Wood Joints

Wood Joints

Butt joints are the easiest of all to make. Wood is butted face to edge or end to edge and nailed, screwed or doweled together. End to edge joints can be joined with corrugated fasteners. Strength can be added by glueing the joining faces. These joints are not recommended for hardwood unless pilot holes and screws or dowels are used to hold them together. When nailing or screwing but joints use corner or miter clamps to hold the two pieces in place. Although this joint is simple and easy to do I don't really like it because it is not s and unlike dovetail joints they have no aesthetical value.

Halved joints or lap joints are mostly used to assemble light frames which are going to be covered with hardboard or plywood. Half the thickness of each piece of wood to be joined is cut away with a tenon saw and the joint is glued and screwed or nailed. Halved lap joints are also used to join long lengths of timber as for fencing.  I like

Mitre joints are always cut to 45° in a miter box so that they will form a 90° corner when joined. As no end wood is ever seen these are very neat joints but they are weak. Normally used for picture frames where they are nailed with panel pins. When used for other purposes they must be strengthened with glue blocks, angle braces or loose tongues. Mitre joints should always be glued .

When nailing a miter joint always start the nail with one part of the miter above the other. The nails will pull the miter into square.

Rebate joints are suitable for joining top and bottom ends of furniture. Stopped rebate joints hide the joint. Glue and skew nail, or screw the joint together. Housed joints are mostly used for shelves. The stopped house joint hides the actual joining. Use skew nails or screws to fasten the boards together. Loose tongued joints are used to join planks edge to edge to form a larger board like a table top in which case they are always glued only. Bare faced tongue and groove or Loose tongue and groove joints can be used to join chair rails to chair legs. Note the glue blocks for extra strength. Tenon and mortise joints are very strong joints mostly used in furniture making and for heavy doors and gates. They are not easy joints to make. The secret in making a good tenon joint lies in careful and accurate marking (See: Mark and measure).The tenon’s width should not be less than a third of the thickness of the wood especially if wood of the same thickness is joined. The shoulders may be of any width and may also be offset when the mortise is made in rebated wood. Make the mortise before rebating the wood. If the top of the mortised wood is to be in line with the edge of the tenoned wood a haunched tenon can be made with the haunch cut back to be in line with the shoulders. Dovetail joints are very strong and neat joints used primarily to make drawers and boxes. It needs a lot of practice to make a good dovetail joint.