Tennon Joints

Its been a while gang but ive been learning stuff recently so i thought i would post, in my most recent project ive set out with the ambitious goal to finish a gate for a commision.

With that goal comes alot of techincal problems such as ive never fully assembled a gate myself just helped in the past, and ive never drawn up completley a gate so im learning alot about fixings.

The first fixing ive learnt yesterday with Ambrose was the Tennon joint.

Picture below shows the one i was taught on, i was striking while Ambrose used the tools to forge it up out of a piece of 25mm square.

After we were finished with Ambrose's tennon it was on to doing my own, its a pretty simple method just need to go at an easy pace and not to rush spots.

First off you need get yourself a piece of bar and upset the end, now when i say upset i mean really get some meat in there, put a bit more than you think you will need in there. Trust me it helps later. 

This is where you will need a striker and a selection of top tools, for this you need a decent flatter, setting block and a butchers block. Start off with the flatter and flatten off one side completley, then upset it more and flatten it again. Using a piece of 25 i went right the way up to 60mm in the end of mine to give it more strength.

Once you have done this working in another one of the edges so only one edge is pretruding, with the flatter work over the top edge so it isnt square all the way across, if it is square it makes it difficult to do the next step.

The next step involves marking off where you want to cut with the butchers block and cutting in only so far, once you have gone in a few mm switch to the setting block and hammer down the top end leaving he bottom section, keep repeating this till you have pushed the 50mm down to the oringal 25mm.

After this you want to start marking off the sides, staying in line with the top edge, work down one side till you have a nice lip then flip it over and use the lip as guide to put on the anvil. Then work down the other side to make a lip on both sides.

If you have followed this right you should just need to clean it up and you should have something close to a tennon.

Here is my first attempt.

Quite happy with it as a first try, i had a little trouble as you can see on the top lip because the butchers block slipped. It wasnt particular nice bit of kid using the college one so i am planing to make my own on Monday, look out for that post going through the making.