Replies

1. 
   john_c2 | Aug 22, 2020 07:09am | #1

   Most of the time, an editor will write article titles. I would be willing to bet that the author, Brian Boggs, did not write that title.

   I've never read that a joint was "discovered," and that term does not appear in the article.

   To design a joint? If you've done enough woodworking, you've designed joints.

   When I'm making a table, I need to join the aprons to the legs. You could use bolts, nails, pocket hole screws. Loose tenons, biscuits, bridle joints. There is a lengthy list. So the "joint design" involves what kind of joint.

   I've chosen mortise and tenon joints for my table. If it's a really wide apron, I might have more than one tenon. Do I center the tenon on the apron horizontally? Vertically? Do i eliminate one shoulder, making it a barefaced tenon? A lot of that depends on the thickness of the legs and tenons. I might have a haunch on the tenon, or not. If the leg is small, the tenons may meet in the middle, so the ends will need to be mitered.

   The above are just some of the choices. When we pick which variations to choose, we are designing a joint.

   I really don't think we can design something truly new. It's all been done, whether we are aware of it or not. The Festool Domino made a stir when it came out, and the tool was new. But the floating (or loose) tenon is ancient -- Egyptions used floating tenons.

   The joint Boggs used in that article is a housed barefaced double tenon. All of those things have been well known forever. But his combination of elements to solve a particular issue for outdoor furniture was downright Boggsian.

2. 
   rob_ss | Aug 23, 2020 06:28am | #2

   The article is here: https://www.finewoodworking.com/2014/10/01/powerful-new-joint-housed-double-tenons

   This is the first time I have come across this joint. I have never used it nor seen anyone else using it.

   I suspect that this is for a couple of reasons:

   1. It requires exceptional precision in the milling and shaping of stock. The lack of tenon cheeks makes it very hard to hide even the slightest mistake. As much as 0.5mm or 1/64 inch will show and likely be impossible to hide. You essentially have to create a perfectly fitting tenon then shape the piece to match. You can see that Boggs has done this in the article - the workpiece tapers aggressively away from the outside tenon cheeks meaning that the piece can be made a little oversize, then shaped to perfection once the fit has been fine-tuned. This does not suit most designs, but is well suited to the more flowing, organic style that characterises Boggs' best work.

   2. In practical terms the additional glue area is probably not really relevant. It's hard to go against Brian Boggs, who is a woodworking God, but IMHO the only advantage of a double tenon is that it gives 2 more chances to get the fit close. Glue is so much stronger than the wood, that after a suitably long tenon has been created, it really comes down to the thickness of the wood and the precision of the fit, rather than the amount of glue surface area.

   3. The joint offers no water penetration advantage over a full-size single tenon, but does offer 2 points of potential failure if water does penetrate.

   4. Whilst in principle, no harder than any other routed joint, it is more time-consuming than a single tenon.

   5. the joint offers slightly less racking protection than a joint with shoulders.

   So, given that it's a slightly weaker joint, harder to make and has only a couple of advantages it is easy to see why it has not caught on. Based on thousands of hours of watching woodwork videos though, it is almost certainly new.

3. 
   geedubbee | Aug 23, 2020 12:36pm | #3

   SPAM. It's pink and it's oval and it never ends.