Floating Tennon

Re: Floating Tennon

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>I haven't made any with hand tools but given today's glue they are just as strong and make for plesant glueups.

Re: Floating Tennon

Ed Snow

>The only reason I would use one is if it was for its looks, like a wedged through tenon. If it fits well there is such a tiny diffrence in strength that you will never know.

Certainly makes things go faster, no shoulders to fit perfectly.

Re: Floating Tennon

Chris Knight

>For all practical purposes their strength is very similar and they have the great advantage that they save wood which can really help when you are pushed to find the necessary for the last couple of rails in a fancy wood.

HOWEVER, maybe it's just me but I have never made a mortise by hand in end grain (as in the rail). I use a router for these joints. One day I will try it by hand, meanwhile someone else probably has done it and can advise.

Re: Floating Tennon

joel

>with well fitted tneons the strength difference is marginal but for hand made M+T it is certainly faster to cut on mortise and one tenon by hand than it is to cut two mortises.

Re: Floating Tennon

paul womack

>Floating tenons aren't really a good choice when hand cutting joints.

BugBear

They're weaker...

Scott in Douglassville, PA

>...relatively speaking. Not by much, though, and only if you want to take the results of the Bruce Gray Fine Woodworking article (#148, April 2001) at face value.

According to his results, round-edged floating tenons had a maximum load strength before failure of about 1000 pounds less than traditional integral square-edged M&Ts. He also tested square-edged floating tenons in round holes (read: cut mortise with router, make tenon fit to the end of the router radius), and they were weaker still, failing much more abruptly than the round-edged floating tenons. Personally, I'd like to have seen (a) square floating stock in square mortises, (b) the test load applied in a direct shear (versus the angled application they used), and (c) results normalized to load per square inch.

I think, in real life applications, the difference between well-executed joints of either variety will be fairly negligible.