Charlieb,

It's me again.

I didn't provide my thoughts about the Trend M&T jig when I responded
yesterday. I purchased one before I bought the FMT and used it for about 48
hours before deciding that it was unacceptable and took it back. I found
that figuring out which pieces to use to determine the movement of the
router to make the right sixe mortice and then changing it all to make a
tenon to fit the mortice that I had just cut was very frustrating. I had to
be very careful not to let the router move away from the template guide even
slightly or the tenon would be ruined. I also discovered that there was no
way to precisely adjust for the tightness of the joint. You just had to live
with whatever you got. The other thing that bothered me was how unstable the
whole assembly was. It was easy to distort the frame significantly if you
pushed the router a bit harder to keep it against the guides and this
distorting transfered to the joint being cut. Way too much hocus pocus and
Kentucky windage was required for me to get good joints. The guys that
demonstrated it at the shows aparently had hundreds of hours of experience
to get good joints, but after trying one myself and then going back and
watching another demonstration I realized that they didn't get tight joints
very often either. It made good mortices for floating tenons, but was
lacking when it came time to make mortices and then tenons to fit them.

I once watched a demonstration of a JDS Multi-router. It made great mortices
and tenons, but getting a tighter joint fit required switching to a slightly
oversized template to cut the matching tenon. They had over and under sized
templates that they switched to whenever it was needed. This helped get a
better fit, but there were only a few over and under sizes available, so
sometimes the result was either too loose or too tight with no ability for a
slightly tighter or looser adjustment. A similar cheaper design of the
multi-router exists. It's marketed by Woodworkers Supply. This one has many
plastic parts and no over/under sized templates. At a demonstration of this
one I caught the demonstrator wrapping the template follower with scotch
tape to adjust for joint tightness. It worked, but not very precisely, and
wore out after making only a few joints. I consider this one a hobby toy and
not a serious tool but it's price is almost as high as an FMT if you include
the templates.

--
Charley

"charlieb" wrote in message
...
Loose Tenon mortise and tenon joinery is becoming more accessible to,
though not necessarily affordable for, the amateur woodworker thanks
to several products that have become available over the last several
years. Right now, I'm aware of three router based - non CNC - jigs /
tools that will cut end grain mortises - the TREND M&T JIG, the Leigh
FMT jig and the MultiRouter - along with the new Festool DOMINO that's
not router based.

What I hope to do is show, with simple annotated diagrams, the
procedure
for doing end grain mortises with each jig / tool and describe the
strenghths and weaknesses (if any) of the available jigs / tools when
it comes to this specific application.

I know the procedure for cutting mortises in end grain using the TREND
M&T JIG and the Festool DOMINO. I've never used the Leigh FMT jig or
the MultiRouter. I'm working on the Leigh FMT jig first, trying to
under-
stand how it works and the procedure for using it - in real basic steps.

The goal is to provide info that can help other woodworkers, looking
into ways to make loose tenon M&T joinery part of their joints arsenal,
with their purchasing decision. I'll put the stuff up on my woodworking
site after "peer review" is completed and post the URL to it in
rec.woodworking.

I have NO connection or affiliation with any of the jigs /tools makers
or sellers of any of the jigs / tool noted above, and paid the going
price
for the TREND M&T JIG and the DOMINO. - no freebies or discounts
to influence the evaluation. (When I got the DOMINO I gave the TREND
M&T JIG to a woodworker long on Woodworking Passion and Short on Cash.
If you have a tool or jig that's been replaced by a New AND Improved
one and don't feel like hasseling with selling or swapping it - find a
woodworker long on Woodworking Passion and Short On Cash and
make his/her day. What YOU get - priceless).

Attached is an illustration of the Leigh FMT procedure as I think it
works.
Need someone who HAS used the FMT - preferably successfully - to look
over the attachment and let me know if I've missed something significant
or got something wrong. Comments can be posted here under this
post's subject line, or to rec.woodworking using this post's subject
line
or e-mailed directly to me (my e-mail address is real, and the only one
I have - no HotMail or Yahoo drop outs).

Thanks for reading all this and hope to thank some of you for
helping out.

charlie b