Create mortise and tenon with

[Guest Jonathan S]

Can someone point me to resources about how to make table/bench leg joinery where the rails and/or legs "protrude" out a bit to join? This is often seen in mid-century modern. I am not sure what to call it - I am posting some randomly found example images below. I know that Philip Morley did this on TWW when explaining his Modern Kitchen Table, but it was a bit more complex than I am looking for as it was at an angle and on two fronts. I need a more basic start. Any advice on where to get started on how to do this (or what this is called) would be great! 

[Bmac]

You have a few options for this joint and builders of MCM furniture used differing methods;

First, the easiest is using the Domino for this type of joint. The MCM builders 60 years ago did not have this technology, but it is commonly employed now for this type of joint.

Second, floating tenons. Morley uses these I believe. 

Third, dowels. 

Fourth, screws and glue with a plug covering the screw hole.

 

Here is an example of this type of joint, attaching a chair back to a leg using the domino system;

Once it's glued the piece is sculpted and shaped so they two pieces flow and look blended. This is what a joint can look like after sculpting, it looked like the previous pic before sculpting;

[Guest Jonathan S]

This is great - thank you - so is the shape of the leg/rail cut beforehand using a template, then after joining fine tuned with a chisel/sanding?

Thank you again for your help!

[Bmac]

There are a lot of ways to do this, templates are basically essential. With the shaping I use rasps, gouges, sanders, and die grinders.

Here are some examples of what I used to make Jory Brigham's Hank Chair. With this I start with a full size template and cut the full size into smaller pieces:

Then trace my pieces to my stock. Notice how I use existing straight edges for certain orientation of pieces;

With this project I then used the template to set the angle of my cuts;

This really simplifies it, and there are other ways to do this. Doing a table should be pretty straight forward. Are your joints going to be at 90 degrees?

 

 

[Chestnut]

55 minutes ago, Guest Jonathan S said:

This is great - thank you - so is the shape of the leg/rail cut beforehand using a template, then after joining fine tuned with a chisel/sanding?

Thank you again for your help!

This is how I'd accomplish the result. Chisel, sanding. Other tools that work great would be rasps, spoke shaves, angle girders with sculpting heads.

[legenddc]

There are some great examples in The Wood Whisperer Guild section of this forum. Any of the Hank chair, Maloof rocker or dinning chair projects probably have some more detail on how these joints were made. 

[Guest Jonathan S]

All wonderful information - thank you all so much!

[Guest Jonathan S]

4 hours ago, Bmac said:

There are a lot of ways to do this, templates are basically essential. With the shaping I use rasps, gouges, sanders, and die grinders.

Here are some examples of what I used to make Jory Brigham's Hank Chair. With this I start with a full size template and cut the full size into smaller pieces:

Then trace my pieces to my stock. Notice how I use existing straight edges for certain orientation of pieces;

With this project I then used the template to set the angle of my cuts;

This really simplifies it, and there are other ways to do this. Doing a table should be pretty straight forward. Are your joints going to be at 90 degrees?

 

 

Yes my joints will likely all be 90 degrees. I will start out pretty simple so probably something like this. Perhaps after some practice will then get into the beautiful designs you have!

[Bmac]

9 hours ago, Guest Jonathan S said:

Yes my joints will likely all be 90 degrees. I will start out pretty simple so probably something like this. Perhaps after some practice will then get into the beautiful designs you have!

OK, this will be real simple then, you won't even need templates for this. Cut your leg blanks to full width and then do your joinery, you could even do traditional mortise and tenon joinery here. After your joinery is completed cut away the excess material.

Here is a pic to further explain. The hatched area is the area you remove after joinery completed. Then you do glue up and sculpt the pieces together.

[Guest Jonathan S]

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

OK, this will be real simple then, you won't even need templates for this. Cut your leg blanks to full width and then do your joinery, you could even do traditional mortise and tenon joinery here. After your joinery is completed cut away the excess material.

Here is a pic to further explain. The hatched area is the area you remove after joinery completed. Then you do glue up and sculpt the pieces together.

Bmac - you're an amazing help! The community needs more people like you. Thank you!

[Chip Sawdust]

1 hour ago, Guest Jonathan S said:

Bmac - you're an amazing help! The community needs more people like you. Thank you!

Bmac is absolutely one of the best.  

With people like hi, there will be more of us - like him! 

[SouP]

On chairs like the "Hank" or similar are you guys cutting the joint angles on the table saw or routing them from the template?

[Ronn W]

Whenever possible I try to do the joinery before I  the piece to shape.

[Bmac]

10 hours ago, SouP said:

On chairs like the "Hank" or similar are you guys cutting the joint angles on the table saw or routing them from the template?

On the table saw using the referencing side against the fence.