Comments on: Jeff Miller’s Incredible Tenon Jig

By: schenher

schenher — Sun, 27 May 2012 20:21:44 +0000

Actually there is nothing new about this tenon jig. If you look in a book written in 1909 by H.H.Windsor titled “Mission Furniture / How to Make it, Part 2″ , which was written for Popular Mechanics. There is a near exact copy of that tenon jig illustrated and explained.

Here is the written excerpt.

CUTTING TENONS WITH A HAND-SAW
This home-made tool will be a great help in the construction of mission furniture. With its use, tenons may be entirely cut with a saw, discarding the use of a chisel and mallet. The device consists of a convenient length of straight board, A, Fig. 1, wide enough to cover the widest piece to be tenoned. A piece of board, B, is fastened to A with brads or small screws. This board should have a thickness equal to the piece to be cut from the side of the tenon. The piece C is fastened to A and B with small cleats at their upper ends. The space between B and C should be wide enough for the blade of a saw to run through easily, and also long enough to take in the widest part of the saw blade. The tool and piece to be tenoned are placed in a vise as shown in Fig. 2. The width of the piece removed for the tenon may be varied by putting in pieces of cardboard between the work, E, and the piece A, Fig. 1.

Look up the PDF online to find the full pictures. http://www.amishdirectfurniture.com/mission-furniture-plans-2.pdf

By: goredsus

goredsus — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:57:45 +0000

I watched Jeff as he cut a tenon with his jig and “cool” is an understatement. A video of the jig in action with the article would help a lot of us (ok, maybe just me). Jeff’s rocker at the show was out of this world gorgeous too. I’m gonna have to figure out a way to make it up to his place to take a class from him too.

By: khowarte

khowarte — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 15:34:28 +0000

I got to see it close up and see it work in Jeff’s shop recently while taking a class from Jeff. It is really neat. I look forward to seeing the article with the specifics.

By: R.Hoppe

R.Hoppe — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 10:46:26 +0000

I’ve used a bench plane to trim UHMW. I assume some sort of shim, clamped to the vertical member, is used to line cut line up with the saw teeth.

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 02:12:26 +0000

This stinks having to wait for a future piece in PopWood……….I want to know how now! It’s the internet/information age by cracky!!!!

By: mvflaim

mvflaim — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:23:27 +0000

I saw this jig in action during the show. It was really cool but I forgot how it’s used. Sucks because I wanted to go home and build one but never wrote down any specifics on the jig.

By: woodgeek

woodgeek — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:13:14 +0000

Does anyone know if Mike Wenzloff is taking orders for his no77 yet?

By: Joe "the Pro" Sainz

Joe "the Pro" Sainz — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:27:15 +0000

Hmm… A saw with no set could simplify the setup for this, especially if the saw could cut the UHMW (Delrin?) cleanly. Could that be why Jeff was interested in Christopher’s saw?

By: mdhills

mdhills — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:35:13 +0000

Looks like the brass back of the saw is trapped in the slot, and a UHMW strip is used to guide the saw plate so that it stays parallel to the reference surface. Wonder how he trims the uhmw to get that dialed in. Looks like it is good article material!

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:26:47 +0000

This looks really interesting to me. On my right hand I have only an index finger, a thumb with no middle knuckle and not much else – a middle and pinkie that stop before the first knuckle. This makes controlling a hand saw for longer periods quite hard! I was thinking about a jointmaker pro V2 but it seems that the size of stock is limited with that tool (and it’s quite expensive!). I might get one anyway for smaller projects.

You are always showing ways of making things easier Chris – for example there is no way I could sharpen free hand so your advice on using a side clamping guide has been fantastic – and I like the flush cut saw and block of wood method for cutting tenon shoulders. Does this jig do just the faces? Is there another for the shoulders? Will I never need to cut tenons with a router again?

Steve