12th July Thursday
I haven’t cut any mortise and tenon joints for quite a long time. Now there is a good reason for this, they are usually crap. My woodwork teacher used to shout ” Butt, what the hell did you use to cut these joints? Your knob?!” So naturally I avoided this area of carpentry for a while. My dovetails were good, so good they gave me an “A” in my GCSE, but the mortise and tenon always eluded me.
So why did I decide to use them on the commissioned sofa table? Probably because I couldn’t use dovetails, and because I thought that I have come all this way in life, I should learn how to cut the perfect joint, and not the pathetic excuse I was known for.
I tried to remember which should I cut first, the mortise or the tenon? So a quick visit to YouTube set me straight, but also raised the expectations. These were examples of perfection, the sound of a sharp blade slicing through the wood fibres was so exciting, I almost forgot about the job I was supposed to do. So out came the oil stone. I remembered my woodwork teacher shouting “Butt, what did you sharpen these chisels with, your knob?!”
Marking out the mortises was simple, I learned that little knocks with the mallet is better than big swings. Slowly the floor became covered with wood chips as I patiently worked on through the day. The first tenon was ready, I had remembered to cut on the waste side, and amazing it fitted snugly and relatively square, I reduced the length of the tenon by six millimetres and the joint was complete, only another ten to go, but I think my woodwork teacher would have be pleased.
Another Lifetime to go 