Whether you’re planning on fitting out a new kitchen, or wish to build your own custom furniture, there is a lot to be learned from traditional joinery methods, whether you’re using hand tools or power tools. At the core of these skills is the ability to create professional wood joints that are both functionally strong and aesthetically pleasing.
Here we’ll take a look at some of the most widely used joints that you should learn before embarking on your wood working quest.
The Butt Joint
As simple as it gets, the butt joint is as the name suggests, simply two pieces of wood butted up against each other. This type of joint is extremely simple to construct, but has the drawback of having no inherent strength. With glue, screws, or tacks to fix the joint together it can be an adequate solution for some applications
The Mitre Joint
A mitre joint involves cutting two pieces of wood with 90 degree angled ends and mating the two cut faces together. This type of joint looks very neat but is again quite weak so shouldn’t be used for heavy load bearing applications.
The Finger Joint
This is an intricate and strong joint that is often used on drawers and other cabinets. A series of castellated notches is made in the ends of the two pieces of wood to be joined, and the two pieces of wood are then interlocked together. Cutting the notches can be a laborious process, so it’s best to use a jig with a notch and pin to help speed things up and ensure that cuts are accurate.
The Tongue and Groove joint
This type of joint is used to join flat pieces of wood alongside each other (similar to floor tiles)
http://blogs.toolbarn.com/2015/08/the-wonderful-world-of-joints/
