Mortise-and-tenon joints tend to frustrate woodworkers far more than dovetails do. That’s no mystery; they are genuinely harder to cut than dovetails.

This shop-made table saw jig makes quick work of reinforcing miter joints.

By Matthew Teague
Pages 60-61

I love the clean look of a mitered box that has continuous grain wrapping around the corners. It’s an easy detail to create, but a sure sign that the maker is paying close attention to the details. The downside of a mitered box? Miter joints are notoriously weak because they have no real mechanical strength; glue is all that holds them together.

You can reinforce miter joints in a few different ways, but my favorite method is to use exposed keys. These hardwood keys are nothing more than thin lengths of wood glued into slots that span both sides of the joint to help hold everything together. To cut the slots for these keys at the table saw you need only a small jig that runs against the saw’s fence. The jig cradles the assembled box at a 45° angle and allows you to guide it through the cut.

Keys not only add great strength to miter joints, they also provide a decorative effect. Once the jig is made, you can arrange the keys in any number of ways, using either a matching or contrasting wood. For a slightly different look, you can cut wider key slots by simply adjusting the table saw fence to take two or more passes for each slot. For angled keys, which create joints that arguably are even stronger, simply angle the blade. You can even use this same jig at the router table to create dovetailed key slots – just be sure to hog out the bulk of the waste in the jig itself before you cut the actual box.

A perfect union between an improved router fixture and a Moxon-style vise.

By Kenneth Speed
Pages 40-43

This fixture, which I’ve christened “Gizmozilla,” grew out of my general dissatisfaction with the methods available to small shops to cut mortises. At one time I used a small hollow-chisel mortiser but I never found the results satisfactory. I tried an open-sided box jig for router mortising, but by the time I had everything in position and clamped I was completely out of patience with the whole procedure. Finally, I resorted to drilling out mortises on my drill press and doing the final chopping out by hand. While I was generally happy with the resulting mortises, the process was far too slow.

Then I happened on an article in an old woodworking magazine that described a basic router mortising fixture. It was a wooden beam with an attached channel for the router edge guide; it used Jorgensen hold-down clamps to secure the workpiece. The author nailed stops to the beam to limit router travel. While the basic idea was sound, it seemed less than fully developed. Nailing stops to something I’d just worked hard to make smooth and square seemed a little crazy, so I added T-track and moveable stops.

I also added wooden clamping cauls of various lengths outfitted with steel bars and rare earth magnets to hold them to the clamps while allowing for some adjustment. The cauls and Gizmozilla’s 4′ length adds to its flexibility.

Hold and guide your work like never before with this fixture that will (finally) fix your drill press. By: Eric Hedberg There probably isn’t any machine more ignored in my shop than my drill press. Even though I use it constantly for one thing or another, the last significant upgrade it saw was a slab…

Senior Editor Glen D. Huey is a maestro with the router. here, he shows you his 11 best no-frills router jigs and techniques.

Unlock your saw’s full potential. by Seth Keller   The tablesaw’s power and precision put it at the center of everyone’s shop. Despite this honored position, a tablesaw is mostly used for mundane ripping tasks. To make better use of my tablesaw, I use these four simple jigs in my shop. They take advantage of…

There’s really no substitute for a nice, dialed-in shooting board. It’s a bench appliance that every woodworker with a handplane should have for sneaking up to a line and making perfect miters. When I saw this particular trick in the archive, I thought I’d build it and see how well it worked. The build is…

Make accurate and safe crosscuts with ease – and set the stage for clever accessories by James Hamilton (aka Stumpy Nubs) Most power-tool woodworkers have at least one table saw sled. And while a sled can make your work safer and more accurate, a well-thought-out sled can also do much more. Sometimes I call this…

Router table cabinets can be a waste of space. This compact, vise-mounted unit stores easily and is just the right size. by David Thiel April 2005 Popular Woodworking Magazine I think it might have been seeing a $1,000 router table setup at a recent woodworking show (it’s very cool, but $1,000?). Or maybe it was…

17th-century design saves your 21st-century back. by Christopher Schwarz pages 64, 66 If you cut dovetails by hand, then I’m sure you’re aware of the other part of your anatomy that is involved: your back. Bending over rows of tails and pins all day is murder when you try to stand up straight. Several people…

For many contemporary woodworkers the plane’s position as the iconic tool of woodworking has long since been replaced by the table saw, but for the traditional woodworker it remains our most important and most varied tool. One special advantage – apart from the pleasure and safety in using a plane rather than a machine –…

Tablesaw Tenoning Jig A precision joint-making tool for less than $30. By Frank Gregg A tablesaw tenoning jig is an essential tool for most woodworkers. But commercial units cost $100 and up, and shop-made jigs that I’ve tried, all riding on the fence somehow, were unstable and hard to adjust. So I devised this jig,…

Some time ago I posted about the Lee Valley Shooting Plane. In that post I used a shop-made shooting board. That will be the subject of today’s lesson…err, blog post. When I made the quick video about the Lee Valley plane, I had no shooting board in the shop. I was still in the midst of…

If you have found your way onto the “Woodworking Daily” blog list, it may have been via our free woodworking plans page. If not, be sure to check it out and download a few more, especially the latest one on Shaker style furniture that is packed with general information on end table plans, coffee table…

The April 2013 cover project is a “City Sideboard” built by Mario Rodriguez of the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop. The sideboard, which is sized for smaller, contemporary spaces, is designed to introduce students to a traditional form of cabinetry but using modern materials. Thus, the build combines some typical approaches for a solid-wood project, such as…

If you follow my woodworking habits, you are well aware that I enjoy using my routers with pattern bits chucked in the collet. The piece I’m working on for the August issue requires repetitive stop cuts that are a 1/4″ wide. As far as I know, pattern bits with a 1/4″ or 1/2″ shank in…

These clamping jigs are easy to make and you’ll use them constantly. I’ve found that 4-inch and 6-inch jigs fill most of my needs. Each jig consists of two L-shaped 3/4-inch MDF pieces sandwiched between a pair of metal corner mending plates (Stanley). Make sure that the MDF is slightly recessed from the long outer edges of…

The single-most important hand-tool appliance? Three simple sticks of wood.

This jig carries its share of work while increasing the usefulness of your table saw.

This jig enables you to safely make a cut on the table saw with the workpiece held vertically as it moves over the blade.

Your table saw is a router table and jointer just waiting to happen. Replace one of the saw’s wings (or adapt your existing table board) to hold a router table insert, and you’re in business.

Years ago when I first learned to cut dovetails, my first joints weren’t things of beauty. Sometimes there were more shims than pins. Over time, my work got better and faster. But despite the improvement in my skills, I still had trouble cutting tails or pins consistently, especially if I got out of practice.

Lay out accurate ovals quickly with this nifty jig.

Save money and create more storage space with this smart shop cabinet.

Turn your laminate trimmer into a tool that flushes surfaces with incredible finesse.

With a simple jig, as seen in these free woodworking plans, you can transform your table saw into an accurate pattern-cutting machine.

This tenon jig is used at the table saw, made from shop scraps and works as good as a commercial jig. Build this jig and save money.