Hand cutting the mortise and tenon, anyone?

[Dave Bagwill]

Do any of you do the m&t by hand, and would you share your experience?

[John Parchem]

by hand do you mean without a power tool like a router like using using chisels or do you mean not using a jig.

[TonyinNYC]

I did it by hand. I used a block to position the saw, and cut to my pencil lines. I will look for pics of the process tonight.
It was not nearly as hard as I expected it to be. I ended up with a joint that was nearly perfect and only required a little sanding to get it to fit in the slot. Which is better than the tenon being too loose!

[Dave Bagwill]

Thanks Tony.
John - I meant just without power tools.

[Kevin in California]

Dave, ah come one, just one little ol' power tool??

I have made the neck block by taking two 3/4" blocks, cutting out a mortise in one (using the bandsaw, but could be done with a handsaw and chisel), then glueing the two blocks together.

On the heel of the neck blank, it was easily done by making a couple of cuts on my table saw (could be done by hand saw). I was able to make compound angle cuts; one relief under cut so the cheeks had minimal contact with the side of the guitar, and the neck angle cut to match the top angle. You do this all while the neck blank is still in block form. It works really well, and in fact, I probably preferred my results better than using the jigs and routing out both the mortise and tenon...less scary too. I've thought about going back to this method, as the first 4 guitars from scratch were done this way.

If you want more detail, let me know and I'll lay it out better for you.

Kevin

[Dave Bagwill]

"Dave, ah come one, just one little ol' power tool??"

Hey Kevin, I don't even use electric lights in the shop!! :-)

No it was just a question. I think my next build will be a Taylor butt joint, and use the copy carver (finally!!) for the neck. Though if I do mortise and tenon, I will follow your method by hand.

[Kevin in California]

Again, I really liked using the table saw to cut the tenon as you can cut that relief in the cheeks and don't have to use the chisel later, which always gives me fits across the end grain of the mahogany.

Kevin