Reply To: Stool Inlayed
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Ok I understand now and looking at it I don’t see a problem doing it either way, the reason being whether you saw a wedge across or with the grain you don’t saw at an angle well actually there are two ways to do it. On my piece I did saw straight down but I didn’t saw right to the shoulder line because then I would risk putting all that pressure below the shoulder line when I would insert the wedge and risk splitting the timber. So I sawed only 3/4 of the way down, now let’s say I did saw right to the shoulder line and a freak of nature happened I hammered the life out of it and split the timber so what the whole piece is still held together by the glue and the mortise, it’s not going to fall apart on me nor will it split any further again because the mortise and glue are holding it together This is the worst case scenario, the other method is to saw at an angle right down to the shoulder line eliminating any possibility of splitting and as long as your wedge is longer than your tenon you won’t run the risk of it sinking below the surface. I don’t believe it makes an iota of a difference except for aesthetic reasons whether you place your wedge across or along the grain, both methods are structurally sound actually beyond sound as they’re virtually indestructible. You would have a hard time trying to pull them apart.
This is my thoughts on the subject but who is to say I am right, all I know that in all my years I have never had one come apart on me nor did I ever split one and I never paid attention to grain direction either I did what looked good to me at the time, I may have done along the grain but I doubt it I just cannot remember as I never gave it any thought. The worst that happened to me once was the wedge crumbling from overzealous hammering. I was on a deadline and was running out of time and that’s when mistakes happen, I actually snapped the wedge below my flush line. I repaired the mistake the bottom half was wedged but the top half was just glued on then flushed. If one wanted to you could of picked the top out but the strength was in the bottom half which you could not pull apart. Only my pride was damaged in the process.