Wegner Dolphin Chair #6: Mortise and Tenon Jiggery

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This is part 6 in a 6 part series: Wegner Dolphin Chair

  1. Four years later
...
  1. A Pause to Plan
  2. Mortise and Tenon Jiggery

For all the mortise and tenon joints between the sides and stretchers, I decided to go with integral tenons cut on the Pantorouter.    Unfortunately, the Pantorouter would not be ideal for cutting mortises in all of the curved components of this chair.  I think there would just be too much fiddling in order to clamp the parts in the proper alignment.   So for the mortises, I'll be making guide bushing jigs to cut the mortises with a plunge router.

Most of the stretchers will have tenons oriented perpendicular to the faces.  This was necessary in order to have long grain to long grain gluing surfaces in the joint.   Unfortunately, my secondhand Pantorouter didn't come with the accessory needed to mount the M/T templates vertically.   I created a specialized mounting plate on the CNC for that.   I can use the plate for a single tenon or a double tenon (two stretchers will receive double tenons).

The plastic templates index into recessed channels in the plate, keeping them perfectly vertical and at a fixed distance apart.


The back side has raised tabs the ride in the slots of the aluminum extrusion template holder to keep the plate perfectly horizontal.


The 6mm hole in the plate aligns with a similar hole in the extrusion to center the two templates (for a double tenon).


With the plate tightened down, the template follower could be mounted on the router control arm.


Test tenons in a scrap.  I love those square shoulders.


Now the mortises.  I had two failed attempts to create a test guide bushing template, both issues with my computer model for the CNC.  The first I had miscalculated the center-to-center distance between the mortises.  The second, I had modeled for a 1" long mortise, when the Pantorouter tenons are only 0.96".   The planets converged on the third attempt.



I fiddled around with the tenon/mortise fit on a number of attempts.   The tenon size is adjusted by shifting the bearing follower either up or down the slope of the plastic template.  It's a great system, although I found that there is very movement needed to go from too tight just a bit too loose.  It needs to be dialed-in on scrap before you cut any of the work pieces.

Here is the result.  Snug but not too tight.



Now that I've got the setup right for the test guide bushing router template, I'll incorporate it into actual templates that will index the chair components to get the proper mortise placement.