On Tue, 6 Feb 2007 19:04:41 -0500, "Stoutman" .@. wrote:

Slats/spindles are usually held in place with mortise and tenons. The
shoulders of the tenons, with the tenons sitting in a mortise a little
deeper than the length of the tenon, is what normally governs whether the
two rails are parallel.

You are obviously not doing this.

Question #2: Do you think bscuits will be a strong of enough joint for
the
slats? There is no up and down forces pulling on the joint so I was
thinking biscuits would work.

I've never heard of using biscuits to hold slats/spindles in place, but,
and
since strength is not an issue, and if the slats are thick and wide
enough,
why not?

The slats are 5/8" thick X 5 7/8" wide.

I might switch my plans back to M&T's. I thought that 18 biscuit joints
would be easier to do than 18 M&T's. But if I am sacrificing a lot of
strength than maybe I should suck it up and do the M&T's.

They are easier, but you are sacrificing a *lot* of strength- think
about what you're doing here. Basicially, you're making simple butt
joints with biscuts for alignment. You'll get a little extra strength
from the biscuts, but the glue will still be sucked up by the end
grain in the spindles, starving the joint- and the biscuts just aren't
very strong.

When I do this, I usually use a dado in the rails. It's really pretty
easy, and not much weaker than a M&T joint- but you do need to be more
careful when sizing the "mortise" dado, as you won't have shoulders on
the slats to cover up any mistakes or gaps.