So… I got a New Year’s present from my neighbor. He dropped a 3 ton tree on my garden (rotted and no usable wood). In addition to taking down a number of other trees, it also landed dead on my pergola, reducing it to scrap. I am designing and building a new pergola out of western red cedar. It will be based on an Asian motif, and I would like to join a number of pieces using lap joints and bridal joints.
These joints will be fairly deep in places- 1.5″ to 2″. I’m thinking it will be a problem cutting them with a router, even in multiple passes because of chip out. I could cut them with a dado stack, but I am curious if anyone has faced a similar problem with a relatively soft wood like cedar. Any jig or method that can reproducibly cut multiple deep joints would be helpful.
Thanks,
Glaucon
If you don’t think too good, then don’t think too much…
Edited 6/18/2008 12:10 pm ET by Glaucon
Replies
I've made these kind of joints by hand in the past. (Unfortunately, they are from a couple of houses ago, so I don't have photos.) As long as it's straight-grained, redcedar is pretty easy to work with. For cutting out a lap joint I would just use a handsaw to make the two crosscuts, then split the waste out with a wide chisel (you can usually split it out by hand pressure alone).
A bandsaw would make some of the cuts easier and more repeatable, although you wouldn't be able to reach the middle of a long piece.
-Steve
I went, like saschafer says, with handsaws (small rip cut, small crosscut, and large tenon cross cut), chisels (one inch and two inch) , planes (jointer plane, block plane, and chisel plane (! - that's for the folks who frown on chisel planes)) and a bandsaw. I'm almost done. It was a great excuse to get a nice (LN) large tenon saw. Pictures are coming soon.
Mine is also western red cedar. It cuts easily. Problem with using powertools in the shop is that the boards are nine and 14 foot long. I have a well-stocked, but small shop. Problem with using portable tools (got all those,too) is they are too harsh on the wood. It's a great mostly handtool project, and believe it or not, probable took not too much longer, if not faster in some phases, than using stationary shop tools.
Oh, don't forget a nice marking knife (like a hock), to mark good cuts before sawing.
I've used a bandsaw to make the cheek cuts in bridle joints as deep as 3". Although it isn't absolutely required, I put a microadjuster on the saw so that I could fine-tune the cuts. I used the tablesaw to cut the shoulders on the male half. On the female half, I used a drill press to sever the waste, and a chisel to clean up the half-round left by the drill bit. On that face, it is useful to note that it really needs to be clean only where it is visible: on the outside. The interior can be crude. At best, it is an end-grain glue joint, so it isn't worth much anyhow.
It is an end grain joint, so it is not of much use in tension, but it's fine in compression- which is its role in aligning the cross members of a pergola (like rafters on joists).Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
In a deep bridle joint -- like 3" deep -- the cheeks of the tenon provide a huge glue face. That's what really holds the joint together. Of course, if you want to be really careful about that end-grain glue suface, go ahead. It certainly won't hurt anything.
Hey, it's a pergola, not a highboy! ;-)
I've done a million of these sort of joints. I just cut the outside cuts with a circular saw (you can use a speed square as a saw guide if you want), and then run a bunch of kerfs through the waste & bust it out with a mallet and chisel. About 3 minutes per, on site.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Actually, it's my pergola in the Chinese Chippendale style with the matched crotch cedar veneers and French polished polyurethane finish...(!)Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
"Actually, it's my pergola in the Chinese Chippendale style with the matched crotch cedar veneers and French polished polyurethane finish...(!)"
Oh.
In THAT case, you'll have to cut the shoulders with a japanese dozuki (no cheapo reproductions) and chisel out with a bi-metal chisel, hand forged from the anchor chain of a submerged shipwreck no less than 150 yrs old and carefully sharpened, if you use the "scary sharp" method, to AT LEAST 6000 grit. You must also be sure to use a malet fashioned of riven, old-growth yew harvested from the (Eastern, of course) slopes of Mt. Fuji. And be sure to carefully compensate all your measurements to allow for the curvature of the earth, deviations from standard temperature and pressure, gravity fluctuations due to sunspots, and the like.
Then, after about a week of carefully planned outdoor aging and weathering, it'll develop a nice patina accompanied by warping, checking, twisting, bowing and bug damage and, with luck and appropriate mystical incantations, will look just as good as a pergola that was cut with a circular saw and knocked out with a set of dimestore chisels.
;-)
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
You forgot to mention that the dozuki has to have a hand-hammered and hand-tensioned blade and cost a minimum of $235. Otherwise, the result will be worthless.
-Steve
"You forgot to mention that the dozuki has to have a hand-hammered and hand-tensioned blade and cost a minimum of $235."
Aren't they ALL?
;-)
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
You forgot the woodpeckers.(They're the REAL threat).Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
"You forgot the woodpeckers."
For me, its the carpenter bees, all of which come pre-equipped with Festool cordless drills and an endless supply of 3/8" bits.
But they're as big as woodpeckers. Does that count?
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
I've built a handful of pergolas,a nd I use doubled rafters as beams. As a result, I don't use bridles, I use dado's.
I "plant" the posts (by whatever means) and brace them plumb. If necessary, I wait for the concrete in the post holes to dry for a day or two.
While they are still braced, I find the point at which each should be cut, and where the dado's should be.
I cut them to length (height?) with a combination of circular saw and hand saw. (A reciprocating saw sometimes is handy here.) I make the horizontal cut for the dado with the circular saw, and the vertical with the reciprocating saw.
By doing the posts this way, there can be no question concerning how level the upper assembly will be.
The dado, of course, holds the beam-rafters.
I do not put the beam rafters into the dado's until I have cut the notches for the rafters, and shaped the ends. The notches are cut gang style, with the beam rafters all clamped together. I mark the lines, and use a circ saw to define the edges of the notches all at once. Making multiple cuts inside the notches allows simple clean up with a chisel.
If I will also be notching the underside of the rafters (not likely, and not necessary), this is also done gang-style, as are any top notches for 2X2 sticks on top.
I've attached a picture of one I did a few years ago. (Note that unless you have experience building houses or additions, I do not recommend attachment of the pergola to a house. Too many thing can go wrong that will cost big bucks later.)
Politics is the antithesis of problem solving.
I'd rough cut the joints with a Hand held Circular Saw. Or on your TS with a regular blade. Finish to final perfect dimensions with a router.
Made a 'few' Pergolas for others doing it this way. Worked for me. OK, so I also used a Radial Arm saw for many of the cuts but all finish cuts were made on a router table. Hand held I hardly ever IF I can avoid it.
As far as a jig goes. Make a MDF or Plywood jig of the common joints you will use and maybe some sort of 'holder' with a stop to do repeat cuts.. Hard to tell exactly without knowing what you are exactly doing.
I made two jigs for all common joints. One to guide the Circular Saw and one for the router.
Takes a bit of planning but works and saves alot of time and bad cuts!
A bridal joint is a sort of sliding mortise and tenon, right?
J
Have you concidered the Fein Multimaster?
What's this about the bride's lap? Sounds a bit personal! Did you mean bridle?
It'a amazing what a changed letter can do. I'm reminded of an auction ad in which was listed a "heavy duty wench". I'd like to see one of those!
Tom
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