On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:28:11 -0500, Glen Duff
wrote:

I just bought a tenon jig for my 12" General Table Saw. It seems pretty
straight forward except when cutting a tenon on a standard saw blade you
either have to reset the jig after one cut on each side or cut the cheek
off with a cross cut. Either way it seems like a lot of fussing,
particularly when you usually want to do several tenons at a time.

Can a tenoner be used with a dado blade so you can set it up once and
cut each side of the tenon in one pass? Am I missing something here?

Thanks in advance for any assistance on this or other tips on efficient
use of a tenon jig.

Seasons Greetings,

Glen Duff

Glen,
The standard method is to adjust the tenon jig so you only have to
flip the board over to make the second cut. I don't like this method
because it uses both faces of the board for reference. I much prefer
using a single face and referencing all cuts off the one surface (less
dependent on any variation in thicknesses).

The two blade spacer method works well. I used a circle cutter to cut
a 3/8 inch thick piece of Plexiglas (left over from a router table
insert I made) and used this as a spacer between two equal diameter
blades. I have used outside stacking dado blades and two 10 inch
crosscut blades. I was concerned about matching the blades but it
turns out this is not that critical since your cheek cuts will set the
depth of the tenon, as long as the blades are similar diameter you'll
be ok.

Another technique which I've read about but haven't used yet is to
make a spacer that is equal to the thickness of your tenon plus the
thickness of the blade. This is easy to do if you have a thickness
planer. Then make one set of tenon cuts without the spacer then make
the next set of cuts with the spacer with the same side of your
workpiece facing your tenon jig. I like this technique because you
don't have to change blades and you are always using the same side of
the workpiece for a reference edge.

In both of these cases save the spacers, they'll come in handy when
you need to cut tenons again.

TWS