I recently made a bed headboard using some exotic hardwood. My design called for the posts to be 2 in. thick but the wood was only available in 1-in. thickness. I also wanted to attach the rails using mortise-and-tenon joints, but I do not have a mortiser. To solve both problems, I laminated the posts using the 1-in. stock, cutting dadoes on the inside of both pieces so that, once glued up, the two dadoes would form the mortises.

But this created another problem: an obvious and visible glue joint on the outside edge of the post. So before glue-up, I mitered the outside edge of each post. Then I glued the post pieces together and filled the recess along the mitered edge with a triangular-shaped cap.

Once everything was glued up, I had a perfect mortise-and-tenon joint in a post that looks like a piece of solid 2-in.-thick hardwood.

click to enlarge

Jim Richey

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