Hi All, the attached photo is my version of a wood tray I saw on Scott Meek's webpage. When I made it, I tenoned the maple boards into mortises cut into the wormy pecan endboards. As a decorative bit I tried using brass pins instead of square pegs like Meek did. In any case, I pre-drilled for the pins and drive them in and everything seemed fine..until finishing when I noticed one of the tenons had hairline cracked, progressing into the cutting board by 2 inches I am assuming this was because there was already a defect in the maple I had not noticed and the pin exacerbated it.. But all of this brings me to the question of how to design this best. I made two smaller tenons on each end rather than one long one, each tenon was about 2.5 inches wide and 1/4 inch thick, 3/8 long. This is a wide piece (about 10 inches) and I was wondering in general if when designing a cross grain joint like this what I need to be careful about. I know I could but the whole board into a frame but that would be hard to keep clean..
Nicole