Bridle joints by hand
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27 February 2015 at 6:34 pm #125141
Does anyone have any experience cutting small bridle joints by hand? I haven’t found anything in past Masterclass projects. I’m working on building a Shaker-style wall clock which use bridle joints in the upper and lower doors. I’ve studied several plans for the project but they always solve this with a table saw and router table which is not my thang! I had considered using half lap joints as a work around but don’t think it would look quite right. Appreciate any thoughts on this.
Cheers
27 February 2015 at 7:58 pm #125143I’ve never cut a bridal joint but I’d be tempted to use the same method for cutting a dovetail for the female part of the joint and the male part is like cutting a tenon. How thick is your stock? I’m guessing if it is quite thin it’ll be hard to get a chisel narrow enough.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365021480/
Here’s a video of St. Roy making a bridle joint as part of a saw vise construction.
Hardest part for a door I suppose would be making the thin socket. Assuming a 3/4″ stile, you’d divide it into three 1/4 sections. It can be hard to clean up the socket in the middle.
27 February 2015 at 9:02 pm #125148James has hit the nail on the head, I don’t think there’s much more to say. It’s just like a mortise and tenon, only you get to saw out the waste for the mortise.
Again as James has already said, the only difficulty in smaller joints is removing the waste from the mortised member once both sides have been sawn. If you have a 1/8″ chisel this joint should present no trouble, if your smallest chisel is 1/4″ then you’ll be restricted to 3/4″ stock unless you push the limits of the one third tenon thickness rule.
Matt
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