I'm building a table and I plan to use a mortise and tenon joint to secure the skirts to the legs. I've built furniture projects before and I'm familiar with the tools (have my own little shop), but this table will be my biggest and hardest project so far so I'm relatively amateur. I've built this type of joint once for a project in my school shop, and for the tenon I used a radial arm saw with a dado blade. For the mortise, I used a dado blade on the table saw and just went the whole height of the board (this was for a drawer assembly).
One of my biggest issues is that this assembly is a bit different; I'm joining a skirt to a leg, not the side of a drawer to the front that's the same size. So I can't just run the whole leg through a dado blade on the table saw, or that would look a bit odd. I also don't have access to a radial arm saw at all, and I don't have a dado kit for my table saw (although I could buy one if needed).
So first I'm wondering if I can make a tenon without a dado blade set? Like I said I can buy a set for my table saw if it's necessary, but I also have a router so I don't know if there's a bit/technique I can use that won't be much harder and will be cheaper.
The mortise is my biggest concern because I really have no idea on how to make this one. I saw a lot of recommendations online for hand tools, but I'm not skilled with any hand tools and I doubt I own the ones I need. I was thinking a plunge router may be a solution to this, but one thing I was concerned about is the two ends of the mortise being rounded and maybe a bit too long