Woodworking is the method of joining two piece of wood together to create a more complex item. You can join two pieces of wood together with fasteners such as screws or nails. In other cases it's done with adhesives such as wood glue. In most cases woordworking is actually done with the wood itself. We are going to discuss some common woodworking joint methods.

What are some benefits of using wood joints? In most cases it's the strength. a lot of time various woodworking joints give more structure strength than using fastener or adhesive.

In other cases it's the appearance. Certain joints provide certain aesthetics to your projects. There are a range of different joinery methods out there that will allow you to do different tasks and build different projects.

In this article, we will talk about two common joints that you may use in your projects. They are the half lap joint and the mortise tenon.

Half lap joints are for making anything from simple picture frames all the way up to large heavy blanket chests. Because half lap joints are incredibly strong, they are great for making tables and other furniture that needs to be strong. Half lap joints are when you have two pieces that are the same thickness and you remove half the material on each piece, you can connect them by overlapping them to create a half lap joint. They are really strong because you have a lot of long grain to long grain glue surface. That bond creates a very strong framed joint. You also have each shoulder glued in to prevent any type of racking.

To make perfect half laps on the ends of work pieces, you need to make sure your blade height of your table saw is set up properly. It needs to be half the thickness of the material. This may take a couple times of adjusting to get it perfect. You also need to make sure you have a stop lock set at the width of the material.

The mortise and tenon is one of the most common and strongest joints in wood working. You have a few options when you go to make your mortise. You could use a bench top mortise if you have one or you can use a hand-held router with a spiral bit.  You can also take it over to your drill bit and drill it out then use a chisel to clean it up after. Cut your mortise before your tenon because it is easier to fit a tenon into a mortise as opposed to the other way around.

By using a handheld router with an edge guide you can hog out the material for this mortise. Set the depth stop on the router to how deep you want to make your mortise. Measure out the shoulders and mark your board. It is better practice to remove the material in a few passes compared to one. Now that you have a mortise cut, let's go on to the tenon.

Make your shoulder cuts on the top and bottom of your stock. with the blade raised, you can make the shoulder cuts on the top and bottom of the stock. you can cut the shoulders off with a band saw or easily a hand saw. When you combine them, add a little glue and this could last for generations.