Device for spikes on wood. Dovetail, spike groove and other do-it-yourself tools for a milling machine. Stud selection: straight version, dovetail modification

Dovetail, detachable spike connection (trapezoidal grooves), used in mechanical engineering and carpentry for reliable fastening of parts to each other. In this material, we will consider the manufacture of devices that facilitate the production of grooves in a tree using a manual milling cutter.

Do-it-yourself wood router accessories

The machine itself is a very ancient invention of mankind, descriptions of the principles of milling appeared in the 16th century, and the prototype of the machine was the invention of Leonardo da Vinci, who proposed rotating a round file to increase the processing of the product, which can be considered the first analogue of a cutter.

And already the American inventor Eli Whitney over the years of his life from 1765 to 1825 brought to mind all the scattered attempts to create a full-fledged machine, for which he is rightfully considered the creator of the first milling machine, although not all scientists agree with this statement.

And since the machine has such ancient roots, there are a great many devices for the manufacture of various parts, it is not possible to describe them all in the light of this material, and therefore we will consider only some of them, in my opinion, the most important and useful.

Universal device for tongue and groove connection

factory plate for making tongue and groove joints

It is used with a router for cutting the corresponding grooves and spikes, it is installed in a vise, and the part is pressed against the device with a clamp. Usually sold in stores.

appearance of the connection

Consider slot milling fixtures

Saw the top piece out of 18mm plywood 40cm long and wide enough to handle the thickest piece you plan to cleat.

Cut two 5x10 cm bars, sawing them the same length as the top. In the future, the bars will play the role of clamping the workpiece and centering it relative to the groove in the tabletop. To prepare the top, draw a line through the center of the top, then cut a groove along the line from one end.

schematic representation of the tooling

note

The notch should be the same width as the copy ring you will be using with your cutter. The notch should be long enough to match the length of the longest slot you are going to cut.

Then mill two adjustment slots perpendicular to the center line. Finally, drill a viewing hole between these two slots. To assemble the entire structure, screw the bolts into the jaws and secure the top to the bars with wing nuts and washers.

To use our equipment, draw a groove on the workpiece and mark the center line on it. Loosen the thumbs and set the blanks between the bars so that the center line connects with the top line of the fixture, check that the edge of the blank is against the edge of the top.

Hold the lambs. Align the router bit with one end of the slot drawing, then mark guide lines on the top surface of the table along the edge of the router base.

How to work with snap-in tongue and groove

Repeat this one more time to mark the lines of the other end. Mill the slot at the bottom, starting the cut by aligning the base of the router with the first auxiliary line, and stop milling when the insert reaches the second auxiliary line.

How to make a tongue and groove connection?

Spike and groove - what is it?

First of all, you should determine what a spike and a groove are. This is nothing more than a way to connect parts.

It is used most often in carpentry, as well as in other types of production. There are many types of grooves and spikes, but we'll talk about that another time.

Correctly made spikes and grooves are firmly connected to each other. This connection is considered one of the most durable.

tongue and groove connection method

First you need to determine for what purpose this connection method is needed. If this is a table, then the jumpers in it are usually connected to vertical legs.

Consequently, the fibers of the tree run vertically and horizontally. If this is a wall table or a bedside table with drawers, then the jumpers here will be located a little differently. They will be horizontal relative to the legs.

In any case, such a connection will be the most reliable. When performing a large number of thorn-groove joints, special machines are used. If you need one or more tenon-groove places, and there is no carpentry equipment at hand, then it would be advisable to do this manually. To do this, you need a set of carpentry tools, including:

• hacksaw;
• clamp - 2 pieces;
• measuring tool;
• marking pencil.

First, we will make a spike for the future connection.

To do this, you need to take the bar and mark on it the dimensions of the future spike.

First, note the length of the spike. We do this on all surfaces of the workpiece.

After that, we put the workpiece on the table, on it along the transverse line of the length of the spike we expose an even bar and fix it with a clamp. This is necessary in order to get a perfectly perpendicular cut.

We make cuts along the marked perimeter of the tenon length, rearranging the bar with the clamp.

We proceed to sawing the section of the spike.

We fix the workpiece to the table with a clamp in a vertical position.

To obtain a straight cut, we will use a pre-prepared T-shaped template. It is a plywood plate with a bar attached to it, as in the photo. We attach the template to the workpiece with a clamp. Next, we make cuts from the wide sides of the spike.

On the narrow sides of the section, if it is small, cuts can be made without the use of a T-shaped template. It is important to control the position of the hacksaw blade, it must be strictly parallel to the workpiece.

As a result, we get a high-quality spike according to the given dimensions.

We proceed to the manufacture of the groove.

Again, let's start with the markup. On the workpiece at the junction of the tenon-groove, we apply the size of the section of the tenon.

We fix the workpiece with a clamp on the table. If the workpiece is thin, then for ease of fastening we take several parts or a board of the appropriate size and fasten them with a clamp, as shown in the photo.

First, we cut a hole in width, to ensure perpendicularity, the chisel is set in a corner.

We perform a deepening to a given size, according to the mark of the length of the spike, having previously applied it to the sting of the chisel.

After the specified depth is reached, we clean the groove and insert the part with a spike.

The thorn-groove connection is ready.

How to make a tongue and groove connection correctly? A few more subtleties

Not being able to make a tongue-and-groove connection on a special machine, it can be done at home with high quality, according to the method of Yu. A. Egorov.

To do this, you need to calculate the width of the cut of the saw, which can be determined by the size of the setting of the teeth. You only need to make a few cuts on any bar.

Getting directly to work, we measure the thickness of the first part (the future spike) and put a line on the intended groove location on the second part.

Now we attach both parts one to the other so that their ends coincide. On the side faces, relative to each other, we shift them to the width of the cut.

We fix the parts in the workbench and make cuts evenly across the width. In the case of different thicknesses of parts, a thinner part contains deeper cuts and vice versa. We pay special attention to the fact that the cuts do not create cone-shaped spikes.

If the shift is less than the width of the cut, the parts will be tight. This will be important for any kind of furniture fixtures.

By making the shift greater than the width of the cut, the normal operation of the detachable fasteners (on the hairpin) is ensured.

Observing the depth and length of the cuts, we make new ones in the middle of the spikes we do not need. After that, we carefully remove the spikes that are unsuitable for us with a chisel, getting grooves from them, and clean them.

If the connection is supposed to be one-piece, it is put on glue and the entire product is ground.

How to make a tongue and groove connection with a router

The thorn groove of the connection, as we can see, can be done manually. However, if there are a lot of tongue and groove connections, it is better to use a router. A milling cutter with a desktop will be especially useful in such cases.

To facilitate the process of obtaining a hole in the workpiece for connecting the tenon-groove with a milling cutter in large quantities, for example, the manufacture of stools, a jig can be made.

Then making grooves will take you a few minutes.

To do this, initially, limiters in the form of rails are installed on the plywood sheet and holes are cut to the size of the required groove for the drawstring and proleg. Two rails are mounted along the width of the router, limiting the transverse shift, the other two are set taking into account the length of the device and the size of the groove.

We attach two bars to the table, corresponding in size to the workpiece, so that it can move freely along the length.

We expose and fix the emphasis.

Then we fix the device with screws to the bars on the table.

We take equipment equipped with a straight cutter and set the depth of milling. We do this with the help of a ready-made sample.

We set the milling depth taking into account the thickness of the conductor.

A prerequisite for milling is the fastening of the workpiece with a clamp, otherwise it may move under the force of the cutter.

After that, we directly process the groove.

The groove hole is ready.

We turn to the manufacture of the spike. In small-scale production, it is convenient to do this on a circular saw.

We begin the manufacture of the spike by measuring the groove. The depth of the groove will be the length of the tenon.

We set the size of the groove length on the machine, taking into account the width of the tool. We set the circular saw at the level of half the difference between the width of the workpiece and the length of the groove from the table surface. After we make two cuts along the length of the spike. Trial cuts when setting up a circular saw are best done on an unnecessary piece of wood, otherwise you can ruin a good part.

The preparatory work has been completed. We proceed to the direct cutting of the spike.

To do this, we set the circular saw to the size of the tenon length, and the size from the cutting tool to the stop, as half the difference between the width of the workpiece and the length of the groove. We make two cuts along the width of the workpiece from opposite sides.

The next operation will be to change the size from the tool to the stop. In this case, the distance will be equal to half the difference between the height of the workpiece and the width of the groove. We make the two remaining cuts.

Now we take a carpenter's knife and round off the corners of the spike.

The final processing is carried out with the help of sandpaper, for convenience, fixed on a bar.

We check how the spike enters the groove. It should sit tight and not hang out.

Thus, we examined some types of spikes and grooves that can be made both by ourselves and by ordering at the factory.

Although metal guides and all kinds of new fasteners have come into fashion lately, the tongue and groove connection still deserves respect and is one of the most durable connections.

Using it not only in woodworking products, various enterprises began to produce better products.

And also you can watch a video of making spikes on a table circular

Knowing how to make a tenon groove with a manual router, you can even make at home not only beautiful, but also reliable furniture, but also various wood structures, characterized by excellent bearing capacity. According to the "thorn-groove" system, not only elements of various furniture (tables, chairs and shelves) are connected, but also the frames of low-rise buildings that experience significant loads during operation.

In order to make a spike on a wooden beam with a manual milling cutter, several conditions must be met:

• securely fix the workpiece and correctly orient it in relation to the guide sole of the router;
• set the height of the working part of the cutter so that the tool removes a layer of material of the required thickness from the surface of the workpiece being processed.

Even using the simplest tenoning device for a milling cutter when performing such processing, you can not only increase its productivity and quality of the result, but also make the process safer. It is especially important to use such a device, which can be made with your own hands, in cases where furniture is produced not in single copies, but in series (in this case, the master has to perform a large number of such operations both with the same type and with wooden furniture of various shapes and sizes). details).

Tools Used

The creation of spikes and grooves, with the help of which the connection of two wooden blanks will be ensured, assumes that a sample of the material is made on the side surface of the beam or board with a manual milling cutter. In this case, all geometric parameters of the elements of the future connection must be strictly observed.

To perform this operation with a hand router, you can use tools with shank diameters of both 8 and 12 mm. The most versatile in this case is the groove cutter, the cutting part of which works as follows:

• the side surface forms the walls of the groove and the sides of the tenon;
• the end side processes the bottom of the groove and removes a layer of material of the required thickness from the base of the spike.

Thus, using a tool of this type, it is possible to form both a tenon and a groove on the side surface of a beam or board. At the same time, their sizes can be adjusted within a fairly wide range.

In cases where higher requirements are placed on the reliability of the connection of wooden parts, the grooves and spikes are made not of a rectangular shape, but of a shape called the “dovetail”. Grooves and spikes of this configuration are created using dovetail cutters. It is also possible to perform the procedure for forming grooves and spikes of this shape with a hand mill, but for these purposes, devices of a different design should be used.

Dovetail sampling using a template

So that the question of how to make a groove in a board and a beam or a spike on their side surface does not cause any particular difficulties, it is better to use a power tool equipped with comfortable side handles, a wide guide sole and the option of protecting the spindle from turning during the replacement of the cutter. In addition, it is desirable that such equipment has a side stop, due to which the overhang of the cutter used with it in the kit will always remain constant.

How to make a stud picker

When forming spikes on wooden blanks with a manual milling cutter, it is not fixed in space in any way and is brought to the workpiece manually. That is why it is very important that when using a power tool, the workpiece is in a fixture that can ensure not only its secure fixation, but also the accuracy of the spikes formed on its surface.

The design of the simplest device that is able to cope with such tasks is:

• several fixed guides (lower, upper, side);
• movable bar, due to which you can adjust the length of the sample.

Such a device is manufactured, the dimensions of the components of which are selected individually, in the following sequence:

1. Along the edges of the plywood sheet, side vertical elements of the same height are fixed, in the central part of which cutouts are made.
2. Guides are installed on the side elements, along which the sole of the hand mill will move.
3. To limit the travel of the hand router along the upper rails, the side rails should be fixed on them.
4. On a sheet of plywood, which plays the role of the base of the device, it is necessary to install a movable element, with which the amount of overhang of the edge of the workpiece to be processed will be adjusted. For fixing, you can use a regular thumbscrew or any other suitable fastener.

In the manufacture of the device of the proposed design, the following points should be taken into account:

• The height of the top guides should be the sum of the thickness of the workpiece and the amount of small clearance required to install the fixing wedge.
• The cutouts in the side vertical elements are made so wide that it takes into account the length of the spike being formed.

It is possible to work with the device of the proposed design with a manual milling cutter of almost any modern model, the options of which provide for the possibility of adjusting the cutting speed, the amount of feed and overhang of the working part of the tool used.

To create a dovetail spike on the side surface of a beam or board, a device manufactured as follows is used.

• A hole is made in a sheet of plywood, from which the cutting part of the dovetail cutter will protrude.
• A manual router is fixed from the bottom of the prepared plywood sheet. To do this, you can use clamps, screws or any other fasteners.
• On the surface of the plywood sheet, along which the workpiece will move, a board 2.5 cm thick is fixed. It will act as a guide element. Such a board is a consumable and is used once with a cutter of a certain diameter.

Such a device can be installed between two chairs or used to place it in a more convenient and reliable design.

Creating spikes on bars and boards

Using wood splicing cutters for a hand router and the above fixture, processing is performed in the following sequence.

• The part to be machined is placed on the lower reference plane.
• The edge of the part on which the spike will be formed is placed in the cutout of the upper guides and moves in it until it stops against the movable element of the fixture.
• The movable element is fixed in the desired position.
• Using a wedge element, the upper plane of the part is pressed against the upper guides.
• A manual router is placed on the upper guides.
• The tree, using a tool installed on the router, is first removed from one side of the spike being formed.
• After processing one side, the workpiece is turned over and the formation of the second side of the spike is performed.

Even such a device, simple in design, makes it possible to process tenon-groove joints with high precision and productivity using hand mills.

Before starting work, such a device must be configured. This can be done using the following algorithm.

• The tool installed in the hand router is lowered until it comes into contact with the surface of the base plywood.
• The thickness of the part is measured.
• The thickness of the workpiece is divided by 4. The result will be the distance by which it is necessary to raise the cutter above the base surface.

Using the dovetail pattern, grooves and spikes are created at half their thickness, which is explained by the peculiarities of this type of connection. To make a groove in a beam and a board, as well as to form a dovetail spike, the device must also be adjusted and its components fixed in the desired position.

The use of spike-groove joints at home will allow you to independently create beautiful furniture, which is also distinguished by reliability. Even the frames of low-rise buildings are connected using this scheme, especially when it comes to serious loads during operation. Therefore, it will be useful to figure out how to make a tenon groove with manual milling cutters.

Tools Used

The sample of material in this case is carried out on the surface of the bars and boards on the side. The main thing is that the intended connection should maintain dimensions in terms of geometry.

To complete the process with a milling cutter, it is allowed to use tools equipped with shanks with a diameter of 8 or 12 millimeters. The so-called groove cutter will become a universal option for any kind of work. The device is supplied with a cutting part, in which the basic principle of operation is described as follows:

1. The surface on the side is involved in the formation of the sides on the side of the spike, the wall part of the grooves.
2. The side with the end part is used when processing the bottom. After that, the necessary layer of material is removed from the base of the spike.

The result is the simultaneous formation of both spikes and grooves on the surface on the sides. For sizes, individual adjustment is allowed, and the owner has ample opportunities in this sense.

Sometimes for grooves and spikes they choose not the shape of a rectangle, but the type of the so-called "dovetail". This option is relevant if increased requirements are placed on the reliability of the connection. Accordingly, the cutter used is also called "dovetail" in this case. Such work can be done without problems with hand tools, if necessary.

Making a stud picker

When parts are processed manually, the router itself does not have additional spatial fixation. But the overall result of the work, the accuracy of the connection itself in the future depends on this.

To assemble the simplest design that can cope with the task, you will need to use:

• Several guides that remain fixed. They should be side and top or bottom.
• The length of the sample is adjusted by using an appropriate movable bar.

For manufacturing, the following sequence of actions is used:

1. A plywood sheet is taken, from one edge of which side elements are mounted in a vertical plane. In the center of the material, you need to create appropriate cutouts.
2. The sides are supplied with guides. On them, the sole of the hand mill moves in the future.
3. The side bars are fixed on the top rails. Then the course of the working router associated with these parts has restrictions.
4. The plywood sheet, which has become the basis for the installation, also serves as a surface for installing the movable element. Then the amount of edge overhang for the future workpiece is easier to control under any circumstances. Fixation is provided by conventional screws, other types of fixing devices.

There are several points in the manufacture that require separate accounting:

• The top guides have a height corresponding to the sum of the thickness of the part under processing and a small gap on which the wedge is installed, which is involved in fixing.
• The emerging spike has a certain length, which is taken into account when determining the thickness of the cutouts for the side elements along the vertical.

When such devices are used, the work is carried out with the participation of manual milling machines of any modern model.

As follows, fixtures are made if dovetail joints are required.

1. A hole is created inside a sheet of plywood with several layers. The part for cutting at the cutter itself protrudes from this part.
2. A plywood sheet is prepared in advance, on the lower part of which the manual milling cutter itself is fixed. Clamps and self-tapping screws are perfect for doing the job, as are other types of fasteners.
3. A board 2.5 centimeters thick is attached to a plywood sheet, which later participates in the movement of the prepared part. The function of the guides is taken over by the design. Boards are disposable consumables.

Creating spikes on bars and boards

Processing is carried out using the following sequence of actions:

• The part to be processed is installed on the plane from the bottom side.
• The edge of the part, where the spike is formed, contains cutouts at the guides at the top. The structure moves inward until it hits the end.
• An element of a movable type must be fixed, while maintaining a certain position.
• We use a wedge tool to connect the guides and the plane located at the top to each other.
• Connection of a manual router with the upper guides.
• With the help of a milling tool on a home milling table, wood is removed from one side.
• When the first side of the workpiece is processed, the second one begins.

The operation will be successful only if the performance and accuracy parameters are high. The setting refers to the required actions before the instruments are turned on. To resolve the issue, actions are performed with the following sequence:

1. The milling tool is lowered until it reaches the surface of the base.
2. Measurement of part thickness.
3. The thickness result is divided by 4. The result is the distance parameter that is followed when raising the cutter above the base.

Wood cutter "Dovetail"

For grooves and tenons under similar circumstances: only half of the usual width. This is due to the features possessed by the compounds of this variety.

The main thing is to correctly adjust the device, fix it in a suitable position.

The tenon-and-groove connection should result in some clearance. It is necessary so that later you can conveniently use the adhesive composition.

How to choose a groove with a router?

The solution to the problem depends on where the grooves are located, what size they have. There are several recommendations for home craftsmen:

• The use of open grooves involves fixing at the tabletop, holding the workpiece along the cutter.
• Accuracy is determined by the height of the cutter, the location of the bar.
• It is recommended to use wood waste for trial operations. This avoids mistakes.
• Sampling is carried out in stages, with several passes.

The main thing after the completion of each stage is to get rid of wood waste in time. Then the tool will definitely not suffer from overheating. When doing work, it is easiest to use a template cut out of plywood. They pass through it with the cutter itself, with the bearing installed.

In this article, we will introduce you to the process of cutting various joints with a hand router, consider the process of manufacturing such additional devices to increase labor productivity as tenoning templates and a dovetail wood cutter.

How to make a tenon groove with a manual router

To make this spiked connection, we need the router itself and the desktop itself. To facilitate the process, you can make such an additional device as a conductor.

The procedure is as follows:

• • We install two rack limiters on the plywood sheet, cut out holes to fit the groove size for the drawstring and proleg. Rack stops must be fixed across the width of the router. They fix it across the working plane. To fix the longitudinal displacement, two other limiters are set at the ends of the intended location of the installation site of the carpentry machine.
  • To move the workpiece along the length, we mount a pair of bars to the tabletop that correspond to the dimensions of the workpiece.
  • We mark the axis and dimensions of the grooves. We install an additional device so that the markings on the workpiece and the conductor completely coincide.
  • It is necessary to expose and fix the emphasis.
  • Fix the conductor with self-tapping screws to the bars.
  • It is necessary to take a straight cutter and set the depth of milling, taking into account the thickness of the manufactured jig. After that, it is necessary to fix the workpiece with a clamp and perform groove processing.

Getting Started to cutting spikes.

• With small volumes of production, it is best to do this on a circular.
• First you need to measure the depth of the groove, which will correspond to the length of the spike.
• We measure the resulting value on our workpiece. The length of the spike will be determined by the difference in values ​​- the width of the workpiece and the length of the groove, the height of the workpiece and the width of the groove, divided in half. The resulting material residues should be removed to obtain a spike.
• After that, you should set the size on the machine equal to the length of the groove, taking into account its width. The circular saw should be fixed at a level equal to ½ of the difference in the width of the workpiece and the length of the groove from the tabletop line. Make a couple of cuts along the length of the spike.
• We fix the saw blade at a height equal to ½ of the difference in the heights of the workpiece and the width of the groove from the tabletop line. Two cuts are made from the end face of the workpiece.
• We start cutting. To do this, it is necessary to fix the circular saw by the value of the tenon length, while the distance from the disk to the stop must correspond to a value equal to ½ of the difference in the width of the workpiece and the length of the groove. We make two cuts along the width of the product on both sides.
• Adjust the distance from the cutting disc to the stop. It should be equal to ½ of the difference between the heights of the workpiece and the width of the groove. We make two cuts. We round the edges of the resulting spike with a carpenter's knife and clean it with sandpaper.

Tenon cutter for milling cutter

Tenoning templates come in a wide variety of configurations. They serve to facilitate the work of cutting out joints such as tongue and groove, as well as to speed up the work. With their help, you can make frames, drawer connections, cutting out various connections for furniture. The size of the groove, as well as the evenness of its edges, will depend on the shape of the tooth of the template. To make a do-it-yourself stud cutter, you will need guides with which the studs will be milled. They should be mounted on two opposite sides of the case in a checkerboard pattern, placed equidistantly. Under these conditions, they are ideally suited to each other.

Cutter for wood "dovetail"

They are most often used in combination with milling machines and machines for making grooves in hard and soft wood products. Manufactured from solid hard alloys.

Designed to work in tandem with cylindrical cutters.

How to choose a groove with a router

When doing this work, you need to know that its technique will directly depend on the location and size of the groove. If it is open, then your tool is attached to the tabletop, the workpiece is carried along the cutter. The accuracy will depend on the position of the bar and the height of the cutter. So that you don't have any flaws in the sampling process, always make a trial run on scrap wood. Sampling should be done in stages, you need to do this in several passes. After each pass of the cutting part of the router, in order to prevent its overheating, it is necessary to remove waste from the working surface of the countertop. This can be done using a template cut out of plywood, which should be walked over with a cutter with an upper bearing.

We hope that the information obtained while reading this article will be useful to you and useful for use in the household.