Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.

ca/joint_strength/

I had previously tested a

mortise and tenon joint
against a dowel joint for
strength. In that test the
mortise and tenon joint
won. But questions
remained - how much
stronger is one joint vs.
the other, and is it
possible to improve on
the dowel joint?

So I set out to do some

more thorough
experiments, this time
using more samples and
actually measuring the
breaking force of the
joints.

Building the test

stand

I needed some sort of sturdy test fixture that would allow me to slowly apply a measured amount of
force to the joint. At left, you can see the test stand I came up with. It consists of an L-shaped frame
that the joint under test is clamped to, a bathroom scale, and a hydraulic jack.

Like just about everything

else, I made this test
stand out of wood. With
the frame made out of
wood, I had to make sure
that it would be stronger
than any joint I might try
to break with it.
Nevertheless, I still used
spruce, seeing that it's so
much cheaper. I
compensated for the
softer wood by joining it
with a really massive
triple tenon joint.

The triple tenon joint is

1 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

about 6 cm deep. This

meant that I couldn't use
my screw advance box
joint jig to cut the tenons. I also couldn't use my quick-set tenon jig, because that jig doesn't move
far enough side to side. My crummy delta tenon jig has even less range of motion. So I ended up
pulling out my old tenon jig which I built more than 10 years ago. This jig, placed on the right side of
the saw had just barely enough stroke to cut this massive joint with. The adjustment screw on it is a
10 turn per inch acme screw. That came in handy for spacing the 1/2" wide tenons at exactly one
per inch.

I cut the triple mortises

with an endmill in my
horizontal boring
machine. The endmill
cuts deeper than most
router bits, but it works
better at lower speeds.
So I just used my
horizontal boring machine
as a slot mortiser to cut
the mortises, and then
chiselled the ends of the
mortises square. Each
mortise is 1/2" (13 mm)
wide, 6 cm deep, and 8
cm long. The pencil gives
a bit of a sense of scale.

After gluing it together, I

glued another piece to the backside of the joint where it pushes
together to give it an extra support.

Making joints to test

I decided to standardize
the size of my joints to be
a 6 x 1.7 cm rail attached
to a post 3.5 x 3.5 cm in
size. This is close to the
size of joint one might
use putting together a
chair or a stool. It's that
sort of joint that gets
stressed a lot - so much
so that most store-bought

2 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

wooden chairs will come

apart at the joints
eventually.

I used yellow carpenters

glue for all of my tests.
For the wood, I used spruce and then retested with maple.

My favourite is of course
the mortise and tenon
joint. I made all my
tenons 3/8" (10 mm)
thick, 27 mm deep, and
55 mm wide.

I made a number of
mortise and tenon joints,
ranging from tight enough
that I had to drive it in
with a hammer, to some
being loose by a few
thou, so that the dry fitted
joint would still have a
tiny bit of play. More
about mortise and tenon
joint fit and accuracy

I bought a bag of these

pre-cut dowels, 2" long,
and 3/8" in diameter (10 x
51 mm). They have
ridges, which I figure
should help with gluing.
They are also supposed
to be pre-compressed,
and re-expand when glue
is applied, for a better fit.
I figured these dowels
should really give the
dowel joints a better
chance.

I also went for three

dowels, instead of two.
The spacing of these

3 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

dowels is at 3/4" (18

mm). I used my
horizontal boring
machine, with its indexing
function to exactly space
my holes.

In terms of strict wood

joints joining a rail to a
post, I couldn't think of
anything else other than
maybe to use biscuit
joints. But I don't have a
biscuit jointer. Besides, if
you cared about strength,
you wouldn't be using
biscuit joint.

I also decided to test

several types of screw
joints. I rigged up an
inclined plane on my
horizontal boring
machine, which would
allow me to mount the work piece at an angle for drilling pocket holes.

Here's one of my pocket

hole joints. This one I
fastened with 2" drywall
screws.

4 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

I also tested a joint with

the screws through the
post and into the
endgrain of the rail. I
used three 3.6" (80 mm)
#8 wood screws, screwed
through the post, and
straight into the end grain
of the spruce. I drilled the
pilot holes quite small, so
that the thread could
really bite into the wood.
You can get away with a
lot with spruce, because
it's quite resilient and
doesn't split easily.

Here are all of my test

pieces in spruce. All cut
from the same piece of
2x8 spruce lumber. I
figured that way, I'd
reduce the effect of
variations in the wood
between different boards
as a source of bias. I was
careful to select a board
that had relatively
consistent grain
throughout.

For economy, I always

joined two rails onto one
post. I always combined
two different types of joint
on the same post, to
reduce any bias that
might come from one post being slightly better than another.

Spruce can vary quite a lot in weight and hardness, as I found out when doing some wood
hardness testing experiments earlier. I used a relatively heavy piece of spruce for these tests,
simply because all the stock on my lumber rack was of the heavy variety. I always select the
heaviest boards when I buy lumber.

5 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

Testing the joints

It's easy to forget to note

down the result, or miss
the actual point where the
force was maximum
before the joint lets go.
So I set up a digital
camera to take a video of
my bathroom scale as I
was running the tests.

I also set up a lever, with

some 1/2" metal shafts as
pivots, to cut the load on
my bathroom scale by a
factor of two in case I
needed to push harder
than the 300 pounds that
my scale goes to. For the
softwood joints though, it
turned out that none of
the joints exceeded 300 pounds, so I just put the jack
directly on the scale.

I applied the force exactly 20 cm (8") from the post for

each test, so that the same load reading would result
in the same amount of torque at the joint.

I also adjusted the zero knob on my scale to

compensate for the weight of the jack, so that it read zero pounds with the jack standing on it. This
saved me the trouble of having to subtract the weight of the jack every time.

I made three identical

dowel joints. The dowel
joint test samples failed
at 120, 140, and 145
pounds. I expected some
variation, and was
satisfied that these were
all fairly close to each
other.

I split apart the wood

afterwards to inspect how
the joint had failed. As

6 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

expected, bits of the post

adhered to the dowels, so
even though the joint
failed along the glue line,
it doesn't suggest that the
glue itself failed. All three
joints failed with the dowels pulling out of the post, none with the dowels pulled out of the rail. So
this suggests that the long grain to long grain in the rail is slightly stronger than the long grain to
cross grain joint in the post.

I made quite a lot of

mortise and tenon joints,
which fit with different
degrees of tightness. I
split apart some of these
after testing them to
inspect the result. As
expected, bits of the post
were stuck to the tenon,
so this again suggests
that the glue itself was
not the cause of failure.

The mortise and tenon

joints failed at 170, 175,
140, 180, 185, and 190
pounds. There wasn't any
detectable difference
between the loose, snug,
and overly tight joints that
I made. My conclusion is
that the fit, to the last few thousandth of an inch, is not that important to the actual strength of the
joint, so long as there is glue in the joint everywhere.

The mortise and tenon joints averaged 172 pounds, whereas the dowel joint averaged 135 pounds.
So the mortise and tenon joints still beat out the dowel joints, but not by a dramatic margin. On
average, the mortise joints were only about 25% stronger.

Testing the screw

joints

Next I tested the screw

joints. Testing these was
rather unsatisfying,
because, in general, the
joint would just yield and

7 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

yield. There was no

explicit point of failure.
The joint at left, for
example, is still not at its
maximum amount of
force. What happened is
that the rail would just
push itself into the post,
and the screw heads
would pull into the wood on the other side. This started
happening at a force of just 85 pounds. As the screw heads
pulled further into the wood, force was still increasing. But the
joint was bent on the order of five degrees. From an aesthetic
point of view, the joint was way past a point of unacceptable
deflection.

I experimented with
reinforcing the screw
heads with washers,
which allowed me to
increase the load to 210
pounds before the screws
finally pulled out of the
end grain. I was really
surprised how well the
screws held in the end
grain of the rail. But I was
still getting a lot of
deflection in the joint as I
tested. Even these 5/8"
(16 mm) washers got
pulled into the wood, and
the rail also compressed
into the post.

The lesson from this is that the screw joints' strength were not limited by the screw thread's ability
to hold in the wood, even for end grain. The screw head without a washer just didn't provide
enough contact area against the wood compared to what a long screw thread could hold - even if
its in the endgrain.

My pocket hole joints failed at just 115 and 110 pounds, with the 2" #7 screws pulling out of the
post. I unscrewed one of the rails, and screwed it against a maple rail and re-tested. This time, it
went up to 140 pounds before it failed, with the rail splitting around the pocket holes. So 140
pounds is what I would have achieved if I had used longer, larger screws. Again though, the
amount of deflection was past unacceptable well before the joint let go.

8 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

Retesting with maple

I tested two dowel joints with maple. These failed at 230 and 245 pounds.

For the mortise and tenon joint in maple, I tested just two joints, which failed at 300 and 270
pounds.

Overall, the hardwood mortise and tenon and dowel joints

showed a minimal amount of deflection before failure,
whereas the spruce joints deflected a bit before the point of
letting go.

I used 2" #8 screws for the pocket hole joint in maple. The
joint failed at 220 pounds, with the pocket holes splitting apart.

The joint with the 3 1/2" screws screwed through the post and
into the end grain held up to 160 pounds before the screw
heads got pulled into the post. After I put washers behind the
screw heads, I was able to load the joint to 300 pounds. At
300 pounds, the joint hadn't 'failed' yet, but it had deflected so far that I considered it pointless to go
any further. Even with the extra contact area provided by the washers, the screw heads and
washers were just pulling further and further into the maple. The washers also got seriously bent
out of shape.

The trouble with screw joints

Overall, all the screwed joints had an unacceptable amount of opening up of the joint before they
actually let go. From a furniture building perspective, having a joint open up by a few degrees is
unacceptable, so the ultimate strength where the screwed-together joint comes apart really isn't a
useful measure in terms of making furniture.

That said, the amount of yielding before failure of a screw joint does give it a certain amount of
toughness. Failure is gradual, and it takes a lot of energy to get a joint to let go. This means
whatever you fasten with screws takes a lot of beating before it fully comes apart. This property is
useful if you are building sawhorses, scaffolding, or packing crates. But for furniture making, it
doesn't help much. So my conclusion is that for furniture applications where strength is critical,
screw joints should be avoided. That said, it's fine to use screws to attach a panel to the back of a
dresser or bottom of a box, but you shouldn't rely on screws to hold a chair frame together. If you
do use screw joints, I think it's best not to cover the heads, so that if the joint does open up a little,
you can at least re-tighten the screws.

The main problem with screw joints with longer screws is that the
screw heads pull through the material. A typical countersink screw is
quite bad for this because the screw head forms a nice cone that is
easier to push into the wood. The flatter head of a drywall screw is
probably better in this regard. If you build something where the screw
is hidden, it may be a good idea to put a washer behind the screw
head to give it a bit more contact area with the wood.

The screws held surprisingly well in the end grain. I also experimented

9 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

with drilling a slightly larger hole for the screw, and filling the hole in
the end grain with glue before inserting the screw. This did improve the holding power even more,
yet the screw could still be unscrewed. So that may be an effective technique to repair furniture
where the screws have pulled out of the wood.

Force of failure in pounds, applied at 20 cm

1 pound = 0.45 kg = 4.4 Newtons
* All
Joint type Spruce Maple
screw
Mortise and tenon 170,175,140,180,185,190 300, 270 joints
Dowel 120,140,145 230, 245
Pocket hole * 115,110,140 220
End grain screw * 85 160
End grain screw + washers * 210 300
deflected to such a large extent before failure that the ultimate failure strength is useless as far as
furniture making is concerned.

For reference, I also tested the hardness of the wood I used, using my screwdriver drop hardness
test method. My spruce samples divoted by .115" on average, which made it slightly softer than
many of the spruce samples in my hardness table. All my spruce is selected for being heavy, so I'm
pretty sure the spruce I was using was still slightly harder than the average piece. My hardwood
samples tested with divot depths of .035" to .043", which puts it in the middle of the range for the
hardwoods.

Further observations

In my tests, mortise and tenon joints outperformed dowel joints by an average of 25%. This is
actually impressive performance for the dowel joints. The outside two dowels were only 47.6
mm apart at the furthest edges, whereas my tenons were 56 mm wide - nearly the width of
the stock. I couldn't put the dowels all the way out to the edge of the rail because they still
needed wood around them to glue into. The dowels also only protruded 25 mm into the post
(half of the length of the pre-cut 2" dowels), and the taper at the end of the dowels also
shortened their effective glue area by another millimeter or two. If I had restricted my tenons
to the geometry I was forced to with the dowels, I'm pretty sure they would have lost the
advantage. That all said, the tenon joints were faster to make and glue up.
In one of my spruce mortise and tenon joints, I had the growth rings parallel to the tenon. This
joint failed by the wood in the post shearing along the growth rings, and failed significantly
sooner than expected. So for strength it's probably best to orient the wood so that your
tenons cross as many growth rings as possible. I excluded this one sample from my results.
The first maple mortise and tenon joints that I tested failed much sooner than expected. On
close examination, I did not see the usual transfer of fibers from one part to the other. The
glue, not the wood had failed. Apparently, for that joint, 36 hours had not been enough to let
the glue fully dry. I excluded that sample and waited another 24 hours before testing the
remaining hardwood joints.
The hardwood joints did not show any noticeable deflection or strain on the joint right up to

10 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM
Wood joint strength testing https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/

the point of failure. Spruce showed more deflection. The screw joints all caused the joint to
open up to an unacceptable degree long before they actually let go.
A big long screw holds surprisingly well in the wood's end grain. I drilled the pilot holes quite
small, so all my rails were in danger of splitting when I put the screw in the end grain.
However, another quick test I did was to drill the hole larger, fill it with glue, and then put the
screw in. This arrangement held very well, and the screw could still be unscrewed and
re-screwed.

See also:

Examining the joint Testing wood glue Mortise and tenon vs

surfaces strength dowel joints revisited

Dovetail vs box joint Testing different Testing drywall screws

strength test methods of gluing

Pocket hole strength Brazed aluminium

tests (vs. other joints) joint strength test

Back to my Woodworking website

11 of 11 10/12/2016 12:39 PM