Post and panel-- why a twin tenon?

[Roger Marty]

I have Hylton's Chests of Drawers book. His post-and-panel plans call for twin tenons to connect the web frames to the posts.

What's the point of twin tenons versus a solid tenon or even a couple of dowels? Any reason to prefer the twin tenons over dowels?

[jack duren]

I have Hylton's Chests of Drawers book. His post-and-panel plans call for twin tenons to connect the web frames to the posts.

What's the point of twin tenons versus a solid tenon or even a couple of dowels? Any reason to prefer the twin tenons over dowels?

You bought the book which means you bought the technique. A technique is only a reference. Change at will.....

[Jerry Miner]

Twin tenons provide more glue surface than single tenons or dowels. But it's your project. Use the methods that make sense to you.

[Wayne Lomman]

Twin tenons mean the mortise has greater strength as there is still timber across the centre of the joint. Cheers

[glenn bradley]

In general, what Jack said. Choose your method. As to why Bill went with twin tenons, with dowels having about half the strength of M&T my guess is the strength of the joint. It could also be personal preference. I can make floating tenon joints pretty quickly and reliably so I tend to go that way.

[Prashun Patel]

In an attempt to answer your question less glibly...

Can you show a pic of the frame/post connection? If it is what I think it is, then a single tenon would result in the mortise cheek to be end grain. A twin tenon would break that up and allow two cheeks of face grain. Also, twin mortises would cause less excavation in the post, possibly increasing its strength?

I am guessing without a picture, but this is how I understand web frames.

[Roger Marty]

Ok, resuming this project. Here is a picture. I'm inclined to just replace the twin tenon with a normal tenon. How would one cut the single dovetail at the top? Hand-cut it with chisel/saw?


IMG_20161211_160546 (1).jpg

The picture is also shown here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=9r...hylton&f=false

[Shawn Pixley]

Thanks for the picture. The twin M&T will add significant strength relative to the single. If it were mine I would do the double. You're welcome to your own choice.

I would cut the dovetail socket with saw and chisel. Some might use a router. But I am a hand tool guy with a router aversion.

[Caleb Gallentine]

Personally I would keep the double. Those tenons look tiny and doing a double effectively doubles your glue surface. It won't be that much extra effort and you'll be more confident in it's strength.

I would do the dovetail by hand. A lot of people I know like to do their dovetails with a router but since this is only the two, it'll take just as long to set up the router for it as it would to just cut them by hand. That being said, I am still fairly new to woodworking and I think I would choose hand tools over power tools also because a slip-up is a bit more catastrophic when you have rapidly spinning blade involved. I suppose it is personal preference though. Do whatever you think is more comfortable for you and will give you better results.

[Gary Radice]

Yes, by doubling the tenons he is adding extra glue surface to compensate for needing relatively short tenons on the panels since they can't go very deep into the leg (given the tenons on the side rails taking up leg space) and those double tenons are probably only 3/4 inch tall.

More typically there would be a taller rail underneath that bottom web frame with a single taller tenon matching that on the side rail. But this is another way to skin the cat.

[Brian Holcombe]

Do it his way, they're easy enough to cut.