Reply To: Another workbench w.i.p
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Which faces of the mortises are out of square? The wide or the narrow? How far out are they? The wide faces can be trued up without causing you any real problem. The narrow can be trued as well, but you may end up with a gap at the top and bottom of the mortise. You could simply add wedges in that case. Spruce will compress quite a bit as you drive the tendon into the mortise. I wouldn’t attempt to true up the mortise, unless it is way out of square, until you begin to fit the tenons. Leave the tenons fat and take you time with the fitting. As you try to insert the tenon keep looking down into the mortise to see if it is the mortise wall or the tenon that needs adjusted. Neither the tenon nor the mortise need to be perfect. The compression of the wood will allow for a margin of error. Same idea as learning to cut dovetails and starting in a soft wood. Wood compression is very forgiving of slight errors.
The area that I would concentrate on is the tenon shoulders. Make sure these are square. Once the assembly is clamped, square shoulders will yield a square assembly. Once again the compression of the wood will compensate for a misaligned mortise and tenon.
Hard wood assemblies are far less forgiving.