only has a 50mm stroke.

It's easy to get a hole deeper than 50 mm provided that your drill bit is long enough. Drill in 50 mm, back the drill out and put a 10 mm packer under the workpiece and drill out the remaining 10 mm. A tall fence on your drill press table will help keep everything square and you can attach stop blocks for repeatability.

 

[haggisbasher]

Thanks George

thas what I decided to do, itsl a bit heath robinson but i managed to get a setup that i was happy with. got the first 2 legs drilled tonight the remaining 2 hopefully tomorrow night. I just need to get a chisel sharp enough to clean them up and we're hunky dory.

cheers all

Tom

 

[engineer one]

why not make loose dowel tenons and use them instead if getting chisels and sharpening them is a problem/

cheapskate festo domino :twisted: :lol:

paul :wink: