cirelloman

This looks like a case of the wood losing moisture through the end grain. Any thoughts on why it happened now, e.g. you moved the piece into a dryer environment or weather patterns shifted to drier and colder?

Is the spline grain oriented the same as the table grain? If so, why would this small spline be likely to fair better than the original intact board?

Are you going to take any special steps to seal the end grain more thoroughly than long grain, e.g. coats of shellac on end grain only?

Thanks for sharing this, It would be educational for us to know how the fix holds up over time.

The premise and apparent scope of the proposed article--the SPEED tenon--seems unworthy of FWW, though regrettably common with titles like "cut your sharpening time in half", "the last finish you'll ever need", and so on.

Why? Because while these subjects are usually worth knowing about, the titles are often blatantly false for a substantial portion of workers and situations, and are a misleading disservice to those trying to learn the subject ("Oh, so THAT's how I should do it").

Even the caption under the picture illustrates this: "Sure it's fast"...well, maybe if you gloss over the setup, test piece(s) and fits, if you don't have too many to do. if you don't leave too many scallops or have stray chips cause an imperfect cut, and so on.

"but is it safe (as illustrated)?" Well...if you make no misjudgments, don't get distracted or bumped at the wrong moment, if nothing unexpected or weird happens, if the copious dust is not a problem for you, and so on, then you'll come out with all your fingers as many have stated. But then rockclimbing w/out a rope is safe in the same way.

This is an excellent article for FWW to deal with IF--and it's a big if--FWW is truly interested in teaching. Then this (or almost any) technique could be the starting point for a solid article that subsequently looks at:

- where the technique can produce less than speedy or spot-on results,
- how it could be unsafe,
- how and to what extent these could be overcome,
- and finally how it fits into a spectrum of techniques for making tenons, with references to other articles or sources for comparison (which would keep old but valuable articles part of the current discussion, and probably sell some DVDs and online subscriptions.

Such articles would be longer and require more effort to produce, but would put FWW in a different league. Of course, it may be abandoning that league intentionally in pursuit of a wider circulation, but some at least wish it weren't so. Maybe such articles could form a "technique in depth" series, which could be referenced by less comprehensive articles.

The video and discussion provided by FWW online are important, often essential as in this case. Some discussions would be worth the creation of a (possibly ongoing) online summary.

Autographed--too good to miss! Thanks for these opportunities, FWW.

Maybe not the holy grail, but close enough--and no deadly ambushes and supernatural threats to worry about!

Some fine suggestions already - world peace, 20" jointer, pony...

My top Christmas season dream - to be an elf working in any of many shops profiled over the years in FWW. From the very latest crop, Doug Mooberry's Kinlock woodworking looks as if it could use a jolly red-headed worker.

And some ginormous flitch cut logs of anything nice.

And a resaw fence for my currently fence-less Yates Y-30.

And some coopering planes, and a travisher. Sheez, once you get started it's hard to stop!