Create Dovetail Mortise And Tenons In Timbers
By Benjamen Johnson
You can chisel out mortise and tenon joints in timbers by hand, program a CNC milling machine for the task, or you can use LignaTool’s router system. Their system lets you create dovetail mortise and tenons for connecting timber without fasteners.
The system is comprised of a mortise template and a tenon template. Both have sliding fences built in for quick setup. With the LignaTools templates you can make mortises and tenons in wood cross sections from 3″ by 3″ to 8″ by 15″ — plus you can vary the tenon length and make joints with compound angles up to 45° in both directions.
Here’s the bad news: the templates alone will cost you $4000. An 8° or 15° router milling bit will run you another $400, and there’s also the matter of having a 2000W heavy-duty router that can handle milling timbers.
LignaTool [Timber Frame Tools]
October 15th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
i’ll do it with my teeth for that price!
October 15th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Most of the timberframing tooling sold by folks like Mafell cost an arm and a leg - it certainly would discourage the infrequent user.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
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October 15th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Yeah i could make a jig in an hour that would od that with a rounter…..so why 4000…..CRAZY…
ShopMonger
October 15th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
$4000!!! They had better do more than mortise for that price.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Does the tenon widen as it gets to the edge of the end of the board that will be touching the face of the other? It doesn’t look like it from the pics. If it doesn’t, the joint doesn’t lock together like a dovetail joint. You could do a stopped dado and tenon joint and achieve the same result very easily.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:18 am
It seems like everything on that site has an extra zero on all the pricing. Festool, Fein, Hain, Incra, and Hilti now look very affordable.
November 26th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Make your own templates and use a guitar dovetail cutter like the one from wealden tools:
http://www.wealdentool.com/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Sliding_Dovetail_124.html