Wedged Tenon

The leg frames of the workbench have been glued up today. On joinery like this I don’t think you can beat a good old wedged joint. In my mind at least it creates the Holly Grail of joints. A fully enclosed dovetail. I like to drive the wedges into the tenon. My reasoning is that the wedge has two faces of long grain to bond to whereas when driven against the outer edges of the tenon there is only one long grain bond. The wedges on the outer faces also, in my mind at least, only create a tight joint whereas the wedges in the tenon make the tenon actually part and fit the splayed mortice.

Needles to say I’m a fan of wedging and it is how we secure the joints on just about all of our external doors.