Mortise & Tenon OR Sliding Dovetail???

[joseph j shields]

To mortise or Not.

I’m building a Shaker Hall table. I’ve built several of these tables before & used a mortise & tenon joint to attach the apron to the legs.

I’ve been playing around with sliding dovetails and was wondering if this joint would be good for attaching the aprons to the legs??

Any thoughts???


Thanks

-jj

[Martin Shupe]

Kelly Mehler has an old, old article in one of the magazines where he builds your standard Shaker side table and uses a sliding dovetail. However, if you take one of his classes at his school, he teaches a double tennon joint. I asked him once why, but can't remember his answer. I think it was "both joints are good, the double tennon is easier for students to get right", but my memory may be faulty.

You can ask him yourself, at kelly@kellymehler.com If you do, be sure to report the answer here.

He also has a nice website for his school, which you can find pretty easily by googling his name. There are lots of "projects under construction" pics to look at, but his classes are filling up fast.

If you like Shaker, C.H. Becksvoort is teaching his Shaker clock class at Kelly's next summer, and there are only a few spots left, so if you are interested, you had better hurry.

[Bob Smalser]

Sliding or lap dovetails are all I ever use at the corners, whether apron, vertical rail, or horizontal rail.





Here they are used jointing rails with panels in a Victorian face frame.

Once I've set the router table in a test run, I can cut sliding and lap dovetails to join cabinet rails and panels extremely fast...the males on a fenced router table or bandsaw and the females freehanded to a pencil line...with the occasional face frame let into the rails with dowels. Not only are these faster than mortise and tenons I gain more time in assembly, because these usually go together square and clamp free.

[Mike Cutler]

Not to hijack the thread, but those are some interesting joints there Bob.
A little education if you don't mind on the reason for that particular combination of material,and joints?

TIA
Mike.

[Doug Shepard]

Well these definitely aint Shaker, but the aprons are attached with sliding dovetails. If you scroll down to the end there are closeup joint pics from the mag article where I got them
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=15882

[Bob Smalser]

...on the reason for that particular combination of material,and joints?

For the house 25 years ago I built an entire suite of furniture around this old London rolltop desk, copying the design. The sides are frame and panel with thin, 3/4" thick rails and stiles without much thickness to mortise into. The original used dowel joints to join carcass rails to the side panels, and after having to repair all of them when restoring the desk, I decided to use dovetails on the bookcases, end tables and other furniture made to match.



The rails joining panel sides that lie horizontally in the carcass are joined using lap dovetails.



The rails joining panel sides that lie vertically in the carcass are joined using sliding dovetails. This joint is in a TV cabinet with the top raised, which partially obscures the rear top rail shown.

As all stock is 3/4", it's a simple matter to set up a router table to cut the male sliding dovetail pins or use the bandsaw on the male lap dovetail pins. All female dovetail sockets were freehanded to pencil lines using the router.

I've been using these routered joints ever since in most applications that lack sufficient thickness for strong mortise and tenon joint.

[Gary Curtis]

I made 32 sliding dovetails to join douglas fir 4x4s to 2x6 aprons for my wall-attached shop benches. I made them in order to learn the operation of my WoodRat machine. It operates using a DeWalt 3.5 hp router.

The joints are so tight that I didn't glue them up. That way I can unassemble or modify the benches. No racking. I would imagine that mortise and tenon would do the same job if you could get tenons equal in width to the 6-inch sliding dovetails. Probably even stronger, because of the depth.

I think the downside of a SDT is the difficulty cutting the joint. On the WoodRat it was relatively easy. The new Festool Domino will handle such tasks in a heartbeat.

Gary Curtis

[joseph j shields]

I think the downside of a SDT is the difficulty cutting the joint. On the WoodRat it was relatively easy. The new Festool Domino will handle such tasks in a heartbeat.

Gary Curtis

I agree!

But I don't have $700 right now

-jj

[joseph j shields]

Thanks to all ... Sounds like I could use a SDT.

A quick question... has anyone seen a test of a M&T joint vs a SDT ??? Which would be stronger???

Just was wondering


-jj