Last week, in a moment of fevered DIY insanity, I decided to spend an entire afternoon tricking out our wonky breakfast nook table with mortise and tenon joinery. I found the base of this table in one of Los Angeles’ lesser alleys many years ago and, back when I had higher levels of tolerance for lower levels of craftsmanship, I haphazardly fixed the table with screws and nails.
Making the mortises and tenons took forever even though I was working with power tools–a plunge router to make the mortises and a table saw to cut the tenons. Of course, a great deal of the time in the workshop was spent in idle chatter. My workshop is right on the public sidewalk and serves as a kind of conversational trap for every passing neighbor and dog walker. Kelly suspects that the exchange of neighborhood gossip is the real purpose of the “workshop.” I will neither confirm nor deny this.
But back to the table. Mistakes were made. While routing out one of the mortises I hit a hidden screw resulting in a shower of sparks and a ruined bit. And then there’s those more pressing chores I was ignoring such as fixing broken irrigation lines, finding a decent house painter, rehabbing our forlorn garden etc. Rome is burning and I’m taking the wobble out of a ugly breakfast nook table.
But there’s a real sense of satisfaction when you glue mortises and tenons together. Suddenly, what was just a pile of potential firewood comes together with a solidity that nails and screws simply can’t deliver. You could now park a Hummer on this table which, given we live in Los Angeles, could actually happen.
While the half lap is stronger, Fine Woodworking’s tests vindicated the traditional mortise and tenon over pocket screw joinery (similar to what is used in Ikea furniture). Pocket screws failed under 698 pounds of pressure while a 3/8 inch mortise and tenon was able to sustain up to 1,444 pounds before failing.
Next up, ignoring all those important chores in order to make a fancy new top for the table with some ridiculously time consuming butterfly inlays. I’ll post some pictures of the completed table once the top is done which should be around ten years from now.