Mary Ostler

After an epic two day clean-up, de-junk, & re-organizing of my workshop, I decided I deserve some play time. I have done mortice & tenon joints before on projects, but they have always been 90′ connections.  This time it was angled joints.

Grabbed to pieces of scrap wood.

Marked out a 45′ angle 1″ deep

Marked out the depth on the sides.

Cutting the shoulder cut

Sawn out the side cuts on the tenon.

I then cut out an corresponding sized mortice. I tried to cut an under cut mortice, but had great difficulties, so I notched the top side of the tenon.

Checking the fit, and then drawing an alignment line across both pieces.

Marked the drill holes. The tenon side hole is ~ 1/16th closer to the shoulder cut. That way when the dowel is hammered in, it will cinch the two pieces together nice and tight.

3/8th dowel hammered in.

Dowel  cut off.  Because the tenon and the mortice are not exact fits there is some play when torque is applied. If I had added a second dowel, it would have taken care of the problems.

Any hints on how to make the undercut on the mortice hole?