orepass

Wanting to add to the cart design, I used the middle shelf from my coffee table project as a guide. Once all the pieces were cut, eight mortises and their machining tenons needed to be chopped.

 In previous posts I’ve shown several of the ways I use for cutting tenons. If the wood grain will allow, my favorite is to use a chisel. After marking the tenon with a knife and marking gage, I use a saw to cross cut the bottom of the tenon, than several test chops need to be made to evaluate the grain direction.

The test cuts allow me to look at the grain direction If the grain is straight or moving aware from the marked tenon lines I can proceed. Anything else and I am relegated to the saw. In the picture you can see that all is well and the tenon cheek is easily revealed. If I’m lucky the majority of my tenons can be chopped an fitted with a little bit of paring.