How To M&T

[Jeremy Finke]

Hello,

I am getting ready to start building a king bed. I would like to use M&T on the headboard and footboard. However, I am worried that most ways to do a M&T seem only to be safe for short pieces of wood, not something that is 80" long.

Any ideas or pointers out there?

I have a BT3100 TS, a small portable router table and a plunge router. No bandsaw or even jigsaw. I do have chisels, so I could cut them by hand. Which may end up being the easiest since I only have 8 to do. I plan on using ash.

Thanks!

[Greg Hines, MD]

Ash is going to be tough for hand cutting your mortises. I would use a jig for positioning your router to cut them. As to the tenons, you can use the router, table saw, hand saw, shoulder plane, etc.

This jig works well, and takes about 30 minutes to build.

Doc

[Jim Becker]

If you really want to to M&T for the side rails, you can use a router with a few easy to make jigs that will allow you to do this safely and horizontally.

Personally, however, I'd use commonly available mechanical bed hardware for this purpose. I did the M&T and bed bolt thing with a few full-size beds I made for two of my nieces a number of years back and after the fact, wished I used commercial hardware for both ease of construction as well as easier "moves" for the girls. This is one place where using available technology may trump "traditional" joinery...I suspect those that came before us would have used the hardware, too, if it had been available.

If I misunderstood you and you are referring to the actual construction of the headboard and footboard, then the router method is likely to be your best bet. Do remember to take into account wood movement and work with multiple tenons if appropriate...you don't want "really wide" tenons in this respect.

[Frank Drew]

Jeremy,

For the mortises I'd use the plunge router, end mills, and a box jig to position and hold your work while provide a surface for the router to ride on. Fine Woodworking detailed just such a jig and it works very well (until you buy your horizontal slot mortiser ).

Since you don't have a sliding table for your saw, or a radial arm saw, you could also use the router, carefully, to waste most of the material for your tenons, but for just a few, such as in a bed, I might be tempted to cut them all by hand with a tenon saw and chisels and shoulder or block plane for cleanup. Even if you do use a router you'd be best to do the final fit by hand. If you cut your mortises with the plunge router it will be easier and faster to round over the tenon edges than to chop square corners in the mortises.

Good luck on the project.

[Jeremy Finke]

Thanks everyone.

Yeah, I am just talking about assembling the legs to the footboard and the legs to the headboard. I plan on using some kind of hardware for attaching the rails to the legs.

I am trying to keep this as simple as possible. I could use dowels or something like that, but I would prefer not to. My biggest concern is cutting the tenons on a 80" piece of wood. A lot of the tenon jigs have you standing the wood up on end. I will take a deeper look at that jig Doc.

I planned on using Ash because it is one of the cheaper lighter woods in my area. Probably the only other thing in my price range would be birch, which is a $1 more a bf.

Thanks again!

[Greg Hines, MD]

Thanks everyone.

Yeah, I am just talking about assembling the legs to the footboard and the legs to the headboard. I plan on using some kind of hardware for attaching the rails to the legs.

I am trying to keep this as simple as possible. I could use dowels or something like that, but I would prefer not to. My biggest concern is cutting the tenons on a 80" piece of wood. A lot of the tenon jigs have you standing the wood up on end. I will take a deeper look at that jig Doc.

I planned on using Ash because it is one of the cheaper lighter woods in my area. Probably the only other thing in my price range would be birch, which is a $1 more a bf.

Thanks again!

For the presumably wide tenons you will need for that, I would use a router and edge guide with a straight or spiral bit to cut them. Or, depending on how deep you plan to make them, perhaps a rabbeting bit. In any event, I would not try to use a tenoning jig to move them past a saw blade.

Your other option, which is easiest if you can do it, would be to use a dado stack on a radial arm saw. Then you are moving the blade over the wood again, and it would be easier to do. However, RAS are getting scarcer these days.

Doc

[Doug Shepard]

If I were trying to do tenons on an 80" long piece, I'd just be using a stacked dado blade with all the cuts laying down.

[Greg Hines, MD]

One other area of discussion is wood movement in wide pieces. Most head and foot boards have fairly wide stretchers, 8" or even 10". That wood movement needs to be taken into account. That is why you generally see two smaller/shorter mortises, with corresponding tenons, rather than one long (say 6-8" wide) mortise. That gives your wide stretcher at least a minimal amount of play for seasonal changes.

Doc

[Chris Padilla]

Forget integral tenons and use floating tenons...it'll be easier on you, I think.

[Jerome Hanby]

That's my suggestion too. Cut the mortises with your router. If you don't want to cut the loose tenons, Tuffer makes precut tenons that are already rounded. They are only available in metric sizes, but that's a good excuse to buy more router bits!

Forget integral tenons and use floating tenons...it'll be easier on you, I think.

[Jeremy Finke]

That was my other thought as well.

Obviously, something like the domino would work well, but I am not about to drop $900 for that.

I have another idea as well, but this is probably showing my infancy into woodworking.

How much strength is lost if the top and bottom of the tenon don't have sholders, just the sides? Probably quite a bit?

[Greg Hines, MD]

That was my other thought as well.

Obviously, something like the domino would work well, but I am not about to drop $900 for that.

I have another idea as well, but this is probably showing my infancy into woodworking.

How much strength is lost if the top and bottom of the tenon don't have sholders, just the sides? Probably quite a bit?

None. The rationale for shoulders on these joints is to cover up the edge of the mortise. If you don't care if they are seen, you do not have to make shoulders on the ends of the tenons. If you go that route, though, you need to be careful with cutting your mortises, as the ends of the mortises could potentially show, and they can get dinged up during your work. That is why you generally have at least a short shoulder on the top and bottom of the tenons.

Doc

[Chris Padilla]

Loose tenons are pretty easy to make and stupid simple if you have a planer. You can round the ends by hand...the rounded ends do NOT have to match perfectly with the rounded ends of the mortise (assuming you used a router to excavate the mortise). In fact, you can leave the loose tenon square if you want. The strength comes from the long-grain to long-grain face connections in the tenon.

[Jeremy Finke]

Thanks again, everyone!

I appreciate the help and insight!