Green & Green Settee Part IV

Mr. Pumpkin continues his journey and so do I.

Time for joinery.   The seat of the settee is a trapezoid.  My mortises are straight - I angle the tenons.  In order to figure out the angle for the tenons one could use an angle gauge and simply lay it on the drawing.  Two drawbacks - first, the angle gauges are pretty small and so a small error in transcribing could result in a larger error during construction when dealing with longer pieces.  Second - oops, I accidentally bumped my angle gauge and lost my setting.

A more accurate method is to use dividers:

Now we have a "trapezoid jig".  This jig is accurate and is far easier to use for marking tenon locations.

I'm using a mix of integral and floating tenons.  I'm using integral tenons for the front rail, side rails, center stretcher (since this is a through tenon) and for the center splat.  I am using floating tenons for the rear seat rail, rear stretcher, rear post where it connects to the crest rail.

Here I am cutting some mortises:

This awesome machine is a JDS Multi-Router.  Expensive but well worth it.  I spent a year looking for a used one.  They do not appear that often.  One came up last year and I called a couple hours too late.  Another one became available and I actually had the deal for a couple hours - until the fellow selling the machine sent an email in apology saying that a neighbor saw his machine and paid him cash on the spot.  So the deal evaporated.  I bit the bullet and bought the machine above new.  I recommend a variable speed router for sure.   I returned a Porter Cable single speed 690 - an otherwise fine machine but the 27,500 RPM was way too fast and caused way too much vibration.  I tried the Porter Cable 892 but quickly exchanged that for a Bosch 1617 VS.  The housing on the Bosch is much more rigid than the 892 - important when the router is dangling sideways.  Also, the 892 housing does not have a machined base - the base has the powder coat paint on the bottom with nibbles, etc.  It was not flat and quite unacceptable.  

Here I am using my trapezoid jig to set the angle for cutting tenons.  I bought the largest sized tenon templates for the 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" thick tenons.  I simply use the tenon templates to help me set the upper and lower stops on the vertical axis for the thickness of the tenon.  Once set, I did not use the templates during the actual cutting.

In the photo above the cutter is set at the lower stop on the vertical axis.  It is locked in place so I do not accidentally raise the cutter into my tenon.  I simply climb cut all the way across.  Then I move the cutter to the upper stop, lock it, then climb cut all the way across.  (Note that I run a couple passes, taking only about 1/4" or so of material per pass). I think this method works quite well.  I like my tenon ends square anyway so at this point I do not need the sundry smaller sized templates.

Later, I will square the corners of those mortises that receive the square tenons with a chisel.

Early on, when I was drawing this project out, I came across an article in Fine Woodworking (issue 227) by Michael Fortune called "A Revolution in Chair Making".  Mr. Fortune is a veritable craftsman indeed and this is a great article.  For this settee I adopted his tenon design used where the side rail connects to the rear post:

Those small through tenons will receive wedges - a very strong joint indeed!

In the photo below, the front rail is on the left and the side rail is on the right.  Notice how the main tenon locations are offset so as not to weaken the leg and have tenons bumping into one another.  The front rail has a shorter stub tenon since it will have a rabbet for the seat.  Although it is difficult to tell in this photo, the side rail tenon is angled.

For the rear rail and rear stretcher, I am using floating tenons:

Here is the settee dry fitted:

While I was at it, I mortised the top of the rear post where it will receive the crest rail and mortised the center of the rear rail where it will receive the center splat (hidden by the upholstery).  I also rabbeted the front and rear rails.  I do not rabbet the side rails.  I will leave them thick on top and glue on cleats for the seat.