Mortise and Tenon

The next type of joint we practiced was a mortise and tenon.  A mortise is a hole that goes through one piece of wood and a tenon is a part of another piece of wood that sticks out and goes through the mortise.

The tenon is on the top piece, the mortise on the bottom.

Here it is put together.

Instead of just practicing the joints individually we did 4 different styles of mortise and tenon.  We arranged them to make a little fence so that all the shoulders had to close at the same time.

Good for keeping my tiny sheep contained.

You can see some subtle differences between the tenons.

My favorite is the through wedged tenon.  The mortise goes all the way through so the tenon sticks out the other side.  You flare the mortise on both sides, so you can drive wedges into the tenon to lock it into place.

You can see the lay out lines for the flare of the mortise.  Plus the wedges can be a nice decorative element.