FROM THE EDITORS OF POPULAR WOODWORKING MAGAZINE

Joinery
BASICS
Learn 6 Classic Joints

Dovetails

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CONTENTS
2 Mortise &
Tenon Basics
Learn how to cut this workhorse joint and
have it last for centuries.
BY C H R I S TO P H ER S C H WA R Z
9 Shop-made
Mortise Jig
An inexpensive shop-made jig makes quick
and accurate work of router-cut mortises.
BY G LEN D. H UE Y
11 Better Finger
Joints
This nifty shop-made table saw jig helps you
cut accurate machine-age finger joints.
BY RO BER T W. L A NG
11
EDITOR’S NOTE
Solid Joinery for Several Lifetimes
S
ure, you can use metal fasteners
(nails, screws etc.) and build nice-
looking projects. But if you want
your work to outlast its maker, you
need to learn how to cut solid joinery
– it makes your projects stronger, more
attractive and more durable.
In “Joinery Basics,” you get a intro-
duction to some of the most useful and
common joints in woodworking: rabbets,
finger joints, mortise-and-tenons, dove-
tails and more. With these must-know
joints in your tool kit, you’ll be well on
your way to making most any project –
and making it to last.
You’ll find a combination of hand- and
PHOTOS BY AL PARRISH
9
18 Mitered
Half-lap Joinery
With a router, straight bit and a scrap of
plywood, learn how to turn a weak joint into
a solid and strong mitered corner.
BY G LEN D. H UE Y
20 Cut Accurate &
Clean Rabbets
Discover three good ways to cut this joint: by
router, by table saw and by hand.
BY C H R I S TO P H ER S C H WA R Z
power-tool techniques – approaches
that can be achieved with the tools and
machinery found in most woodwork-
ing shops – from some of our best-loved
and most experienced writers: Glen D.
Huey, Robert W. Lang and Christopher
Schwarz.
Plus, the final article, Christopher’s
dovetailed plane cabinet, not only teach-
es you hand-cut dovetails, but grooves
and dados, too. And of course, when
you’re done with that project, you’ll have
improved your skills and have a nice-
looking storage piece for your planes.
These articles first appeared in older
issues of Popular Woodworking and Wood-
25
25 Dovetailed
Plane Cabinet
Learn to cut dovetails by hand as you make
this handy and handsome storage cabinet.
BY C H R I S TO P H ER S C H WA R Z
working Magazine – the two publications
that combined to make Popular Wood-
working Magazine (PWM). In every issue
of PWM, you’ll find skill-building tech-
niques for hand tools and power tools,
shop tricks you can put to use right away,
great-looking projects with step-by-step
instruction and more.
I invite you to visit us online to find
out more about the magazine, read the
Editors’ Blog and Christopher Schwarz’s
hand-tool blog, free project and tech-
nique articles and more. You’ll find us
at popularwoodworking.com.
popularwoodworking.com ■ 1
 Mortise & Tenon
Basics
Discover a superior way to cut this superlative joint.
A lot of woodworkers spend a
lot of time, effort and money to avoid
making mortise-and-tenon joints. Bis-
cuits, dowels, commercial loose-tenon
jigs and expensive router bits are just a
few of the “work-arounds” developed
this century so you don’t have to learn
to make a mortise and its perfectly
matched tenon.
But once you learn how straightfor-
ward and simple this joint can be, you
THE ’ANVIL’ TEST
The anvil is about to hit the cube made
using #20 biscuits.
The mortise-and-tenon cube held to-
gether after the first hit.
2 ■ JOINERY BASICS
B Y C H R I S TO P H E R S C H WA R Z
will use it in every project. Why? Well,
it is remarkably strong. A few years ago
we decided to pit this venerable and
traditional joint against the high-tech
super-simple biscuit. So we built two
cubes, one using biscuits and one with
mortises and tenons. Then we dropped
a 50-pound anvil on each cube. The
results were eye-opening.
Both cubes were destroyed. The bis-
cuit cube exploded on impact. Some of
The cube made out of biscuits is de-
stroyed on impact.
The mortise-and-tenon cube collapsed
after the second hit.
the biscuits held on tightly to the wood,
but they pulled away chunks from the
mating piece as the joint failed.
The second cube survived the first
hit with the anvil – the joints held to-
gether even though the wood split at the
points of impact. A second hit with the
anvil ruined the cube entirely, though
most of the tenons stuck tenaciously
to their mortises.
The lesson here is that biscuits are
indeed tough, but when they fail, they
fail catastrophically. The mortise-and-
tenon joints fail, too, but they take their
time, becoming loose at first rather than
an immediate pile of splinters.
So when you’re building for future
generations and you know how to make
this stout joint with minimal fuss, you
won’t say “Why bother?” You’ll say
“Why not?”
Choosing the Right Tools
There are so many ways to cut this joint
that one big obstacle to mastering it is
choosing a technique. I’ve tried many
ways to cut this joint – backsaws, com-
mercial table-saw tenon jigs and even
the sweet $1,000 Leigh Pro Frame Mor-
tise and Tenon Jig.
Each technique or jig has advan-
tages in economy, speed or accuracy.
The technique I’m outlining here is the
one I keep coming back to year after
year. It uses three tools: a hollow-chisel
mortiser for the mortises, a dado stack
to cut the tenons and a shoulder plane
to fine-tune your joints. Yes, this is a
little bit of an investment, but once you
start using this technique, these tools
LEAD PHOTO BY AL PARRISH; STEP PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
popularwoodworking.com ■ 3
will become the foundation for much
of your joint-making.
(For a simple and inexpensive jig to
cut mortises with a router, see “Shop-
made Mortise Jig” on page 9.)
■ Hollow-chisel mortisers: These
machines are nothing new, but the
benchtop ones are now cheaper, more
powerful and more accurate than ever.
For about $240, you’ll get a good ma-
chine.
Essentially, a mortiser is a marriage
between a drill press and an arbor press
that’s designed for metalworking. The
drill press part has a spinning chuck
that holds an auger bit that chews up the
waste wood. The auger bit is encased in
a hollow four-sided chisel that cleans
up the walls of your mortise, making
the auger’s round hole a square one.
The arbor press part of the machine
is the gear-and-lever system that push-
es the tooling into your wood. This
mechanism gives you an enormous
mechanical advantage compared to
outfitting your drill press with a mortis-
ing attachment – an accessory I don’t
recommend for all but the most oc-
casional mortising jobs.
Shopping for the proper mortiser
is tough. I don’t consider all the ma-
chines equal. Some are weak and stall
in difficult woods such as oak, ash and
maple. Many have problems holding
your work down against the machine’s
table. In a review of the machines on
the market in our August 2001 issue,
we preferred the fast machines (3,450
rpm) instead of the 1,750-rpm slow
machines (back issues are available by
A shoulder plane
tweaks tenons to fit
perfectly. Avoid the
modern Stanley shoul-
der planes (not shown).
Spending a few dollars
more will get you a
much better tool.
4 ■ JOINERY BASICS
Lever
Hold-down
Table
Tape squares
table
calling 855-840-5118 or online at shop
woodworking.com). The fast machines
were almost impossible to stall. How-
ever, the marketplace seems to prefer
the slow machines. While none of the
machines is perfect, I prefer the fast-
speed Bridgewood and Shop Fox and
the slow-speed Jet and Fisch machines.
■ Dado stack: A good dado stack will
serve you in many ways, but I use mine
mostly for cutting tenons and rabbets.
When it comes to choosing one, buy a
set with 8" blades instead of 6" blades,
unless you own a benchtop table saw.
Stay away from the bargain sets that
Hollow-chisel mortisers excel at
boring square holes. Here you
can see the hold-down (which
is usually inadequate with other
machines), the table (which must
be squared to the chisel before
use) and the lever (which makes
the machine plow through
almost any job).
cost $50 or less – I haven’t
found them to be very sharp
and the teeth aren’t well-
ground. The expensive sets
($200 and more) are nice,
but they’re probably more
than you need unless you
are making your living at
woodworking. My favorite
mid-priced set is the Freud
SD208. It’s about $100 and
does a fine job.
■ Shoulder plane: No
matter how accurately you
set up your machines to cut
mortises and tenons, some will need a
little tuning up before assembly. And
nothing trims a tenon as well as a shoul-
der plane. These hand tools really are
secret weapons when it comes to joints
that fit together firmly and are airtight.
Why is that? Well, shoulder planes
are designed to take a controlled shav-
ing that can be as thin as .001". I can
tweak a tenon to a perfect fit with just
a few passes. Trying to tweak a tenon
with a chisel or sandpaper is more
difficult. You are more likely to gouge
or round over the surface of your ten-
on and compromise its mechanical
strength.
Buying a shoulder plane gets easier
every year because there are now many
quality tools on the market. Unless you
build only small projects, you are going
to want a plane that is at least 1" wide.
Most casework tenons are 1" long, so
a 1"-wide plane is perfect for trimming
up the face cheeks and shoulders of
the tenon.
My advice is to stay away from the
newly made Stanley shoulder planes.
I’ve had some sloppily made Stanleys
go though my hands (vintage Stanley
shoulder planes can be good, however).
Lie-Nielsen makes several shoulder-
trimming planes worth saving your
money for. The large version is a tool
of great mass and presence and does
the job admirably – it’s a $250 invest-
ment. Lie-Nielsen also makes a rabbet-
ing block plane that can be easily used
as a shoulder plane; it costs $175. It’s
the tool I recommend to most people
because it does double-duty as a low-
angle block plane.
Veritas, the tool line made by Lee
Valley Tools, has a smaller shoulder
plane that’s almost 3 ⁄4" wide, quite com-
fortable to use and reasonably priced
at $189. The company also has a larger
plane that’s 11 ⁄4" wide; it costs $229.
Other new and vintage brand names
worth checking out include Shepherd
Tool (made in Canada) and the British-
made Clifton, Record, Preston, Spiers
and Norris.
Of course, you’ll need to sharpen
the tool. And that’s why we offer a free
tutorial on sharpening on our web site
– to find it, visit popularwoodworking.
com/magazineextras and scroll down
to the April 2004 header.
Designing a Joint
Once you have the tools you need,
you can learn about the mechanics of
the joint. Study the illustration below
to learn what each part of the joint is
called.
The first question beginners always
ask is: How thick and how long should
my tenons be? As far as thickness goes,
the rule of thumb is that they should be
one-half the thickness of your work-
Edge cheek
Edge shoulder should be at least 3/8"
to avoid blowing out the mortise
Face shoulder
Rail
piece. So a tenon on a piece of 3 ⁄4" mate-
rial should be 3 ⁄8" thick.
As for length, that depends on your
project. Typical casework tenons that
are 1" long will be plenty strong. For
large glass doors, make them 11 ⁄4" long.
For small lightweight frames and doors,
stick with 3 ⁄4"- or 5 ⁄8"-long tenons.
What beginners often don’t ask
about is the size of the edge shoul-
ders on their tenons. This is a critical
measurement. If you make these edge
shoulders too small, say 3 ⁄16" wide or
so, you could run into huge problems
at assembly time when building frames
and doors.
Here’s why: If your tenoned piece
forms one of the outside members of
a frame, your mortise wall is going to
be only 3 ⁄16" wide and it’s going to be
weak. The hydraulic pressure from the
glue or the smallest amount of racking
will cause the tenon to blow out this
Mortise
Stile
Face cheek
Tenon thickness
should be one-half
of your stock’s
thickness
These sample mortises
are useful for sizing
your tenons. I usually
make a new one every
season or two, because
they can get worn from
use.
weak mortise wall, ruining everything.
It is because of this that I recommend
edge shoulders that are 3 ⁄ 8" wide in
most cases. Note that your edge shoul-
ders can be too big. Once they start
getting larger than 1 ⁄ 2", you run the
risk of allowing the work to twist or
warp in time, ruining the alignment
of the parts.
Of course, if your tenoned piece is
not on the edge of a frame, you can
have narrow edge shoulders without
any worries.
Designing the mortise is a bit sim-
pler. It should be the same dimensions
as your tenon with one exception:
Make the mortise 1 ⁄ 16" deeper than
your tenon is long. This extra depth
does two things: It gives your excess
glue a place to go and it ensures your
tenon won’t bottom out in the mortise,
which would prevent you from getting
a gap-free joint.
Beware of other tune-ups that some
books and magazines suggest. One
bit of common advice is to chamfer
all the sharp edges of your tenons to
improve the fit. Another bit of advice is
to chamfer the entry hole of the mortise.
These are unnecessary if you design
your joint properly.
One thing that is important, how-
ever, is to mark the outside faces on
all your parts. It’s important to keep
these straight during machining and
assembly.
Tenons First
Some traditional woodworkers tell you
to make all your mortises first and then
popularwoodworking.com ■ 5

A 6" rule will help you
set the length of your
tenon. Once you do
this a couple of times
you’ll hit this measure-
ment right away every
time.
make your tenons fit that. This is good
advice if you cut the joint by hand with
a backsaw and a mortising chisel be-
cause there is more opportunity for the
mortise to be irregular in size. But you
will work much faster and with much
less measuring if you try it my way.
Before you cut your first tenon,
you should fire up the hollow-chisel
mortiser and make a sample mortise
with each size of bit you use. The three
most common sizes are 1 ⁄4", 3 ⁄8" and
1 ⁄ 2". These mortises should have per-
fectly square walls and be 11 ⁄16" deep
and 2" long. Write the month and year
on each mortise and make a new set
next season.
Why make these sample mortises?
Well, because the tooling to make your
mortises will always produce the same
When making tenons with a dado stack in
your table saw, the first pass should remove
the bulk of the material. Keep firm downward
pressure on your work, which will give you
more accurate cuts.
6 ■ JOINERY BASICS
width mortise, you can merely size
all your tenons to one of these sample
mortises as you cut them on your table
saw. This will save you time down the
road, as you’ll see.
With your sample mortise in hand,
set up your table saw to cut your tenons.
Install the dado stack blades and chip-
pers on the saw’s arbor. The rule here is
to install enough blades to almost cut
the length of the tenon in one pass. For
example, to cut a 1"-long tenon, set up
enough blades and chippers to make
a 3 ⁄4"-wide cut.
Next, position your saw’s rip fence.
Measure from the left-most tooth of
your dado stack to the fence and shoot
for the exact length of your tenon. A 1"-
long tenon should measure 1" from the
left-most tooth to the fence, as shown
Backing board
No wood trapped between
blades and fence
The second pass has the work against the
fence and defines the face shoulder. Note
there isn’t any wood between the fence and
blades, so the chance of kickback is minimal.
The backing board reduces the chance of
tear-out at the shoulders.
in the photo at left.
Get your slot miter gauge out and
square the fence or head of the gauge
to the bar that travels in the table saw’s
slot. Attach a wooden fence to the face of
the gauge (usually this involves screws
through holes already drilled in the
gauge). This wooden fence stabilizes
your workpiece and controls tear-out
as the dado stack blades exit the cut.
Set the height of the blades to just a
little shy of the shoulder cut you’re after.
You want to sneak up on the perfect
setting by raising the arbor of the saw
instead of lowering it. This does two
things: One, it produces fewer waste
pieces that result from overshooting
your mark. And two, because of the
mechanical backlash inherent in all
geared systems such as your table saw,
raising the arbor eliminates any poten-
tial for it to slip downward because of
backlash.
You are now ready to make a test
cut. First put a scrap piece up against
your miter gauge, turn on the saw and
make a cut on the end of the board. Use
firm downward pressure on the piece.
Don’t let the end of the board touch the
saw’s rip fence. Then bring the scrap
piece and miter gauge back and make
a second pass, this time with the scrap
touching the rip fence as shown below.
Flip the scrap over and repeat the
Cut the edge shoulders the same way you cut
the face shoulders and cheeks.

Stile
Rail
Mortise
ends here
Mortise
begins here
To locate the mortise, put the tenon across
the edge of the stile where you want your
mortise to go. Use a sharp pencil to mark the
tenon’s location on the edge. Bingo. You’ve
just laid out the mortise’s location.
process on the other face. Usually you
aren’t supposed to use your rip fence
and miter gauge in tandem, but this is
an exception. This cut is safe because
there isn’t any waste that could get
trapped between the blades and the
fence, producing a kickback.
Check your work with your dial cali-
pers and see if the tenon will fit your
sample mortise. The tenon is likely
going to be too thick. Raise the blades
just a bit and take passes on both faces
of the scrap until the tenon fits firmly
and snugly into the sample mortise
with only hand pressure.
If you can shake the sample mortise
and the tenon falls out, you’ve overshot
your mark and need to lower the arbor
and try again. If the fit is just a wee bit
tight, you can always tune that up with
a shoulder plane. Let your dial calipers
be your guide. Sometimes you haven’t
used enough downward pressure dur-
ing the cut to make a consistent tenon.
If something doesn’t fit when you know
it’s supposed to, try making a second
pass over the dado stack and push down
a little harder during the cut.
Using this setup, mill all the face
cheeks on all your tenoned pieces.
When that’s complete, raise the arbor
to 3 ⁄8" and use the same routine to cut
the edge shoulders on all your boards.
Your tenons are now complete.
Use Your Tenons Like a Ruler
One of the major pains in laying out the
mortise is figuring out exactly where
you should bore your hole. You end
up adding weirdo measurements and
subtracting the measurements of edge
shoulders. If you lay out mortise loca-
tions using math only, you will make
a mistake someday.
Troy Sexton, one of our contribu-
tors, showed me this trick one day
and I’ve never done it any other way
since. Say you are joining a door rail
to a stile – quite a common operation.
Simply lay the tenoned rail onto the
edge of the stile and line up the edges
of both pieces so they’re flush. Take a
sharp pencil and – using the tenon like
a ruler – mark where the tenon begins
and ends on the stile. That’s it; you’ve
just marked everything you need to
know to make your mortise.
If you are placing a rail in the middle
of a stile, there is one more step. You’ll
need to mark on the stile where the
edges of the rail should go. Then line
up the edge of the rail with that mark
and fire away. There’s still no addition
or subtraction. With all your mortises
laid out, you can then get your hollow-
chisel mortiser going.
Mortise is cut
slightly past
that line
Line
marked
on stile
A Finicky Machine
I’ve used a lot of hollow-chisel mortis-
ers and find them fussy to adjust. In a
nutshell, here are some of the impor-
tant adjustments not covered by some
manuals:
■ Make sure the chisel is at a perfect
90° angle to the machine’s table. I’ve set
up a dozen of these machines and only
one has ever been perfect. The solution
is to use masking tape to shim between
the table and the machine’s base.
■ Set the proper clearance between
the auger bit and the hollow chisel
that surrounds it. Some people use
the thickness of a dime to set the dis-
tance between the tooling. Some people
measure. Either way is fine. If the clear-
ance is too little, the machine will jam
and the tooling can burn. Too much
distance makes a sloppy-bottomed
mortise.
■ Square the chisel to the fence. The
square holes made by the chisel should
line up perfectly. If the edges aren’t per-
fectly straight, your chisel isn’t square
to the fence. Rotate the chisel in its
bushing and make sample cuts until
everything is perfect.
■ Center the chisel so it’s cutting in
the middle of your workpiece. There
might be a clever trick to do this, but
I’ve found that the most reliable method
is to make a test cut and measure the
thickness of the mortise’s two walls
with a dial caliper. When they’re the
same, your mortise is centered.
By cutting over your
line slightly, you give
yourself just enough
forgiveness at assembly
time. A little wiggle can
mean a lot when you
are trying to close up
the gaps as you clamp
up your work.
popularwoodworking.com ■ 7

Shoulder planes are capable of extraordinarily precise work. Just try to set your table saw to
remove .001". It’s not possible. For a shoulder plane, it’s simple.
Simplify Your Mortising
As you make your mortises, here are
a few tips for making things a whole
lot easier.
■ I like to cut a little wide of the
pencil lines that defi ne my mortise.
Not much; just 1 ⁄ 32" or so. This extra
wiggle room allows you to square up
your assembly easier. It doesn’t weaken
the joint much – most of its strength is
in the tenon’s face cheeks.
■ As you bore your mortises, don’t
make your holes simply line up one
after the other. Make a hole, skip a
distance and then make another hole
(see the photo below). Then come back
and clean up the waste between the
two holes. This will greatly reduce
the chance of your chisel bending or
breaking.
■ Keep your chisel and auger lu-
bricated as they heat up. Listen to the
sounds your machine makes. As the
auger heats up, it can start to rub the
inside of the chisel wall and start to
screech. Some dry lubricant or a little
canning wax squirted or rubbed on
the tooling will keep things working
during long mortising sessions.
■ Finally, make all your mortises
with the outside face of the work against
the fence. This ensures your parts will
line up perfectly during assembly.
Final Tweaks
No matter how careful you have been,
some of your tenons might fit a little
too tightly. This is where the shoulder
8 ■ JOINERY BASICS
plane shines. Make a couple of passes
on both face cheeks and try fitting the
joint again. Be sure to make the same
number of passes on each cheek to keep
the tenon centered on the rail. If your
parts aren’t in the same plane when as-
sembled (and they’re supposed to be),
you can take passes on only one cheek
to try to make corrections.
If the joint closes up on one face but
not the other, you might have a sloppy
shoulder. The shoulder plane can trim
the fat shoulder to bring it in line with
its twin on the other side of the tenon.
If the tenon still won’t seat tightly, try
chiseling out some meat at the corner
where the edge shoulder meets the face
cheek – but don’t trim the outside edge
of the edge shoulder itself.
Finally, get a sharp chisel and clean
out any gunk at the bottom of the mor-
tise. Keep at it – a tight joint is worth
the extra effort.
Assembly
You really don’t want any glue squeeze-
out when you assemble your mortise-
and-tenon joints. The trick to this is
learning where to put the glue and how
much to use. I run a thick bead of glue
at the top of each mortise wall and then
paint the inside of the mortise wall
with glue using a little scrap piece. I
try to leave the glue a little thick at the
top of the mortise wall. Then, when
the tenon is inserted, this paints the
tenon with glue but drives the excess
to the bottom of the mortise.
When clamping any frame – re-
gardless of the joinery you used – you
don’t want to use too much pressure
or you will distort the frame. Tighten
the clamps until the joints close and no
more. You also want to alternate your
clamps over and under the assembly
to keep the frame flat – no matter how
fancy your clamps are.
Once you do this a couple of times,
I think you’ll find a whole new level of
woodworking open to you. Web frames
for dressers (or Chippendale secretar-
ies) will seem like no problem. Morris
chairs with 112 mortises will be within
your reach. And your furniture is more
likely to stand the test of time – and
maybe even the occasional anvil. PWM
Christopher is a regular contributor to Popular Wood-
working Magazine and the publisher at Lost Art Press
(lostartpress.com).
A thick bead of glue
at the top of the
mortise wall makes the
joint strong without
squeezing out a lot of
glue. Use a small piece
of scrap to paint the
mortise wall before
inserting the tenon.
Scrap
Shop-made Mortise Jig B Y G L E N D. H U E Y

You don’t need fancy tools or a special machine to create a traditional joint.

R eproduction furniture is my
main focus in woodworking, so I think
one of the most important construction
joints is a mortise-and-tenon joint – and
not simply the use of a stub tenon, but a
full-blown tenon that ranges between
1" and 11 ⁄4" in length depending on the
project and if there’s adequate depth in
the material.
Due to the number of these joints I
make, I have a dedicated mortising ma-
chine. But if you need to create a mortise
and tenon and you don’t have a dedicat-
ed machine to use, whip up this simple
jig from a few scraps of wood and use
a plunge router, a properly sized guide
bushing and an upcut-spiral router bit.
(You can use a straight router bit, but
an upcut bit lifts waste material out of
the mortise, so it makes a cleaner cut.)

Make a Guide Bushing Slot

The first step in building this jig is to
A mortise-and-tenon joint is one of the strongest, most useful joints in woodworking. With scraps
create a slot in a piece of 1 ⁄2" plywood
from the waste bin, you can create a jig that does the job and is simple to use.
to guide the bit’s location as you plunge
into the workpiece – plywood’s stability
makes it a better choice. Don’t create a 3 ⁄4"-outside-diameter bushing and a Next, lay out the final measurements
a slot that matches the router bit size; 1 ⁄4" router bit, add 1 ⁄ 2" to the finished on the centerline of the plywood. Posi-
you need to match the slot to the guide length of your required mortise. The tion a fence so the center point of the
bushing’s outside diameter. additional opening allows for the dif- drill bit aligns with the centerline on
Select a bushing with a diameter ferences between the router bit and the your plywood. Drill the two end holes
that’s larger than the router bit. For guide bushing. first, making sure to position the out-
standard 3 ⁄4" material, I use a 3 ⁄4"-out-
side-diameter bushing for two reasons; 12"
this diameter is a standard drill bit size
and the slot matches the thickness of
the stock with which I’m working. 3⁄4" guide bushing 1⁄4" router bit
When working with 3 ⁄4" material, select
a plywood scrap that’s about 33 ⁄4" wide 33⁄4"
and at least 12" long, then establish a
X
centerline. Chuck a 3 ⁄4" drill bit into a X +1⁄2"
drill press.
To determine the length needed
for your specific mortise when using MORTISE JIG

LEAD PHOTO BY AL PARRISH; STEP PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR popularwoodworking.com ■ 9

side diameter of the bit’s cut with the
outside location of the layout.
Once the ends are established, re-
move the additional waste with your
drill bit while keeping the workpiece
tight to the fence. When finished, the slot
has smooth sides. (You can touch up the
sides with a rasp or file if you need to.)
Two Side Pieces
Complete the Jig
For step two, position two additional
scrap pieces on either face of the mate-
rial to be mortised while holding one
end of each piece flush with the end of
the workpiece. Next, clamp the three
pieces into a bench vise. These scraps
or side pieces should be nearly as long
as the slotted top piece of the jig.
The key to building this jig straight
and centered is in the final step. Lay out
the mortise on your workpiece; I find
it best to do the layout work using the
overall length of the slot, keeping in
mind that my finished mortise will be
1 ⁄2" shorter. Position the plywood piece
on the three pieces in your vise, align
the slot with the layout lines at the top
and bottom, and with the edges of the
workpiece looking side to side. Once
you’ve got the slotted piece properly
positioned, add a couple clamps to hold
everything in place.
Attach the slotted top to the two
side pieces with #8 x 11 ⁄4" screws – two
screws per side. Counterbore the holes
for the screws. This is not the time to
split or crack the side pieces. Pull the
10 ■ JOINERY BASICS
The overall length of your mortise is deter-
mined by the slot cut into the jig’s top. Make
sure to compensate for differences between
the bushing and router bit.
assembly from your vise and remove
the workpiece. The fit should be snug
so it will take some muscle to remove
the workpiece from the jig.
Plunge a Mortise
Set up your router with the guide bush-
ing and a 21 ⁄ 2"-long router bit. You’re
now ready to work. A bit this long allows
you to plunge a mortise just over 11 ⁄4" in
depth into the workpiece after passing
the jig’s 1 ⁄2"-plywood top.
Match the jig’s opening to the layout
lines on your workpiece and clamp
the two together in a vise or with oth-
er clamps. Zero out the router bit by
plunging down (with the power off
and the router unplugged) until the bit
touches the workpiece, then lock the
plunge mechanism. Use the router’s
depth stop to set the plunge depth.
The base of the router sits securely
on top of the jig and the bushing, which
fits snugly in the slot, adds to the overall
Once the parts of the jig
are positioned around
the piece to be mortised,
add screws through the
top to complete the jig.
stability. To create the mortise, release
the locked plunge mechanism and pull
the router setup tight to one of the ends.
With the bit standing above the work-
piece, start the router and hold tightly
against the slot’s end as you plunge to
full depth.
Allow the router bit to retract from
the hole, slide the router to the oppo-
site end and plunge a second hole. To
remove the material for the balance of
the mortise, repeat the plunge action,
each time positioning the router setup
over an unexcavated area.
Once most of the waste is removed
and no section remains that bridges the
two sides of your mortise, return to one
end of the slot, plunge to the bottom of
the mortise and make a pass along the
entire length to clean and straighten
the sides. Make it a point to travel the
length while holding the bushing firm
to one side, then make a return pass
holding tight to the opposite side. The
result might be slightly wider than the
1 ⁄4" router bit, but because you make the
mortise section of the joint first then
match the tenon, this won’t be an issue.
This jig is easy to build and can be
used repeatedly with consistent results.
The only decision you’ll need to make is
should you round your tenons to match
the mortise, square the mortise ends
to match the tenons or create tenons
with wiggle room – not snug to the
mortise’s rounded ends. I always opt
for wiggle room. PWM
Glen is the former managing editor of Popular Wood-
working Magazine; he is now the editor at American
Woodworker.
Once the plunging cuts are completed, finish
the mortise with a pass along both faces of the
slot. This last step smooths and cleans the slot.
 Better Finger Joints B Y R O B E R T W. L A N G

The dovetail’s machine-age cousin is fussy to cut and assemble;

we’ve fixed both those faults.

M ost woodworking joints

can be traced back in time for centuries.
Ancient Egyptians excelled at dovetails
and the Romans relied on mortises and
tenons. Joinery was all handwork until
the Industrial Revolution mechanized
most processes in the middle of the 19th
century. Mortisers, table saws, tenoners
and dovetailing machines were all in
common use well before 1900.
In addition to new ways to make
old joints, machinery and tooling were
developed to create joints that weren’t
common at the time, but became popu-
lar because they could be made quickly.
The finger joint, also called a box joint,
is an example of this development.
Before the machine era, this joint
was used only to form a wooden hinge.
When first developed, and until re-
cently, it was strictly utilitarian, used
mainly to make strong shipping boxes
and crates. With our current infatua-
tion for visible and decorative joinery,
the finger joint has moved from utility
to visibility.
The effort to cut a finger joint en-
tirely with hand tools is at least equal
to the effort to hand cut dovetails. In

A shop-built router jig can make large, accurate finger joints. The solution for mak-
ing a better jig proved to be finding a better duct tape.

LEAD PHOTO BY AL PARRISH; STEP PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR; ILLUSTRATION BY MATT BANTLY popularwoodworking.com ■ 11
A good fit on a finger joint can be assembled
with hand pressure only. If you need to beat
on it or clamp it to get it to close, it is too tight.

many ways it takes more effort, and

the return for the effort is dubious. It
is a more demanding joint to make,
An attachment to the miter gauge shows the exact location of the cut, allowing you to make ir-
and it lacks the inherent mechanical
regularly spaced joints.
advantage and aesthetic appeal of the
dovetail. But it is significantly easier
and faster to make finger joints by ma-
chine, if one is willing to work precisely
to set up the tools.
For example, a jig we used to build
a blanket chest (you’ll find that proj-
ect free online at bit.ly/1k7vvnN) was
intended to have slots and fingers 5 ⁄8"
wide. When completed, the overall
width of the jig was 1 ⁄16" bigger than
planned. That translates to an error in
each component of .0025", about half
the thickness of the average human
hair. Because the parts are all the same
size, the joints produced fit together Clamp the work securely to the miter gauge
and make certain the cut is within the waste Confidence in cutting is the key to a success-
nicely, and if I hadn’t told you about
area. ful joint, whether it is cut by eye or by jig.
the variation, you wouldn’t notice it
in the finished piece.
If you’re trying to cut finger joints abandon finger joints after one or two grain to long-grain glue surface and
with a fixed-width cutter such as a dado tries, the exercise will expand your good mechanical strength. The only
stack or router bit, that half-a-hair is woodworking vocabulary. You may weak area is the way the joint resembles
about the outer limit of tolerance. If decide to move on to more attractive a hinge. A sharp impact directly on the
you can’t set up, measure and adjust joinery, or you may decide that this corner can cause the joint to unfold or
in those teeny increments, you’ll be is a worthy method for much of your come apart. Except for that disastrous
dependent on luck alone to make a nice work. In either case, the effort will scenario it’s as strong as a joint can be,
finger joint. But working to that degree make you a better woodworker. The and a good choice for small boxes and
isn’t as hard as you might think. lessons learned in finger joints will drawers.
serve well in other areas. The type of wood used will make a
A Rout of Passage Finger joints are very strong. The difference in how forgiving the joint
Making finger joints is a good oppor- amount of interlocking surface area is to put together. Softer woods, such
tunity to develop skills. Even if you makes a corner with a large area of long- as pine or poplar, will compress when

12 ■ JOINERY BASICS
assembled. White oak or maple aren’t TABLE SAW FINGER JOINTS
as cooperative, and may require more
force to assemble, and more finesse to
make the joint. This is a place where
the science of the machinist and the
art of the woodworker converge. The
tolerances are close, but the joint should
be made so that it can be assembled
without resorting to clamps or ham-
mer persuasion.
The location of the sweet spot for
fitting will also vary with the width of
the joint or the number of fingers. It’s
a matter of compounding errors, and
like compounding interest, a number
that seems insignificant can grow large
enough to defeat you. A handful of fin- Jig construction for the table saw method The hardwood guide block must match the
ger joints for a drawer is fairly easy. starts with cutting a notch in the plywood width of the slot exactly. It’s right when you
A fi nger joint the size of those used backer that attaches to the miter gauge. can feel some resistance as you press it into
the slot by hand.
on the blanket chest (especially in a
hard, unforgiving wood) is pushing
the limits, but not beyond possibility
for the careful craftsman.
Consistency and repeatability is
the key to finger joints. If you can cut
accurately (and stay on the right side
of the line) you can line up each cut
individually. Attaching an L-shaped
backer to the table saw’s miter gauge
shows the exact location of the cut,
and this can be used quite effectively
to make precise cuts on the table saw.
If the spacing of the fingers varies as
shown, and you’re only making a few
joints, this is a faster method than mak-
ing a dedicated jig. An extra piece of hardwood is used to set the
Regularly sized and spaced fingers distance between the blade and the other One half of the joint is cut against the guide
shout for a jig. It’s fussy work, but repeti- block. Make it long enough to be held against block, forming a notch. The other half is held
the blade front and back. away by the spacer, cutting out the corner.
tious. The secret is to use a method that
builds consistency into the process.
If the work is small enough to safely
travel vertically over the saw blade, the
jig pictured at right is an old standby
that works well.

Time-tested Method
This is the classic method of producing
a finger joint with a jig that attaches to
the table saw miter gauge, and it works
very well for small pieces. It’s reason-
able to run a drawer side vertically over
the table saw, but longer or wider work
becomes unwieldy. If you’re uneasy
about holding the work on the table Both pieces are cut at the same time. After As the cuts continue, each cut registers the
saw, try the router jig on the next page. the first cut, the pieces are placed with the next cut, and if the setup is correct, the work
Because the table saw jig requires the notches over the guide block. proceeds quickly.

popularwoodworking.com ■ 13
saw to be set up with a dado head, cut A NEW WAY TO ROUT FINGER JOINTS
all the parts you need before changing
over to the stack dado set. You should 3⁄4"-thick backing strip
prepare the parts for the jig, the parts 51⁄2"-long fingers
you intend to join, and several extra
pieces of stock for making test cuts.
You’ll need a piece of plywood, at
23⁄4"-long spacers
least 1 ⁄ 2" thick and about 6" x 12". In
addition, you’ll need a piece of hard-
wood the exact thickness of the width
of the cut and about 12" long. I rip the
hardwood a little thicker than neces-
sary, then use a handplane to sneak up
on a good fit in the slot. It doesn’t hurt
to have an extra piece on hand in case
you go too far with the plane.

Simple Concept – Precise

Execution
After installing the stack dado head
(we used 1 ⁄4", but the fingers can be
any width) make certain the head of
the miter gauge is square to the blade
and adjust the height of the blade to
the thickness of the parts to be joined.
Hold the plywood vertically against the
miter gauge and make a cut near the
end. The exact location isn’t critical,
but leave at least 3 ⁄4" to 1" beyond the
cut. From here on, you need to be as
precise as you can be.
Reduce the thickness of the hard-
wood guide block until you can press it
into the slot in the plywood. You need
only worry about the thickness, not
the width, as long as the width is less
than the height of the slot. A set of cali-
pers will help in letting you know how
close you are. If you measure your plane
shaving, you will be able to predict the
size as you work, and you should check
the fit of the actual piece in the slot
frequently.
When the piece fits, cut a couple
inches off one end and glue it in the
slot. I use cyanoacrylate (CA) so I don’t
have to wait too long for the glue to dry,
but any wood glue will work.
After letting the glue dry, place the
longer piece of hardwood against the
edge of the dado stack. Slide the miter
gauge into position, then move the ply-
wood laterally until the two hardwood
sticks are touching along their lengths.
Don’t throw the longer piece away;
you’ll need it again in a few minutes.
Stop
Fingers and spacers are all the same width, ensuring con-
sistency. After the jig is assembled, the joints are cut with a
router using a top-mounted bearing bit.
W hen we began to plan this
article, the emphasis on finger
joints was a given, but the specific
techniques weren’t. We knew we
would feature the table saw and
dado method for small parts, but we
weren’t comfortable milling larger
pieces that way. Our first thought
for large case pieces was to use a
commercially made router jig. That
is indeed a workable solution, and
many well-made jigs are on the
market.
But it didn’t seem right to offer no
other alternative than sending read-
ers out to make an expensive pur-
chase for a joint they will likely make
only on an occasional basis.
Being of frugal stock, I decided
there must be another way. The key
to finger joints is equal sizes, and I
realized that by making fingers and
spacers from stock ripped at the
same time, I should be able to put
Backing board reduces tear-out
FINGER JOINT JIG
together a jig that would perform
as well as anything available on the
market. In less than an hour I had a
working prototype of the jig we used.
Rip the Strips
We were after joints with 5⁄8"-wide
fingers and slots, so I began by rip-
ping 1⁄2"-thick Baltic-birch plywood to
that dimension. The reason for using
the plywood was to eliminate wood
movement from the equation. I made
a couple test cuts and measured the
results with calipers to get as close as
possible to the proper size.
Ripping carefully from a wide
piece of plywood stock yielded
enough material to cut the 51⁄2"-long
fingers and the 23⁄4"-long spacers.
After cutting these parts to length, I
attached the parts to a 23⁄4"-wide, 3⁄4"-
thick plywood backing strip with yel-
low glue and 23-gauge pins. I laid a
few beads of glue on the strip, started

14 ■ JOINERY BASICS
with a long piece, and made sure the
first piece was squarely placed then
butted the parts against one another
one at a time and nailed them down.
A longer 23⁄4"-wide piece was added
below to stiffen the jig and provide a
place for clamping the jig to the bench.
A larger piece of plywood was
glued and screwed at a right angle to
the backing strip. I placed the screws
below the fingers so that I wouldn’t
cut into them with the router later on.
This piece prevents the wood from
tearing out on the back of the cuts, and
provides a way to attach the work to
the jig. One edge of the backer piece is
aligned with the edge of the first finger,
and a small piece of scrap is attached
to the edge to act as a stop.
Both panels of the joint are cut at
once. The edge of one piece is placed
against the stop with the show side
out. The edge of the other is aligned
with the opposite side of the first
finger, offsetting the joint one finger’s
width.
Making the fingers of the jig the
same size as the finished parts simpli-
fied construction and reduced the
chances of making an error in cal-
culating the difference between the
diameter of a router bit and a template
guide. A 1⁄2"-diameter flush-trimming bit
with a bearing mounted above the cut-
ter would trim the work exactly to the
edges of the jig.
Stop
The first workpiece is placed with the end
tight against the bottom of the fingers, and the
left end against the stop.
Or so I thought. The pieces from
my first test cut went together too
easily, leaving visible gaps at each
joint. My quest for perfection was
almost foiled by router and router-bit
behavior. My measurements showed
the bit and bearing to be the same
diameter, and the width of the fingers
and spacers to be equal. But the act of
making the cuts produced slots a few
thousandths of an inch wider than the
fingers.
This wasn’t entirely unexpected.
To get a bit with a 1⁄2"-diameter cutter
and bearing, I had to use one with a
1⁄4"-diameter shank. Even with a pretty
good router and a quality bit, enough
runout existed to increase the width
of the slots by a few thousandths of an
inch. This error was consistent, and
rather than seek perfection where it
didn’t exist, I looked for an easy way to
make an adjustment to the jig.
The fingers of the joints were
undersized, so either the long fingers
of the jig needed to be wider, or the
spacers in between narrower. Either
solution would mean taking the jig
apart and starting over. The first step
was to see how much change was
needed, and answering that question
led to a fast and simple solution.
I put blue masking tape on the
sides of each finger. My guess was the
thickness of the tape would move the
router bit enough to obtain a good fit.
Second workpiece flush
to the edge of the jig
The second piece is placed over the first, with
the left side flush against the outer edge of the
first finger on the jig.
My instincts were good, but the bear-
ing on the router bit destroyed the tape
while cutting the first test joint.
I headed down the street to the
local hardware store in search of
something thin, sticky and durable.
The solution proved to be aluminum
duct-sealing tape. This is not to be
confused with common duct tape.
Duct-sealing tape is much better.
This tape is a thin metal foil with a
very sticky back. I cut small pieces off
the roll with an X-Acto knife, peeled
off the backing paper and placed
a piece on the side of each finger. I
pressed the handle of the knife over
the tape to press it firmly in place. It
held up well during routing, and the
$9 roll of tape is likely a lifetime supply
of an excellent shim material.
Using a router bit with a smaller
diameter than the fingers is an advan-
tage. As we experimented with differ-
ent techniques, we found we achieved
the best results by pushing the spin-
ning bit straight in between the fingers
to start each cut. This removed most of
the waste without putting pressure on
the fingers of the jig.
We then made two more passes,
holding the bearing against each finger
to make a light, clean cut. Both sides
were cut by pushing the router into
the jig instead of coming in on the left
side and out on the right. This reduces
tear-out that otherwise might occur as
Dial calipers will help you zero in on the exact
measurement you need.
popularwoodworking.com ■ 15
A NEW WAY TO ROUT FINGER JOINTS (CONTINUED)
the router bit exits the work on the
right-hand side of the slot. This may
seem like extra work, but the final
two cleanup passes take little time
and produce cleaner edges.
With the large pieces of the
blanket chest, it was easier to place
the backing piece of the jig flat on
the bench, clamp the work to the
jig, then turn the jig and the work
together to a vertical position before
clamping the jig to the bench and
routing the joints.
Assembly is simply a matter of gluing and nailing the fingers and spac-
ers to a plywood strip. After making sure the first finger is square, butt
one piece against another and nail in place.
Clamp the plywood to the miter gauge
and secure it with a couple pan head
screws. If all went well, you’ll be in the
right position. If not, the flat areas un-
der the screw heads will let you move
the plywood side to side for a fine ad-
justment.
First Cut – Testing, Testing
Both halves of a joint are cut at the
same time. One piece is held against
the hardwood protruding from the
plywood, and the other piece is offset
by the width of the slot. The extra piece
of hardwood is used as a spacer to align
the parts for the first cut.
Clamping the two pieces together,
16 ■ JOINERY BASICS
This was far easier than trying to
hold the workpieces upright while
aligning and clamping them to the jig.
Fitting the end of the workpieces tight
against the bottom of the fingers is
critical to obtaining a good joint.
Ideally, the width of the work
should be some multiple of the finger
width. This leaves the joint with a
whole finger or whole space at either
side. The stop can be positioned to
leave a partial finger at each end, as
long as the second piece is offset by
Aluminum duct-sealing tape closes the gap caused by router and bit
runout, and holds up well in use.
and to the plywood attached to the
miter gauge, allows you to make the
first cut safely. You won’t have to worry
about the pieces slipping, and you can
concentrate on moving the miter gauge
smoothly forward with your hands
away from the dado stack.
After making the first cut, set the
spacer aside. Each succeeding cut is
made by placing the notch just made
over the hardwood, as seen in the pho-
tos on the facing page. The spacer will
keep the work from slipping sideways,
so you don’t need to use a clamp after
the first cut. You can pause after the first
few passes to see if the fingers and slots
fit together, but it goes fast enough that
the width of a finger.
I considered buying some alumi-
num bar stock to make a permanent
version of this jig – one that would
last forever and be incredibly adjust-
able for any size of box or finger
configuration. Luckily, I was talked
out of that notion by a co-worker
who pointed out that it was so fast
and simple to put together this jig
that it made more sense just to build
a new iteration whenever the need
occurred. — RL
I prefer to cut the entire width of the
joint before making a test fit.
There are three possible outcomes.
In the best case, the two parts of the
joint will come together with hand
pressure only and have no visible gaps.
If the joint won’t go together at all, the
fingers are wider than the slots. To cor-
rect this, loosen the screws holding
the plywood to the miter gauge, and
move the plywood so that the hard-
wood guide is closer to the blade.
If the fit is sloppy, the fi ngers are
too small, and the plywood needs to
be moved in the opposite direction.
When adjusting either way, use the
extra hardwood spacer as an aid. It’s

This may look crazy, but it works. Thin cyanoacrylate glue will wick into the joint after it is
clamped together and hold as well as any other method of gluing.
easy for something to slip a little as you
hold things in position and tighten the
screws. When you’re happy with the fit,
making the joints goes quickly, and as
long as the parts are the same width,
there aren’t many things that can go
wrong. A similar jig can also be used
on a router table.
Better Way for Bigger Boxes
On larger work, a better approach is to
build a jig for moving the tool across
the work. The fi rst choice for this is
the router instead of the table saw.
Our solution is the shop-made jig on
the two previous pages. Equal-width
material for the fingers and spacers is
the key element to this jig. It is quick
to assemble, adaptable to any practical
width, and with a bit of tweaking is
incredibly accurate.
Though finger joints look complex,
the idea is that the cuts be made effi-
ciently. With many joints, the bulk of
your time will be in tweaking the fit
after machining. The opposite is true
of finger joints; take your time getting
set up to make the cuts so they will fit
nicely directly from the machine.
Make extra pieces to test your jig,
your setup and your technique. I start
with two pieces of stock, and if the first
test isn’t quite where I want it, I trim
a couple inches or so off the ends and
try again. This leaves enough to have
assembled joints to see if I’m really
making progress, but doesn’t waste
material unnecessarily.
A Crazy (Glue) Solution
The downside to the finger joint is that
it takes some time to apply glue during
assembly. Water-based glues will swell
The final step is to trim the surfaces of the joint flush. Close cutting will mean little trimming.
the fingers and that can keep the joint
from going together. Or the glue can
begin to dry on one end before you have
finished spreading the glue.
One solution is to partially assem-
ble the joint, and apply the glue with
a brush. If it’s a large assembly, use a
slow-setting glue such as liquid hide
glue or polyurethane glue, and clamp
the corners one at a time.
An alternative we found is to as-
semble and clamp the joint without
glue. Thin CA glue is then applied along
the outer intersections of the joint and
allowed to wick into the joints. Set one
side of the joint horizontally, apply the
glue and wait about five minutes before
turning the work and gluing the op-
posite side.
With this technique the glue won’t
dry instantly, but if left for a few hours it
will become as strong as a convention-
ally glued joint.
We tried this method with some
other glues, including thin PVAs in-
tended for fixing loose joints in chairs.
The “Chair Doctor” produced a strong
joint, but sealed the end grain enough
that it showed when the joint was fin-
ished. The CA glue left no visible traces
after the completed joint was trimmed
with a block plane. PWM
Robert is executive editor of Popular Woodworking
Magazine.
popularwoodworking.com ■ 17
Mitered Half-lap Joinery B Y G L E N D. H U E Y

With a router, straight bit and plywood scrap, turn a weak joint
into a superhero of strength.

O ne of the strongest joints in

woodworking is a properly fit mortise-
and-tenon and the opposite in strength
is a simple butt joint. For years I built
base frames with mortise-and-tenon
joints at the rear and mitered corners at
the front. The miters were joined with
biscuits. The rear joints were much
stronger, so I wanted to add strength
to those mitered front corners, but how?
Not with mechanical fasteners;
screws were out. I needed something
quick to create and when assembled, I
wanted the joint to retain a mitered look.
The answer was a mitered half-lap joint.
With a half-lap, there is plenty of flat-
grain glue surface, and that increases
the holding power, big time.

Tools for the Task

Quick means simple in my book, so
if a bunch of tools are needed, forget
it. Goodbye, handtools. The process
I came up with works with a router, a
straight bit and a piece of plywood that’s
a couple inches wider than your work-
piece and long enough so it’s easy to add
Mitered joints are a common
clamps. Trim one end of the plywood
woodworking joint. Most are splined
to a 45º angle to make things easier. or joined with biscuits and lack real
With this technique, the router strength. With a quick setup that
sit s on top of the workpiece and uses your router, you can master the
kisses the fence on the final pass. It’s mitered half-lap. When assembled,
this joint rivals a tightly fit mortise-
best to have a straight edge on your
and-tenon.
router’s base plate, or make sure you
have accurately adjusted a round base
plate so the bit is centered. An off- even a top-mount bearing-guided bit ished length. For a base frame, miter
center base plate, depending on how you works. A smaller-diameter bit is a bit the ends of the front rail at 45º – the
hold the router each time it’s picked up, easier to use, but because the cut is most adjoining returns are left square.
allows the possibility that you’ll miss the often 3 ⁄8" in depth (half the thickness), Chuck a straight bit into the router
layout line as you plow out the waste. a larger diameter bit is no problem. and set the depth of cut very shallow.
The straight bit can be any straight Grab a couple pieces of scrap and
bit that you have in your arsenal. You’re Keep the Players Straight position one on top of the other leaving
only going to use the end of the bit, so To begin, cut your pieces to their fin- a few inches to the right of the top piece,

18 ■ JOINERY BASICS LEAD PHOTO BY AL PARRISH; STEP PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR

The key to this technique is accuracy. Find the precise offset measure- Whether it’s an angled line on a square end or a square line on an
ment through a sample cut to ensure you’ll have a perfect fit. angled end, the offset line is king. Plus it’s where to position your fence.

If you’re comfortable with your router abilities, remove waste using a With accurate layout and routing, the completed portion is perfectly
climb-cut, as well as in the traditional left-to-right manner. cut to accept its half-lap mate.

It’s easy to allow the router to tip into the cut
portion as you work. Keep downward pres-
sure on the base plate with one hand while
steering the router with other.
as shown above right. This makeshift
fence allows you to find the exact offset
from the edge of your base plate to the
edge of the straight bit. Make one pass
with the base riding along the fence then
measure the distance from the fence to
the dado. This is the offset measure-
ment. Remember it.
Layout is key. Form the half-lap on
the wrong face of the pieces and you’ll
lose the mitered look, so mark the faces
to remove the bottom half of the miter-
cut end and the upper half of the square-
cut ends.
Draw an angled line (45º) on the
squared ends beginning at the corner
then square a line across the mitered
ends beginning at the edge of the cut.
Draw a second line, offset by the ear-
lier measurement (the one I told you to
remember), that’s parallel to the first
lines.
Position your plywood fence at the
second layout line with the angled end
toward the mitered end of your work-
piece. Hold the fence flush with the bot-
tom edge of the workpiece then clamp
the fence in place.
After you adjust the bit to remove
half the thickness of your workpiece,
nibble away the waste beginning at
the end of the workpiece and working
toward the plywood fence.
On your last pass, hold the router
base tight to the plywood. At the end
of the cut, the router base plate hangs
mostly off the edge of the workpiece,
so maintain pressure to keep the plate
tight on the workpiece.
To clean the bottom waste from the
miter-cut piece, align your fence with
the square offset line, hold the bottom
edge flush with the workpiece then nib-
ble away the waste. Work slowly from
the point to the fence.
With the waste material removed
from both workpieces, your joint will
slip together with both shoulders
tight. The increased glue surface adds
strength to the joint and when viewed
from the top, the joint appears to be
mitered. This is a great technique for
base frames, picture frames or any-
where else your woodworking calls
for a mitered corner. PWM
Glen is the former managing editor of Popular Wood-
working Magazine, and now the editor of American
Woodworker.

popularwoodworking.com ■ 19
 Cut Accurate &
Clean Rabbets B Y C H R I S TO P H E R S C H WA R Z

Discover three methods: by router, by table saw and with hand tools.

W hen I was taught to cut rab-

bets in my first woodworking class, we
made them with two cuts on the table
saw. You’ve probably seen this tech-
nique in books and magazines before.
For the first cut, the work is flat on the
table. For the second cut, you stand the
work on edge and press it against the
fence as you move the work over the
blade. The waste falls away and your
joint is complete.
I’ve always struggled with this tech-
nique. It never seemed to produce a
perfect rabbet every time. The tech-
nique does have its strengths: Most
woodworkers have a table saw and a rip
blade to make the cut; when it works, it
does produce a nice smooth joint. But
after years of doing it this way, I con-
cluded that this technique has several
serious weaknesses:
■ Standing the work on edge requires

a tall rip fence, perfect balance on your

part and a zero-clearance insert in your
saw’s throat plate.
■ The joint is time-consuming be-

cause it almost always requires two

saw setups and several test pieces to
get it just right.
■ You have to move the saw’s guard

out of the way for the second cut, no

matter which brand of guard you have
on your saw.
So we decided to look for a better way
to make rabbets. We found two good
methods. The first uses two scraps and
a dado stack. The second is an improved
two-step process that’s virtually fool-
proof. But before we get to that, a quick

20 ■ JOINERY BASICS LEAD PHOTO BY AL PARRISH; STEP PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR

 Depth
Width
Rabbets can be cut with the grain or across it.
explanation on why other methods
aren’t as great.
Rabbets by Hand Take Great
Skill
Rabbets are one of the first joints wood-
workers learn. Try building any sort of
cabinet or shelf without it and you’ll
know immediately how essential this
simple open trench is.
The perfect rabbet should have
square shoulders and a flat bottom.
And the cut should be smooth. You
shouldn’t see marks from the tooling on
the joint except on close inspection. If
any of these elements of the joint are off,
you can be in trouble at assembly time.
If the joint’s shoulders aren’t square,
you likely are going to have an ugly
gap between the rabbeted piece and
its mate. Or worse, you will close the
joint but the case will not be square.
If the cut is rough, has burn marks
or is inconsistent, it will be difficult to
completely close the joint with clamps.
Plus, a rough rabbet isn’t going to be
as good a glue joint as a smooth one.
Before power tools, woodworkers
made rabbets with hand tools, such as
a rabbeting plane. I’ve done it this way,
and it works great – once you master a
couple of skills. Before you can cut this
joint with a rabbeting plane, you need
to learn to tune the tool and sharpen
the iron. This is no small feat for a be-
ginning woodworker. Then, once you
have a tool that works, there are two
settings that are paramount: the depth
stop, which limits how deep the rabbet
is, and the fence on the side, which
controls the joint’s width. With these
two set, you then make passes until
the tool stops cutting – then your joint
is complete.
Accessory fence
An accessory fence on your table saw’s rip fence allows you to make perfect rabbets with one
machine setup and almost always in one pass. Put enough chippers on the arbor to make your
cut and add one more. So if you’re making 5 ⁄8"-wide rabbets, install enough chippers to make a
3 ⁄4"-wide cut. Bury the last 1⁄8" in the accessory fence.
I consider this a technique that’s best
for the hand-tool enthusiast; it does
take some skill. Most woodworkers
are going to opt for an electron-eating
solution with an easier learning curve,
such as with the router or table saw.
Routers Aren’t for Everything
The router table was my first choice
for a couple of reasons: Router cuts are
exceptionally clean and maintaining
the squareness of the joint’s shoulders
is no problem.
But after cutting a lot of rabbets
on my router table, I concluded that
routers are not the best choice for all-
around casework rabbeting. It sounds
like blasphemy, but here’s what I con-
cluded: Most routers actually are quite
underpowered for the job, so you end
up cutting your projects’ joints in small,
time-consuming nibbles.
A 11 ⁄2-horsepower router does not
deliver the same sustainable torque that
a 11 ⁄2-hp contractor saw does (no mat-
ter what the tool’s label or packaging
says). Part of the problem is marketing
hype among the router manufacturers,
and part of the problem is in the way
a universal router motor is built com-
pared to a traditional induction motor
on a contractor saw. The bottom line
is this: Ask a typical router to hog out
a 3 ⁄4"-wide x 3 ⁄ 8"-deep rabbet in one
Aluminum T-track
pass and it will bog down or even stall
in the cut.
A router also is noisier than a table
saw, and large cabinet pieces become
unwieldy when you try to maneuver
them on the router table. You could
cut smaller rabbets on small pieces on
the router table (drawers are about the
right scale for most router tables). But
here’s how I feel about that: Learn the
rabbeting process on one machine and
then do it over and over the same way so
you become an expert at that process.
Jumping around from technique to
technique will only slow your progress
as you learn the subtleties of each.
Some people use their jointer and
its rabbeting ledge to cut this joint. The
jointer is a powerful machine, and this
technique actually works pretty well
for narrow stock such as face frames
and door parts. But try to rabbet the end
of a 30" x 20" cabinet side and you’ll
see why this isn’t the way most people
prefer to cut rabbets.
So I went back to the table saw,
which has guts galore and a big table,
to see if I could find a different way to
skin this wily animal.
Single Setup with Dado Stack
One nice thing about making a rab-
bet on the router table is that you can
(within reason) do it with a single
popularwoodworking.com ■ 21

The height of the dado stack determines the
depth of the finished rabbet. This is 1⁄2".
tool setup. You can control the width
and depth of the joint simultaneously,
tweaking the height of the bit and the
fence (which exposes the tooling) until
the joint is just right.
To do this same thing on the table
saw you need two things: a stack dado
set and a long length of plywood you
can clamp over the working surface of
your rip fence. The wood allows you to
“bury” the dado stack in the fence so
it will work like the fence on a router
table.
This accessory fence should be
straight, at least 1 ⁄2" thick and as long
as the table saw’s rip fence. Plywood is
a logical choice of material because it
doesn’t tend to warp.
The fi rst time you use this acces-
sory fence, lower the dado stack below
the surface of your saw’s table. Next,
clamp the accessory fence to your rip
fence and then position it so that about
1 ⁄8" of it covers the blades below. Then,
turn on the saw and slowly raise the
blades into the fence until you’ve cut
away about 1 ⁄4".
Another necessity to ensure an accu-
rate and safe cut is to use a featherboard
that presses the work against the table.
There are lots of commercial feather-
boards available, or you can certainly
make your own. As you can see from
the photo at right, I also added an alu-
minum T-track (in a rabbet, no less)
that allows me to quickly adjust the
22 ■ JOINERY BASICS
The distance from the top of the left tooth to the fence deter-
mines the width. This is 3 ⁄4".
featherboard’s position. That’s mighty
handy when dealing with project parts
that are of different thicknesses.
Now you’re ready to make rabbets.
Using a 6" rule, set the height of the
dado stack to equal the depth of the
rabbet you want to cut. (Tip: Spend
some time finding the point where your
blade’s teeth are at their highest. When
you’ve found that sweet spot, mark it
on your table saw’s throat insert; I use
a scratch awl. In the future, you can
just set your ruler on that mark and
measure. You’ll be amazed how much
time this saves you.)
Next, set the saw’s rip fence to ex-
pose enough of the dado stack to make
the width of your rabbet. With practice,
you can almost always hit that measure-
ment exactly on the first try.
Lock the height of the arbor on your
saw. This is especially important if you
own a benchtop or contractor saw. In
smaller saws, the mere force of the cut
can cause the arbor to creep downward.
If it creeps just a bit, that’s the worst.
You might not find out about the prob-
lem until assembly.
Turn on the saw. Follow the same
rules you do when ripping or crosscut-
ting. If it’s a ripping operation, you can
simply press the work against the fence
and push it through the blades. The
same goes for work that is square or
nearly square (such as the side of a base
cabinet). After your first pass, check
the depth of cut with a
rule or dial calipers all
along the joint to make
sure your featherboard
is pressing down hard
enough to prevent the
work from rising during
the cut. If the joint is in-
consistent, increase the
tension on your feather-
board or push the work
a little harder against the
saw’s table.
Sometimes taking a
second pass will fix your
problem. While that’s not
ideal, it’s worth a try if
you are stuck and out of
options.
Remember: Any cup
or warp in your workpiece can ruin
the accuracy. And plywood is not al-
ways as flat as we would like it to be.
If you’re having trouble getting a con-
sistent joint, check the work to see if
it’s cupped or warped.
When crosscutting rabbets across
the grain, you have two choices: Use a
miter gauge if the stock is narrow or,
for pieces wider than 8", use the rip
fence and a backing block behind the
work. A backing block will stabilize
the part during the cut. You don’t want
to use a backing block to cut narrow
pieces because the work could slide
right into the cavity in the accessory
fence. And that’s when you’ll find out
how tough the anti-kickback fingers
on your featherboard are.
To rabbet the ends of large case sides
you’ll definitely have to forego the miter
gauge. Using a backing block here will
reduce the chance that you’ll tear out
the grain when your work exits the
dado stack. As with ripping operations,
making a second pass sometimes helps
ensure your cuts are more consistent.
As a bonus, you can cut rabbets this
way with an overarm guard in place.
Because the guard obscures the blades,
we’ve removed it for these photos, but it
is an important part of the setup.
As much as I like this technique, it
isn’t perfect. When crosscutting against
the grain, the cut is a bit rougher than if
you used a router, though I can’t report
any gluing problems with the joints cut
using a dado stack. Cuts with the grain,
on the other hand, are quite smooth.
Another cause for concern is your
saw’s motor. Benchtop saws don’t really
have the guts to make casework rabbets
(plus many don’t have a mechanism to
lock the height of the arbor – a major
problem). In fact, the fences of benchtop
saws usually are too inaccurate to cut
the joint using the two-step process
mentioned earlier. If you own a bench-
top saw, you should consider cutting
your joints on a router table.
However, larger saws, such as con-
tractor- and cabinet-style saws, usually
breeze through these joints in one easy
pass over the dado stack.
All things considered, I found that
maneuvering workpieces on the larger
table of the table saw is easier than cut-
ting the same size pieces on the router
table. Plus, the power of the table saw
made the cuts easy to accomplish in
The same rules for ripping and crosscutting apply to rabbeting. For rip-
ping cuts with the grain, use the fence to guide your cut.
one pass without taxing the machine
or the tooling.
Fixing the Two-step Process
There also is a way to modify the two-
step method on the table saw to make
it work well for beginners or people
uncomfortable with balancing pieces
on edge. The trick is a featherboard.
(The word “featherboard” doesn’t really
do it justice. In our shop, we call it the
“motherboard.”)
The “motherboard,” shown in the
photos below, needs to press the work
against the rip fence right over the
blade, so it looks a little different than
the one used with the dado stack. This
“motherboard” is used only on the sec-
ond pass.
The first pass defines the width and
the depth of the rabbet. Use a saw blade
with teeth that are flat on top, such as
a ripping blade. A crosscut blade has
teeth that score the work like a knife
For crosscutting across the grain, use the miter gauge for narrow pieces
or use the rip fence and a backing block (to prevent tear-out) for larger
pieces.
to cleanly remove the wood fibers; this
will produce “V”-shaped channels in
your work. Other blades, such as those
with a triple-chip grind, will create
even more problems, so stick with a
rip blade.
To set the rip fence, measure from
the outside or left edge of the teeth to
the rip fence until you get the desired
width of your rabbet. Lock the fence
down. Then use your 6" rule to set the
blade height so it equals the depth of
the rabbet. Again, marking the highest
projection of your saw blade’s teeth on
your saw’s throat plate will save you
hundreds of test cuts per year.
Make a test cut with the work flat on
the saw’s table, as shown in the photo
below left. If you like, you can use a
featherboard to hold the work flat on
the table, similar to the way I did it with
the dado stack setup shown on page 10.
With your first cut complete, set
up your saw to remove the rest of the
popularwoodworking.com ■ 23
When making the cut in two stages, the first
cut defines both the width and depth of your
joint. Keep your work tight against the fence.
waste from the rabbet. The critical di-
mension is the distance between the
fence and the blade. In essence, this
distance is the amount of wood you
want to remain on your piece when
the joint is complete. For example: You
want to cut a rabbet that’s 1 ⁄4" deep in a
3 ⁄4"-thick piece of wood. To make the
second pass, you should set your fence
so there’s exactly 1 ⁄2" between the blade
and the fence. When you set the blade’s
height, adjust it until it trims away the
waste but no higher. Your first cut al-
ready defined the corner of the rabbet.
It’s important that the waste falls to
the outside of the blade. If the waste gets
trapped between the blade and fence
it will shoot back at you when it is cut.
This can be less than ideal, depending
on where you’re standing.
The other important point here is
that you should either make or invest
in a zero-clearance throat insert for
your table saw. When you balance your
parts on edge for this second pass, you
24 ■ JOINERY BASICS
This featherboard, which holds the work
steady and against the fence, is the key to rab-
beting on the table saw in two steps.
want them to ride on as much table
surface as possible. The stock throat
insert that comes with most saws is
too wide for this job.
Set up your featherboard so it press-
es the work against the fence but above
the blade. It should allow the work to
pass through the blade but keep it
firmly against the fence.
With the featherboard set, the cut
is reasonably safe: The board will not
tend to tip and the blade is buried safely
in the work.
And the Winner is ...
I’ve cut hundreds of rabbets using both
of these setups and I generally prefer
using the dado stack method because it
has one saw setup and the cut is made
in a single pass.
I also like being able to use our over-
arm guard during the cut, as well as
work with the parts flat on the table at
all times. But if you don’t have a dado
stack (good ones start at about $90), the
The “motherboard” keeps everything in place
during the second pass. The result is a clean
and accurate rabbet.
two-step method is a sound alternative.
We decided to find out which of
these techniques some beginning
woodworkers preferred – sometimes
people who are new to the craft are more
intimidated by a certain technique than
veterans. After a day of cutting rabbets
both ways, the two beginning wood-
workers in our workshop were able to
make amazingly accurate rabbets using
both techniques.
The only notable difference was that
the dado-stack method required a little
more upper body strength to keep the
work to the table – though the begin-
ners were enamored with the simplicity
of using just one pass. The two-step
method required a bit more fi nesse,
one more setup and a little math. I tend
to avoid math when possible, so my
preference was no real surprise. PWM
Christopher is a regular contributor to Popular Wood-
working Magazine and the publisher at Lost Art Press
(lostartpress.com).
 Dovetailed
Plane Cabinet B Y C H R I S TO P H E R S C H WA R Z

Practice your joinery with this handsome storage piece.

popularwoodworking.com ■ 25
O n certain holidays, such as
New Year’s Day, craftsmen in Japan
clean their tools, put them on a shrine
and offer them gifts such as sake and
rice cakes. It is their way of thanking
the tools for the service they have pro-
vided and will provide in future days.
As my own collection of handplanes
grew from a few rusty specimens hand-
ed down from my great-grandfather
to a small arsenal of new high-quality
instruments, this Japanese tradition
began to weigh heavily on my mind.
My planes generally squatted on my
workbench when not in use, and I had to
constantly move them around to avoid
knocking them to the floor as I worked.
After some thought, I decided that
a cabinet dedicated to my planes was
the best way to protect them from dings
and to thank them for the service they
provide almost every day of the year.
This piece is designed to be used
either as a traditional tool chest that sits
on a bench or as a cabinet that hangs
on the wall on a tough French cleat.
Because planes are heavy tools, the
case is joined using through-dovetails.
26 ■ JOINERY BASICS
The lid is a flat-panel door assembled
using mortise-and-tenon construction.
And the dividers inside the cabinet are
screwed together so the configuration
can be rearranged easily as my collec-
tion (or needs) change.
As you design your own version of
this cabinet, you should measure your
planes to ensure there’s enough space
for everything you own, or plan to own.
This cabinet should provide plenty of
room for all but the largest collections.
Dovetails with the Pins First
Because of all the cast iron and steel in
handplanes, the cabinet’s carcase needs
to be as stout as possible to resist the
stress that all this weight will put on the
corners. In my opinion, the through-
dovetail is the only joint for this job.
Whether you choose to cut pins or
tails fi rst (or use a dovetail jig and a
router) is up to you. Usually I cut the
tails first, but I try to keep an open mind
about different techniques. So for a
year I built as many things as I could
by cutting the pins first – this is one of
those projects.
Lay out the joints using the illustra-
tion at right, a marking gauge, a square
and a sliding bevel square set for 7°. I
strike the lines with a marking knife and
color them in a bit with a mechanical
pencil. The pencil marks help me see the
line and the knife lines keep me accu-
rate. In fact, once you get some practice
sawing, you should be able to easily
remove the pencil marks from only one
side of your knife lines. It sounds crazy,
but it’s actually not that hard.
There are many ways to remove the
waste from between your saw’s kerf
lines. Some just chop it away directly
with a chisel and a sharp blow from a
mallet. I find that I’m sharpening my
chisels less if I saw out most of the waste
and chop out the little bit that’s left.
A coping saw with a fine-tooth blade
works well, as does a jeweler’s fret saw.
When you chop out the waste, be
sure to stand so you can see the profile
of your chisel – it must be perpendicu-
lar to the work. I use a standard bevel-
edge chisel for this operation. Just make
sure that if you do the same that your
chisel can be struck by a mallet without
splitting the handle.
Next you need to mark out the mat-
ing part of the joint by using the first
half of the joint as a template. Here’s
the main difficulty you’ll encounter
by cutting the pins first: You have to
balance the pin board on edge to mark
out the tail portion of the joint. With
a small case it’s manageable. But with
a dresser it can be tricky.
Mark the joints with a sharp knife
followed by a pencil. Then cut the tails.
For this project I tried a technique you
might want to take for a spin: As you
can see from the photo on the top right
of page 29, I skewed the tail board in
my vise so I was sawing straight down
instead of at a 7° angle. I think this is
a good trick for beginners as it makes
it easier to track your lines. However,
you have to shift the board 7° the other
way for the other half of your cuts, so
it’s a bit more work.
At this point you have to pay close
attention to your lines or your joint
will have a sloppy fit. Saw on the waste
LEAD PHOTOS BY AL PARRISH; STEP PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
Mark the length of your pins
and tails. There’s a debate as
to whether you should mark
exactly how long you want Once the cut is started, hold the saw like you
them, a little less or a little would hold a small bird that you’re trying to
more. I prefer to mark them prevent from flying away. Don’t clench the
1⁄32" longer so the ends are handle; just keep enough pressure to avoid
proud when assembled. losing control. And never apply much down-
Then I plane them flush after ward pressure as you saw – this will cause
gluing. your blade to drift.

With the pins defined, get out a coping saw with a fine-tooth blade and Clamp your pin board to a piece of scrap and remove the rest of the
remove as much waste as you can. The closer you get to the scribed waste using a sharp chisel and a mallet. I sneak up on the line on one
line at the bottom of the joint, the less cleanup you’ll have with a chisel. side, then on the other, then clean up any junk in the middle. Clean out
But if you overshoot your line, you’re cooked. the corners of the pins using a sharp knife.

side of the line, leaving the pencil line

intact. This makes the joint just a little 1⁄ 4"
tight – something you can tweak by 1⁄ 8" 7° typ.
1"
1⁄ 8"
paring with a chisel. 1∕ 2"
1"
1"
Use a coping saw to remove most of 1⁄ 8"
1"
the waste between the tails and chop 1⁄ 8"
1"
1⁄ 4"
the rest of the waste away with a chisel. 1"
Now you’re ready for a dry run. Ease
the inside edges of the tails just a bit
with a knife. If the joint is too tight, try
shaving off a bit on the inside faces of
the pins – parts that won’t show in the
completed joint.
71∕ 2"

Bottom & Assembly

Cut the remainder of your dovetails
and mill the 1 ⁄4"-deep x 1 ⁄2" groove for
the plywood back/bottom. I milled
this groove using a plunge router, a DOVETAIL LAYOUT

popularwoodworking.com ■ 27
 237∕ 8" SLICK SOLE FOR SMOOTHING
1∕ 8"
14 91∕ 4"
91∕ 2" 137∕ 8" W hen using a smoothing plane to prepare
wood for finishing, you’ll get better results
if the plane’s sole is waxed. The wax lubricates
31∕ 8" G F G the sole and allows the plane to skim over the
H
work. You’ll use less effort and the end result
21∕ 2" H L looks better because you’re less likely to stall
during the cut. I use inexpensive canning wax
151∕ 2"
21∕ 2" H L found at any grocery store that costs a few dollars
for a box. Apply the wax in the pattern shown
3" M K 21∕ 4" below (keep it off the iron; that will change how
J
the plane cuts). Then start working until you feel
13∕ 8" F 21∕ 8"
the plane becoming harder to move. Just reapply
the wax and get back to work. — CS
103∕ 8" 13"

ELEVATION – INTERNAL DIVIDERS

263∕ 8"

71∕ 2" A

1"

271∕ 8"
3∕ 8"x
1" door edging -
PLAN – DOOR REMOVED top and two sides only See cleat
1" detail
263∕ 8" 1" 71∕ 2" 3∕ 8"

3"

17" 173∕ 8" B 17" 11" 17"

3"

3" N PROFILE – 21∕ 2"

DOOR REMOVED SECTION
3∕ 4"stiles and rails
Q
SUPPLIES
11" 3∕ 8"panel
P Lee Valley Tools
P
leevalley.com or 800-871-8158
2 ■ Forged flush rings, 11⁄2" x 2", #00L02.02, $28.30 ea.
2 ■ Chest handles, #06W03.01, $14.50/pair
3" N 2 ■ 21⁄2" non-mortise hinges, #00H51.13, $2.30 ea.
Local home-supply store
3∕ 8"
2" 223∕ 8" 2" 2 ■ Magnetic catches
Prices correct at time of publication
ELEVATION

28 ■ JOINERY BASICS
 Pin board

Tail board
Put your tail board on the bench with its inside face pointing up. Posi-
tion its mate on top of it and mark the locations of the tails using a knife,
followed by a mechanical pencil. Be careful not to shift either board
during this step. If you do, erase your lines and start anew.
Transfer the lines on your tail board across the end using a square.
Clamp the tail board in a vise. You can see how I skewed the board
in my vise so I’m actually cutting straight down. Angle the board one
direction and make half of the tail cuts, then reverse the angle for the
other cuts. Remember to cut ever-so-slightly outside of the lines.

Outside face

Backing block

Remove the waste from the outside face of the board first, then remove Now it’s time for a test fit. Assemble the joint using a deadblow mallet
the rest from the inside face. This will result in a neater joint if the grain and a backing block to distribute your blows across the entire joint.
buckles while you are chopping it. Again, clean up your corners with a You should be able to push the mating pieces together most of the way
knife. using only hand pressure, plus a few taps to seat it in place.

straight bit and an edge guide. Make

Dovetailed Plane Cabinet sure you put the groove 1 ⁄2" in from the
NO. LET. ITEM DIMENSIONS (INCHES) MATERIAL COMMENTS
T W L
bottom edge of the sides to make room
for the French cleat that attaches the
CARCASE cabinet to the wall (if you’re hanging
❏ 2 A Top, bottom 3⁄4 71⁄2 263⁄8 Cherry Cut 1⁄16" long this cabinet on a wall).
❏ 2 B Sides 3⁄4 71⁄2 17 Cherry Cut 1⁄16" long Before you assemble the case with
❏ 1 C Back/bottom 1⁄2 16 253⁄8 Plywood In 1⁄4"-deep groove glue, use a smoothing plane to prepare
❏ 1 D French cleat for case 1⁄2 21⁄2 247⁄8 Maple 45° bevel on one edge all the inside surfaces of the carcase
❏ 1 E French cleat for wall 1⁄2 21⁄2 227⁄8 Maple 45° bevel on one edge for finishing – including the bottom
piece. I sharpen a gentle camber on the
DIVIDERS
cutting edge of the blade (about .002")
❏ 2 F Top, bottom 1⁄2 21⁄2 237⁄8 Maple and set the plane to take a very fi ne
❏ 2 G Sides 1⁄2 21⁄2 151⁄2 Maple shaving, about .001" thick. This creates
❏ 3 H Horizontal dividers 1⁄2 21⁄2 237⁄8 Maple a surface that generally needs little or
❏1 J Horizontal divider 1⁄2 21⁄2 103⁄8 Maple no sanding, especially with wood that
❏ 1 K Horizontal divider 1⁄2 21⁄2 13 Maple has mild, easy-to-plane grain.
❏ 2 L Vertical dividers 1⁄2 21⁄2 21⁄2 Maple Once you glue up the case, trim the
1⁄2 dovetail joints flush to the outside and
❏ 1 M Vertical divider 21⁄2 47⁄8 Maple
use a smoothing plane to prepare the
DOOR exterior of the case for finishing.
❏ 2 N Rails 3⁄4 3 243⁄8 Cherry Cut long to fit cabinet
❏ 2 P Stiles 3⁄4 2 17 Cherry Cut long to fit cabinet Build the Door
❏ 1 Q Panel 3 ⁄8 12 233⁄8 Poplar In 3⁄8" x 1⁄2" groove With the glue dry and the case com-
❏ Moulding 3 ⁄8 1 65 Cherry 1⁄4" roundover on one edge plete, measure its width and length to
determine exactly how big your door

popularwoodworking.com ■ 29

You can see the pencil lines on the tails and
how the ends of the pins and tails stick up
a bit on the completed joint. This makes it
easier to trim them flush, but more difficult to
clamp during glue-up.
Cut the groove for the 1⁄2"-thick bottom in two passes using a plunge
router outfitted with a straight bit and an edge guide. On the pin boards,
you can cut the groove through the ends because it won’t show.
PLANES AT REST: ON THEIR SOLES OR ON THEIR SIDES?
O ne of the big debates among
plane users is whether to place
the tools on their soles or their sides
when they are not in use. Traditional
carpenters place the tools on their
sides to protect the iron from get-
ting dinged. Many woodworkers
have picked up this tradition and it’s
frequently passed on from teacher to
student (as it was to me).
But it might not be necessary.
A couple of years ago I was con-
vinced by a fellow craftsman that
it’s better to place planes on their
soles when you are working at your
bench. Here’s the rationale. The old
carpenter’s rule applied to work on
the job site, where you could never
be certain about where you were
setting your plane (this was back
when you might actually see planes
on a job site). So placing the plane
on its side protected the iron from
30 ■ JOINERY BASICS
should be. You want the door to over-
hang the case by 1 ⁄16" on either end and
1 ⁄ 16" on the front, so size your door’s
rails and stiles accordingly.
As much as I enjoy handwork, I
decided to cut the mortise-and-tenon
joints for the frame-and-panel door
using my “tailed apprentices” (my
power tools). I begin making this clas-
sic housed joint by cutting a sample
mortise with my mortising machine.
Then I cut all the tenons using a dado
stack installed in my table saw.
On the tail boards, you need to stop the groove in one of the tails as
shown. The dovetail layout shown in the illustration allows you to put
the groove solidly into a tail.
grit and gravel that could cover any
flat surface in a newly built home.
Also, carpenters say that putting
planes on their sides prevents the
iron from being pushed back into
the plane’s body, which is what
could happen when a plane is rested
on its sole.
Woodworkers, however, work
on a wooden bench – far away from
mortar dust and gravel. So they say
it’s best to place an unused plane on
its sole to prevent the iron from get-
The rule of thumb is that your ten-
ons’ thickness should be one-half the
thickness of your stock. The doors are
3 ⁄ 4" thick, so the tenons are 3 ⁄ 8" thick
with 3 ⁄16" shoulders on the face cheeks.
Now install a dado stack in your
table saw. These tenons are 1" long,
so I like to put in enough chippers to
make a 5 ⁄8"-wide cut in one pass. Set the
height of the dado stack to 3 ⁄16" and set
the fence so it’s 1" away from the left-
most tooth of your dado stack. Make
several passes over the blade to remove
ting dinged by another tool on the
bench. What about the iron getting
pushed up into the plane’s body? If
you think about this statement for
a moment, you’ll see how ridicu-
lous it is. The plane’s iron is secured
tightly enough in the plane’s body to
withstand enormous pressure as the
plane is pushed through the work.
It should be child’s play for the iron
to stay in one place with only the
weight of the plane pushing it down.
Other woodworkers have come
up with other solutions that work,
too, including placing the planes
sole-down over the tool well of
their bench. Or they rest the sole on
a thin wooden strip that holds the
iron slightly above the bench. But I
don’t mess with that. After unlearn-
ing years of training, I now put my
planes sole-down on the bench.
— CS

I don’t like to clamp carcase pieces between dogs unless I have to – the
clamp pressure can bow the pieces as I’m working them. I prefer a stop
on my bench, as shown. After planing the case pieces, I’ll hit them with
some #220-grit sandpaper to remove any ridges left by the plane.
I use simple clamping blocks to clamp the tail boards firmly against
the pin boards. These are easy to make using a hand saw or band saw.
Apply a consistent but thin layer of glue to the tails and knock the case
together with the bottom in its groove. Clamp up the case using the
clamping blocks and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

the waste from the face cheeks, then
remove the waste from the edge cheeks
and test the fit in your sample mortise.
Raise the dado stack to 3 ⁄8" and re-
move the remainder of the waste on the
edge cheeks. The bigger edge shoulders
ensure that you won’t blow out the ends
of your mortises at glue-up.
Mark the location of your mortises
using your tenons as a guide, as shown
in the photo above right. Cut the 3 ⁄8"-
wide x 11 ⁄16"-deep mortises in the stiles
using a hollow-chisel mortiser.
Next cut the 3 ⁄8"-wide x 1 ⁄ 2"-deep
groove on the door parts that will hold
the panel. I use a rip blade in my table
saw. Don’t worry about stopping the
groove in the stiles; the hole won’t show
on the front because it will be covered
by moulding. On the back you’ll almost
never see it because that is where the
hinges go. If the hole offends you, by
all means patch it with a scrap.
Assemble the door and make sure it
fits on the case. When all is well, plane
or sand the panel for the door and glue
up the door – making sure not to put
glue in the panel’s groove.
With the door complete, mill the
moulding that surrounds the door on
three edges. Miter, glue and nail it in
place. Then install the hardware: the
butt hinges, catches, pulls and handles.
Divide & Organize
Finally it’s time to make the dividers
for the planes. This is the easy part. I
fastened the dividers using screws to
make sure I could change the configu-
ration in case my plane collection ever
changed. The first step when building
the dividers is to screw the four outer-
most pieces together and plane them
down so they fit snugly inside the case.
Then divide up the rest of your space
and screw everything in place. Secure
the assembled divider in the case with
a couple of 1"-long screws. As this is
shop furniture, I didn’t choose a fancy
finish. A few coats of clear lacquer is
enough protection.
I hung my cabinet on the wall using
a French cleat system, shown on the
final page. When installing the cleats,
be sure to use 3"-long screws to fasten
the cleat to the studs in the wall. This
cabinet, when full, is quite weighty.

A dado stack makes quick work of tenons for Test the fit of your tenon in a test mortise. Use the tenons to mark where the mortises
the door. The table saw’s miter gauge guides When you’re satisfied with the fit, cut the should go on the stiles. I like this method
the rails over the dado blades to cut the face tenons on all the rails this way, being sure to because there is less measuring and therefore
and edge cheeks. check the fit after cutting each one. less room for error.

popularwoodworking.com ■ 31
 With this project complete and hung
on my shop wall, I loaded the tools into
their slots and thought for a moment
about offering my planes some sake in
the Japanese tradition. But then, com-
ing to my senses, I offered myself a cold
beer instead. PWM
Christopher is a regular contributor to Popular Wood-
working Magazine and the publisher at Lost Art Press
(lostartpress.com).
THE GENIUS OF FRENCH CLEATS
W hen you hang a cabinet that will be loaded with heavy objects, I
recommend a French cleat to fasten it to the wall. These cleats take
a little more work than metal cabinet hangers, but they are well worth it
because the cabinet will be more secure and it will be easy to put on the
wall and remove.
To make a French cleat, take some of the
1⁄ 2" stock left over from building the dividers
for the interior of your cabinet. You’ll need
A one piece that’s 247⁄8" long, which you’ll
attach to the backside of the cabinet. And

Wall studs
Drywall
you’ll need a second piece that’s a couple of
D inches shorter than the first. Set your table
saw to cut a 45° bevel and rip one long edge
of each piece at 45°.
C Glue and screw the long cleat to the top
edge of the backside of the cabinet with the
E bevel facing in. Now screw the second cleat
to the wall where your cabinet will go – with
the bevel facing the wall. Be sure to use
big screws (I used #12 x 3") and anchor the
screws in the studs in your wall. — CS
Screws go through
cleat and into studs

As you install the interior

dividers, it’s a good idea
to double-check your
initial measurements
against the real thing. I
When cutting the mortise, cut one hole, skip had a rude shock when
a space, then cut the next one. Then come my No. 4 plane was
back and clean up the area in between. If wider than I had antici-
you cut all your holes in a row, the mortiser’s pated. When everything
chisel can bend or snap because it wants to looks good, screw all the
follow the path of least resistance. parts together using #8
x 1" screws. Then screw
the whole thing into the
cabinet. I ran the screws
in from the backside of
the cabinet.

The 3⁄8" x 1" moulding creates a dust seal

around the edge of your cabinet and gives the
piece a nice finished look. I cut a 1⁄4" roundo-
ver on the inside edge of the moulding. Miter
the ends, then glue and nail the moulding to
the door’s edges.

32 ■ JOINERY BASICS
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