table leg/apron joint

[marcros]

I have a small hallway table to make, utilising some turned beech regency style legs. I have no domino, which would be ideal for this little job! The top only needs to be about 12" x 18" from memory.

The legs have a square cross section at the top, or about 1” x 1”. The aprons (top rails??) will be spalted beech, and will be thicknessed to a suitable size and will be about 3 inches deep- I am thinking about ½” finished size. The table is to be a simple affair- 4 legs, 4 aprons, no drawer.

Is there an alternative to doing a mitred mortice and tenon joint into the legs? I want to drawbore the joint for strength and for practice/reviewing my new drawbore pins. Could I get away with removing the middle piece of the tenon on the front rail, thus making a double tenon, and removing top and bottom of the tenon on the side rail so that it doesn’t clash with the front when at full depth? The side rail could have a stub tenon for location of necessary.

 

[bobscarle]

What about a sliding dovetail, it's a fairly common joint for that type of thing. It wouldn't need drawboring.

 

[marcros]

that would work nicely Bob, but a reasonable part of the project is a review of the drawboring pins! It is a good back up plan though and sounds nicer than the mitred m and t.

 

[marcros]

i could, of course do the sliding dovetail on the leg joint, and drawbore the top into breadboard ends.

 

[AndyT]

I do think that for something as slight and delicate as that, the strength of the joints won't be much of an issue really! The tenons will only be about 1/4" thick (assuming they will be bare-faced) so that's all the extra length that mitres or cut-outs would get you. If you do pin them, mitring the tenons (or just stopping them short before they intersect) would let the pins be in line with each other, central to the tenon height.

And stop dreaming about a Domino - get one of them and you'd never get round to testing out drawbore pins! ;-)

 

[marcros]

my concern with the mitred tenon/stopping short was on such small stock that the tenon is probably not long enough to pin. a quick sketch of an inch square, and a line doing diagonally across it shows the shortest side of the mitre to be 3/8" (if I bring the aprons in an 8th of an inch), so a dowel would have to be very thin to go through the tenoin at its shortest point. At least if I offset them, i could go to 3/4" without an issue. I could always put a false pin or two in, to maintain a constant height. i do wonder whether to find a better project to drawbore, and to go with the sliding dovetail on this one.

As for dreaming, the price tag prevents that for now. My hourly rate is zero, so i cant write it off against time saved!

 

[marcros]

out of interest, how tight should a sliding dovetail be? Should it need a mallet to assemble it, just a firm thump from the fleshy bit of the palm, or should it be about the same as a properly fitting drawer and slide slowly under its own weight? Is there any applications where it should be tighter or looser than standard?

 

[AndyT]

out of interest, how tight should a sliding dovetail be? Should it need a mallet to assemble it, just a firm thump from the fleshy bit of the palm, or should it be about the same as a properly fitting drawer and slide slowly under its own weight? Is there any applications where it should be tighter or looser than standard?

Here are two from recent projects of mine:

This is one on an ash bookcase, where a horizontal shelf ties the vertical sides together:

They fitted ok dry, but when I assembled the thing, the slight swelling from the glue made it seize up nearly solid before it was quite home; I ended up whacking it quite hard with a bigger mallet than I expected to need!

This smaller one was on my step/chair combi - I seem to have not taken any picture of the socket, but it was open at the top of a leg and is closer to the scale of yours:

Having learned a bit from the bookcase, I made that one so that when fitted dry it could be pushed home fairly easily - not dropping under its own weight, but ok with a steady push, not a thump. With the glue on it was fine and was perfectly solid when done. So don't assume your wood will crush at all on assembly, especially if you are using beech.

 

[marcros]

excellent, thanks Prof.

 

[bobscarle]

I read something not too long ago about this. The glue will cause the wood fibres to swell a little making a snug dry fit very tight on final assembly. The tip was to assemble the joint dry but slide the shelf, or whatever, in about 2/3 of the way. Apply the glue then fully assemble.