Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

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Benhen
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Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Benhen »

Hi, Advice needed, please!

Can anyone recommend a decent machine for making half-lap joints about, say, 90-100mm wide?

At present I'm using a cheap Titan table saw from Screwfix, which, if set up and treated carefully, is absolutely brilliant. However there is a good deal of sawdust and it is a slow and repetitive job.
Would a bandsaw with an appropriate saw blade be better? And if so, any ideas on affordable makes.

With many thanks for the great advice received in the past,

Ben
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by cleaver »

Hi Ben,

If it's an occasional need, what about a router? Have a decko on Youtube...it's amazing the stuff people do with them (and the depth stop makes very precise work possible). Of course, and electric 'chop' saw would do it too.

If it's a more everyday need, perhaps a router or chop saw aren't right.

Be good to hear what you eventually opt for.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Not your average framer »

If you are thinking about doing this sort of job with spot on accuracy, many of the cheaper bandsaws may be somewhat problematic. What you are looking for is a band saw with top and botton roller bearing blade guilds and A decent amount of motor power, you don't usually find these features of a lower price.

I also would not recomend using a router for this either if you don't like lots of saw dust. A table saw is generally a good way to go if you don't mind making yourself a table saw sled and clamping the bit of wood in place with your favorite variety of clamps. Have a look on youtube for table saw sleds and jigs, this is probably the best way to speed things up.

BTW, You will need a decent blade with plenty of teeth to get a nice clean cut. If your table saw is a reasonably nice one, it may well turn out to be one of your best friends in your workshop. I've got one of the best made by Einhell, but I'm already finding it so useful that I will probably upgrade to something much more in the professional level of machine in the next year or two.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by prospero »

I have a very sneaky way of doing half-laps which may or may not be of use. :D

Use timber that is half the thickness you want and glue the two layers together. That way the only cutting you have to do
is chop it to length with a square cut.

The faff involved in glueing the two halves together is mitigated by the lack of having to cut the joints, which can be difficult
to get dead accurate without a dedicated machine setup. The timber will also be more stable.

I use this method to construct big sub-frames. :wink:

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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Benhen »

You are wicked, Prospero. Quel genius!

Thanks for the head's up guys. So table saw is best? Perhaps I was just trying to shirk the hard work.
Prospero, though it is a marvel and great for a stretcher, the half laps are for a frame -- think all those Cornish Mod Brits, Hepworth, Nicholson, Lanyon etc. A beautiful half lap knocks the pants off the minging mitre. :D :D :D
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by cleaver »

Prospero, I propose this forum has a whip round to get your brain pickled when you fall off your perch (god forbid).

Your knowledge cannot be lost to the framing world!

PS. VERY nice shop/gallery.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Benhen »

Prospero's sorcery -- could be a good title?

It was mine Art,

When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape

The pine and let thee out.

— The Tempest, Act 1, scene 2.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by prospero »

cleaver wrote:Prospero, I propose this forum has a whip round to get your brain pickled when you fall off your perch (god forbid).

:lol: Some people may say that process has already begun. :roll:
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by prospero »

:idea: If you want to cut half-lap joints the 'old school' way, you could make a jig(s) to guide the saw, rather like a
mitre box. I got two Japanese pull saws just the other day and they are great for this type of thing. Cutting wood is like
slicing bread. :D You have to be careful not to cut your self though. They are as sharp as a razor. :shock:
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by fusionframer »

An easier way than a table saw would be a mitre saw with trenching facility. Many of the lower end mitre saws now offer this.

If you get a mitre saw with a laser guide you can be very accurate.

The other alternative is to get this:

https://www.rutlands.co.uk/sp+power-too ... gI4lPD_BwE

You can use for tenons as well.

I have used this jig to make accurate half lap joints as well as tenons.

I now have a very accurate bandsaw so use that, but have used both of the above methods with success.

Cheers

Nick
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by prospero »

I used to love watching Norm Abrams in "The New Yankee Workshop". :D

Thing is, he had every tool you can imagine. Lots of space and he knew what he was doing.
Not the same as the setup most of us have. You can't achieve the same things on the kitchen
table with a blunt chisel and a junior hacksaw. :roll:
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by fusionframer »

I enjoy watching norm abrams too. Steve Ramsey is a good channel as he tries to show projects that can be done on a budget.

I guess the machinery you need depends what type of framing you want to do. I know some framers on here machine their own mouldings so can justify a spindle moulder in their workshop. If you stack frames, then table saws and bandsaws.

A mitre saw is a verstile tool for a framer so potentially worth the investment. You can attach a dust extractor and as well as trenching for half laps, you can cut wider or hard mouldings and trim on the morso. For stretchers, i just use my mitre saw.

If you already have a table saw, then the tenon jig is a cheaper way of using tools you already own. The advantage of the jig is you end up with a smooth surface for your half lap.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Not your average framer »

The tenoning jig looks and sounds fine, but does not do very much that you can't do with a home made table saw sled. I like making table saw sleds, Because I can enclose the area where the saw dust is generated and direct just about all the saw dust into a cheapo vacuum cleaner serving as a dust extractor. Enclosed table sleds are great, there's only two ways that the saw dust can go, down the slot in the base of the sled and into the built in dust extraction port in the table saw, or into the vacuum cleaner port on the enclose table saw sled.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by cleaver »

:lol: Some people may say that process has already begun. :roll:[/quote]


:lol: :clap: :lol: :clap: :lol:
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by prospero »

To use a tenoning jig on a table saw, you need a seriously big machine. Doing it on a typical DIY one is fraught
with disaster. They just aren't man enough. For a start you have to extend the blade to the width of the moulding.
My cheapo machine struggles at about 2" blade depth.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by poliopete »

I agree with fusionframer that a good mitre is the right investment. I have a Dewalt table saw that flips over to a chop/mitre saw. I thought it was a huge purchase originally but it has earned it's keep over and over again. Besides all the work it's done framing wise it has cut all the timber for the second fix in two self-build properties and I am only on the second blade.

Because it is so versatile I don't need a heap of cheapo power tools. I too like to mitre hardwood, and larger, mouldings on the saw and then trim on the Morso - it honestly makes the job much easier.

My saw was supplied with a metal sled for straight cuts and I have made a jig for tenons and another sled for mitres, not that I do much extra curricular woodwork apart from making easels/ display stands.

Unlike Mark I have never solved the problem of sawdust :( so I tend to drag the whole thing outside on a nice day :sweating:

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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Not your average framer »

I can't drag my table saw outside as easily since having my stroke and in Devon it gets plenty of rainfall at certain times of the year, so operating inside makes a lot of sense, but it's not a big shop and as a result dust control is something I need to take care of and that is why I do things as I do. Having had a stroke makes it less easy to take my large workshop vacuum cleaner out to the dumpster to empty the outer casing into it because my right arm is still quite weak. Therefore, my nice small cheapo vacuum cleaner with it's own removable dust collection container make my life a lot easier.

It does have be said that it fills up with saw dust much qiucker, because of it's much smaller capacity, but at least is a workable solution. Quite a lot of the noise generated by the table saw is generated by the blade and motor and having a largely enclosed sled above the table part of the saw tends to reduce this level of noise quite a bit. Any saw dust that is not sucked straight into the vacuum cleaner remains inside the enclosed sled and is easily vacuumed away from inside, when the perspex lid is opened.

I find having a table saw is a great and versatile help in so many things I often find my self doing. I even cut the rear portion of picture frame mouldings to create replacement trim mouldings for repairing old furniture type items. Many small furniture items in auctions attract very little interest, because of damaged, or missing portions of the original trim and lengths of trim moulding from the main D.I.Y. stores are frequentlly too expensive to make trim replacement worth doing for buyers looking to fix something and sell it on at a profit.

Also many of the trim mouldings bought from these stores are only offered in short lengths, so one length is rarely enough by itself. Wastage tends to be a bit of and issue with replacing old bits of trim, as joining lengths in the middle is not really worth bothering with if like me. you like quick, easy, simple and done. It's just to easy to get bogged down fiddling around wasting time and to be not making any worthwhile money. It's a bit sad to say this, but more wastage in the dumpster can be a necessary part of maintaining a profitable rate of working.

Lengths of wood cut off from the rear of mouldings, re-purposed as trim mouldings are easily cut down to produce spacers, or fillets, so this is not a such a completely wasteful process as it may appear. I have two 10 inch diameter blades for my table saw, one is a 36 tooth blade and the other a 60 tooth blade. The saw has a fairly good saw blade speed and when rip cutting pine, or obeche mouldings, the resulting finish on the cut face is very smooth and clean and gets a quick once over with a sand paper block and it's ready for painting.

I don't think that I am exagerating, when I say that most framers will find that a good reasonably priced table saw can be such a useful friend to be able to turn to when the need arises. Prosperro posted a very good thread on this forum about slicing up different moulding profiles and re-assembling them to create a very impressive much wider moulding, which was really impressive to look at. It was Prosperro's thead that set me on my course to buying quite a useful selection of relatively reasonably priced, but flexible in their usefullness woodworking power tools.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by Not your average framer »

Going back to the mention of using a band saw earlier on this same thread, there are a few useful points that are worth mentioning with regard to low cost band saws and picture framing. If you are good at setting up the accuracy of a reasonably decent low cost band saw, there is always the possibility of using a band saw in conjunction with a home made band saw jig to enable you to cut larger profile mouldings than you would normally be able to cut with a Morso.

It can be a unfortunate fact of life that smaller band saws will all too often be a bit lacking in the power of the motor supplied, which may limit the thickness of wood being cut, but softer woods like obeche and possibly pine, may be much less of a problem than much harder woods. Also, because band saw blades are generally very thin (mine has a blade six thousandths of an inch thick), the amount of saw dust produced is not only very small, but most of it gets transferred with the motion of the blade down into the enclosed bottom part of the machine and is available to be sucked out of the dust extraction port.

The blade speed of travel on such band saws is quite low, but you should be aware that it's very thin blades and there teeth as well can penetrate very quickly into whatever they happen to be cutting and it is good to remember that can also means your fingers. It is for this reason that the wood being cut is more recommended to be clamped in place to the 45 degree fences and the sled in be fed through the machine using handles positioned well clear of the blades. This creates the possibility of stacking and gluing portions of mouldings together and mitreing the resulting assembled profile. I also use my band saw for rip cutting to cut long lengths of obeche, or pine mouldings to make use of particular portions of that moulding.

My experience when cutting plywood against the fence, has not been as easy as you might think, as the opposing grain directions in the plywood combined with the flexibility of the grain tend to divert the cutting line of the blade from cutting completely dead straight. With a reasonable degree of care, I would better to cut the plywood freehand following a marked out pencil line. However, I can't be bothered to do this, if it's not quick, simple and easy, i'll find another way of doing this that is less time consuming. BTW, I have bought an electric planner to build into a small table top with a fence and when this has been built, I will have a jointer capable of straightening the cut edges of sawn wood and boards to dead straight.
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by fusionframer »

I agree with mark that a table saw can be a useful tool for s framer.

As i have a workshop full of tools, i use my table saw, thicknesser, bandsaw, router table, spindle moulder as well as my mitre saw for framing jobs. I have even used my dovetailer on frame. I don't have to justify the cost of these from a framing point of view as i have them for my joinery business.

Then again, i use my underpinner and morso for joinery projects, and i couldn't justify owning those if i didn't make an income framing.

The not using prospero's method of half lap joints, i would still go for the mitre saw and do it as in youtube link below.

https://youtu.be/-XDn7eUdq0k

You can do it on a table saw with a sled or mitre gauge, but a mitre saw with a laser guide is quicker to set up.

Also, as poliopete points out, a mitre saw is easier to move around to avoid dust problems.

What is easier as well for those (myself included) with back problems is to get a foldable mitre saw stand.

I would reiterate, that if starting again, my first tool purchase would be a mitre saw. Next would be either a table saw or router table,

Cheers

Nick
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Re: Half-Lap Joints / Machinery

Post by fusionframer »

Should read, "If not using prospero's method"

I also have to say that i reckon a table saw (especially the budget models) is a more dangerous tool to use than a mitre saw. The cheaper ones don't have induction motors so are noisy with quite a bit of vibration.

I have a big cast iron panel saw, but i still have invested in 2 microjig grr rippers and the magnetic featherboards

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GRR-Ripper-Pus ... B001I9UNWC

I have seen the results a kickback can cause on a friend. I use my table saw daily, but always take greater care even though my saw is an industrial rated one.

BTW, this is my personal experience, and i know the lower end table saws meet safety requirements, but especially if cutting thin strips, would recommend something like the microjig that adds safety.

My point (before getting on my soapbox) is that a mitre saw is also a safer tool in my opinion for someone less experienced using machinery. You still need to follow safety directions of course.

Cheers

Nick
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