Thread 2942766

Post your favorite woodworking joints.

i just got a biscuit joiner and i'm pissed that i didn't know about these things sooner. this solves so many goddamn problems, i'm tempted to use it for literally everything. it's so much less of a pain in the ass than using a pocket hole jig or putting a dado cutter on the table saw. is there ever a situation where you would even consider using anything else?

do bizz kit joins have any strength? they look flimsy as fuck

>butt joint
>tongue and groove

>>2942774
>dovetail

>>2942772
they're surprisingly strong, even when doing them on endgrain. i think it's because the glue causes the biscuit to swell up and make a really tight mechanical connection. imo they're as strong as dowels/screws.

>>2942772
On the scale of the pic they give a bigger amount of glue surface area as the T&G and about 3/4 of the M&T joint in break strength. So yes pretty strong the problem their depth is normally pretty limited (the widest ones are 1”) so if you butt joint like 4x4s they are flimsy indeed. For plywood or mdf up to 1” they are as strong as it gets

>>2942766 (OP)
Dowels cool but full round dowels not the weird pre made ones with ridges and chamfered wedges
Dados for sheets because router go brrr
Lap joints for bigger structural stuff because easy to cut and you can always put some dowels through
Mitre for picture frames
For drawers dovetail front, rabbet rear, dado bottom because it’s the best combination for them but I hate when people put way more dovetails than needed, that’s just showing off but it adds nothing

What is the name of the round nut thing used for the ‘cross dowel joint’? I may try someday

>>2943165
The ridges are pressed in to allow glue to squeeze past. When they get wet (from the moisture in the glue) they expand and become round again. Pretty clever to be honest.

>>2943165
https://www.mcmaster.com/products/dowel-nuts/

>>2942766 (OP)
The one not shown is where the biscuit idea came from- splines.

Not just strong, but extremely versatile- you can use them to locate/reinforce many other types of joints and in different orientations, they can run the entire length of where boards meet or their grooves can stop short to create a "blind" joint that is essentially a blind loose tenon joint except tenons are usually far thicker and bear loads where a spline or biscuit acts like a fastener and leaves more surface area for glue to do the work.

If you use quality plywood for the spline the way biscuits do you can orient it any way you want, solid wood splines need to orient the grain so the forces affecting the joint can't break them along the weak grain direction.
You can also make them from metal or FRP for applications where that makes sense, but one benefit they share with biscuits and dowels is you can cut/drill/plane/turn through them in subsequent operations and not ruin your tools...and unlike those others the spline runs along the entire joint so you can do stuff like make a box or octagon shape and then cut it into smaller sections to make identical parts like shallow drawers in a jewelry box or small frames.

Not exactly a joint per se, but a very old traditional joinery element related to dowels that still works, is cheap, easily reversed, and in wet applications actually causes joints to tighten as the material swells

>>2943305
> When they get wet (from the moisture in the glue) they expand and become round again
If I drill a hole through the face and hammer the dowel all through to cut it flush after it never looks round to me.

>>2943310
Pretty cool indeed but also a good way to ruin a perfectly good mitre that’s already glued up

>>2943607
add a mechanical fastener to a miter joint that's weak because it only uses glue to hold two end grain faces together

>miter is "ruined"

>>2943607
>If I drill a hole through the face and hammer the dowel all through to cut it flush after it never looks round to me.
Sounds like a problem with your technique for drilling being off.

>ruin
Properly done splines look better than just a miter joint.