Woodworking Workbench - Tenon Haunches and Leg Frame Glue Up

A few test cuts on this piece, just to get my eye in before sawing at the line.

The bottom rails of the leg frame are garden variety tenons. The top rails however do require creating/cutting a haunch and for this it was back to some hand tools. I really enjoyed this task; maybe because I was starting to get the hang of sawing to a line (most of the time).

Creating the haunches wasn’t too challenging - measure multiple times and cut. I clamped the rails to my benchtop which was starting to becoming a really useful working surface. I’m looking forward to the day where I have dog holes with hold fasts, a crochet, a vice and maybe a planning stop.

During the process of fitting the tenons, I also ran a smoothing plane across them to remove the striations left behind by the dado blade.

With all 8 M&Ts paired and test fitted, it was time for another glue up. To be 100% sure I wasn’t going to set myself back a lot of hours and money, I reviewed my plans, re-watched the Paul Sellers Workbench segment about leg frames and then did the deed. With the glue increasing the coefficient of friction and also causing the wood to swell, the joints needed a little persuasion to come together. I used a small mallet, then a larger one and then finally the clamps to get them perfectly seated. With only 2 clamps big enough for this job, I had to do this over two nights.

Note that for the bottom rails, I did not protrude the tenons. I wanted the joinery to be flush in case I decided to thicken up the legs as I plan on drilling dog holes for various clamping options.

At this point I started feeling confident about my decisions. I could see my hours of research starting to pay off as techniques and next steps become second nature. It was a great feeling and such moments keep me coming back to the workshop.

A few cuts weren’t perfectly square, but that problem was solved relatively easily with a nice sharp chisel.

As I fit each tenon to its final mortise, I labeled them to avoid any mix ups. I was also choosing the inside/outside faces of each of the pieces purely on esthetics.

A dry run of the fitting and clamping of the frame before glue up.

With only two clamps of this size to my name, I used them right on the joint for maximum effectiveness.

I do enjoy the reduced dust profile of hand tools. This was the product of using my table saw to cut the tenons. Dust everywhere!