S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

1


S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

2




S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

3
















S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

4


S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

5


S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

6









S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

7












S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9

8











3 / 8



S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 9


9


Steve Maskery Presents

Workshop Essentials
3
The
Tablesaw Tenon Jig

Steve Maskery 2008
www.workshopessentials.com


Disclaimer Woodwork is inherently dangerous. Always follow the
safety advice that comes with every tool you use. Ensure that you are
competent to use any tools and machinery that you operate. Nothing in
this document or the DVD to which it is attached constitutes an
instruction to work in an unsafe manner. Steve Maskery is not
responsible for anything that may happen as a result of any actions you
may take as a result of reading this document or viewing the DVD.

Steve Maskery has asserted his moral right to be identified as the
author of this work.

All rights reserved.

No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without
the prior permission of the author.
Steve Maskerys Ultimate Tablesaw Tenon Jig


Does that sound like a big boast? Well maybe it is, but I hope to persuade you
that it is worthy of the claim. This jig is easy to make, easy to set up. Its fast,
repeatably accurate and automatically gives you any size tenon you want,
metric or imperial. No trial and error, just one test cut for position. Its just as
easy to make twin tenons as single ones, again with guaranteed accuracy and
precision. Oh yes, its fully guarded, too. Now do I have your attention?

Cutting tenons vertically on the tablesaw is not a new idea, of course. There
are many designs published in magazines, books and on the internet. But, in
the UK at least, they have always been frowned upon. Not because they
perform poorly some do and some dont but because they always require
the removal of the crown guard and we dont use an unguarded saw, do we?
This one also requires the removal of the crown guard, but has its own three-
part guard which keeps my fingers away from the blade but still gives me easy
access to the jig.

This tenon jig rides along the rip fence of my tablesaw. The base is in two
parts, the lower base and the upper base. The two are mated by a pair of
diagonal keyways which allow the two to move laterally without any play for
and aft. A fine adjuster gives me precision control over their relative positions,
allowing me to get the faces of my mortice and tenon joint perfectly flush and
once the position is set, a locking knob secures the two together.

A guide strip sits each side of the fence and is adjusted for fit and alignment
with nylon bolts. These guide strips are screwed to the underside of the lower
base.


A top carriage plate slides over the base, again on a pair of diagonal keys
and can be locked in position. This in turn carries the working face to which
the workpiece is attached. The position of this determines the position of the
cuts and therefore the thickness of the tenon. Cutting a tenon requires two
passes, one for each cheek, so its imperative that the separation of these two
cuts is right.

This is achieved by using two spacers, one which is exactly the same
thickness as the kerf of the blade, the other being the thickness of the
required tenon. The cut starts with the jig in the closed position, and the fence
of the tablesaw adjusted to make the first cut. The tablesaw fence then stays
put, you never have to change it. The second cut is made by opening up the
jig and inserting the two spacers, the kerf spacer and the tenon spacer, and
closing up the jig again, clamping the spacers in place. That positions the
workpiece automatically in the correct place for the second cut. Its quick,
accurate, no fuss, and its all built out of 18mm MDF.

To start with, the upper and lower bases, the top carriage and the working
face are all cut to the same width. V-grooves are routed on the router table, to
take the square keys which guarantee alignment. The V-grooves are
staggered between the two interfaces so that the board is not weakened.
Because the pieces are all the same width we can reference off opposite
edges and they will still line up.

The keys are strips of hardwood, in my case bubinga, and they must be
carefully sized so that the two plates fit together but dont quite touch. There is
the thickness of a piece of paper between them. You may find that the keys
dont sit very well at first. If that is the case, look to see just how sharp the
internal corner of the V is. If there is a small flat, you have two options. You
can clean it out with the corner of a cabinet scraper, or you can remove the
arris of the key with a block plane. The result should be that both plates slide
relative to each other very easily, but with no play whatsoever, as they sit on
the sloping faces of the keys rather than their own faces.

The two-part base is locked together with a Tee-bolt and female knob, so a
slot has to be routed for this. We only need a very small amount of travel for
this, it is just to get the faces of the joint flush. If you do not have a Tee-bolt,
you can use a sliding nut and male knob instead. Just make sure that it does
not protrude above the surface of the upper base as that would impair the
travel of the top carriage. Another option is to install an embedded nut on the
top of the upper base and rout a slot in the lower base. They will all work just
as well.

At the back of the upper base we need a stop. This is the starting position of
the jig, so this is simply a length of softwood screwed in place. The bubinga
keys are now glued in place in the underside of the upper base and trimmed
off. Assemble the base and install the Tee-bolt and knob. There should be just
a few millimetres travel. Disassemble the base and drill and plug where the
fine-adjuster fixing screws are going to go. Trim the plugs flush.

The guide strips are pilot-drilled and countersunk for screws, then drilled and
tapped M6 for nylon bolts. The guide strips are then screwed to the underside
of the base

The top carriage and working face
Rout the long central slot in the top carriage. A cutter gives nice clearance
for an M6 Bristol lever. If you do this job on the router table, by dropping on,
be sure to have a secure backstop clamped to your fence to prevent kickback.
Alternatively use the parallel fence of you router to do the job. Also rout a
shallow housing for the brace and square this out with a chisel.

Using a 5/8 cutter rout a groove in the working face for the top carriage. The
position of this groove is determined by the height of your rip fence and the
material you use to make the base and top carriage. The dimensions shown
on my drawings are for my 10 Exaclibur saw, but yours may well be different.

Without changing the height of the cutter, reset the router-table fence to cut a
tongue on the edge of the top carriage, so that a snug tongue-and-groove joint
is made. Drill 3 holes along the centre of the housing and countersink them on
the working face. Install wooden plugs in corresponding positions in the top
carriage.

Install a cutter in the router and rout a shallow housing (dado) in both the
top carriage and the working face to accommodate the brace. The brace is
offset from the centre of the jig so that a G-clamp has better access when
needed and also so that the clamping Bristol lever is free to turn.

Finally, on the top carriage, screw the finger-pull in place from below and
install an embedded nut on the underside which will accommodate the guard-
locking knob. Ensure that it does not foul the keyways underneath.

Continuing work on the working face, drill an array of shallow 10mm holes to
accommodate the screw cups, then drill right through at 4mm for the screws
themselves. There should be enough positions available to you to be able to
attach any auxiliary fence or support you are likely to need for any job. The
bottom row MUST be higher than the maximum height of your blade above
the table to prevent accidental contact with the blade.

Install two wooden plugs for the nylon bolts, and drill and tap the bottom edge
to accommodate them. Finally shape the top corners and clean up. Install the
nylon bolts and press the cups into place.
The brace
The brace keeps the face and top carriage square and generally adds to the
rigidity of the assembly. Rout the tongue first so that it is a nice fit in the
housings, then bandsaw to shape and clean up.

Assemble the brace into the top carriage with a little glue, then glue and screw
the working face into place. Ensure that everything is snug and square.
The handle
The handle is bandsawn to shape and rounded off and smoothed where it will
be held. The areas immediately in front and behind the grip must be in line as
they support the rear guard. Install plugs as before for the pivot screw and
locking knob in the top edge, and for the nylon bolt in the bottom edge.
Although strictly speaking this third nylon bolt is not essential, it does help to
prevent the jig from tipping backwards if I press down too hard on the handle.

The front portion of the handle is lower than the rest, to allow access to the
bottom row of holes in the working face. Screw the handle to the rear of the
working face.

The guards
The guards are not optional! They can be made from LDPE or polycarbonate,
or MDF. Ensure that the holes and slots line up with their corresponding
positions on the top carriage and handle. If you have to cut away at the corner
a little to enable the guards to swing, try to remove as little as possible.

The fine adjuster
Drill and tap a small steel plate to match the Bristol lever you are going to use.

Bandsaw and shape the fork, ensuring that it goes over the thread of the
Bristol lever easily.

Assemble the Bristol lever with a locking nut, a nylox nut, two washers and
another nylox nut.

Drill the back edge of the lower base to give clearance for the fine adjuster
screw and drill pilot holes for the fixing screws. Attach the plate to the lower
base.

Insert the Bristol lever assembly into the plate and insert the fork between the
washers and screw the fork to the upper base. Adjust the nylox nuts so that
the fork is held in place. Try to eliminate all backlash without making it too
tight to operate.
Commissioning the jig.
Ensure that your rip fence is set up accurately on your saw. If that is not
square you will get very poor results. Sit the jig on the rip fence and adjust the
nylon bolts in the guide strips so that the jig rides smoothly without play on the
rip fence. If you attached the guide strips truly square to the underside of the
jig, the face of the jig will be parallel to the blade. If it is not, you can adjust the
nylon bolts to put that right.

With a light shining behind the jig, use a try square to determine that the
working face is truly vertical. Adjust the nylon bolts on the underside of the
working face until there is no light showing along the try-square. Adjust the
nylon bolt in the bottom edge of the handle as well, if necessary.
The spacers
The accuracy of the jig is determined by the spacers. They are all about
120mm x 40mm.

Take a piece of scrap and cut a set of mortices in it. Mine are , 3/8, and
5/8

, cut with my hollow chisel mortiser. It doesnt matter what sizes you cut,
but make sure that those are the cutters you plan to use in your work. Also
make a small cut with your tablesaw and cut a sliver to fit it nicely. I have a
thin-kerf Freud blade, so mine is just 2.4mm thick. You need to use the right
spacer for the blade, so if you have more than one rip blade, make sure that
the spacer is clearly labelled.

Cut a set of spacer blocks to fit the test mortices in your sample block. They
should be a nice fit. Not too tight, not too sloppy, we are looking for a
Goldilocks fit. If the samples are tight, and then you fit them loosely in the jig,
the resulting tenon will be so tight it wont fit.

Using the jig
Fit a support post of about the same thickness as the workpiece to be cut.
Attach the toggle clamp. If you prefer you can clamp the workpiece to the jig
with a G-clamp, but you still need the support post.

Slacken off the fine-adjuster locking knob and adjust the jig so that the bolt is
about in the centre of its travel.

Position the rip fence so that the tenon will be cut in approximately the right
place. Raise the blade to just above the table, ready to cut a short tenon.

Adjust the guards appropriately for the thickness of the job in hand and clamp
in the workpiece.

Cut the first cheek and stop the saw. Pull the jig back towards you so you are
clear of the blade again, slacken off the top plate and open up the jig. Insert
the kerf spacer and the tenon spacer and clamp them up hard. If they are
loose, it means that the opening is bigger than it should be, which in turns
means that the tenon will be bigger than it should be. Thats why we dont
want our spacers to be tight to start with. The spacers move the face plate
over by the thickness of the tenon and the thickness of the kerf, so we are
automatically set for the second face. Make the cut.

Remove the jig from the rip fence and install the crosscut sled. Do not move
the rip fence, but install a guard. Cut the shoulders of this test tenon and trim
the width on the bandsaw.

Try the tenon in the required mortice. The fit should be perfect, of course, but
the position may not be. Determine how far the jig needs to be moved in or
out, unlock the fine adjuster and rotate the Bristol lever the required amount.
The lever acts as a convenient pointer indicating exactly how far the jig is
adjusted. One full turn is 1.0mm or 1/16, depending on your thread size.

If you wish to make another test cut, do so, but you will soon have confidence
in your jig to go straight for the batch run. Remount the jig on the rip fence and
set the blade height for the job.

Reset the guards if necessary and cut the cheeks of all the tenons in the
batch. If you have long and short tenons to do, raise the workpiece between
cuts rather than resetting the blade height.

Twin tenons

For twin tenons we need a third spacer, and this is the distance from the face
of one of them to the same face on its twin. So if I want two tenons to be
3/8 apart, I need another spacer of 5/8. Ill call this the separation spacer.
The separation spacer is used on the mortiser to cut the twin mortices. Set it
up to cut the first mortice furthest from the face, then, without altering the
settings, insert the separation spacer and cut the second mortice. The
workpiece is moved over by exactly the distance of the separation spacer so
that the two mortices are precisely and accurately paired.

The separation spacer is then used in the Ultimate Tenon jig.

The order of cuts is:

First face, no spacers
Second face, kerf and tenon spacers,
Third face, separation spacer
Fourth face, kerf, tenon and separation spacers.


They will be the same distance apart as your mortice and your joint will be
perfect! There is, of course, a little hand-work to do to remove the waste
between the tenons.

Spline joints
You can use this jig to cut the slots for splined mitres in, for example, a picture
frame. Attach a sub-face to the working face with 45 degree fences on it so
that the frame is supported on both sides of the corner. Clamp the frame in
place and cut the spline.

Conclusion
Although this type of jig has been around for a long time, Ive not seen one
which uses spacers in this way and rarely seen one with any kind of guarding
at all. This really does fulfil all the boasts I made at the beginning, so I hope, if
you do decide to cut tenons this way, you will build this jig. Youll be cutting
tenons right first time every time, and still be able to count to ten into the
bargain.




Steve Maskery 13th November 2008.




S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

1








S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

2



















S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

3





S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

4




S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

5

S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

6




S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

7







S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

8




S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

8





S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

1 0



















S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

1 1



S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

1 2




S t e v e M a s k e r y

/ 1 3

1 3