Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood to produce more complex items. Some of the woodworkers use fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, while others use only wooden elements. The characteristics of quality wood joints are strength, flexibility, toughness, appearance, and ease of use. The right type of wood joint depends on the materials involved and the purpose of the joints. Therefore, to meet the requirements, different techniques are used. For example, the joinery used to assemble a house may be unique from that used to make furniture, puzzles, and toys, even though some principles overlap.
Many wood joinery techniques depend upon the type of wood used and the utility of the end product. Since wood is isotropic, its material properties are different along different dimensions. In modern woodworking, it is even more critical, as heating and air conditioning cause significant changes in the moisture content of the wood.

A project with good wooden joinery ends up being sturdy and robust; on the other hand, a poor wood joinery technique can spoil a good project. A strong piece of furniture will consist of more complex wood joints. Hence a wood joint is decided by the carpenter in the initial stages of the project execution.

Below given are some of the wood joints.

1. LAP JOINT:

It is a joint where the wooden pieces overlap. A lap joint, maybe a full lap or half lap. In a full lap, neither material is removed from both contributors, an excellent way to be joined, resulting in a joint with the two members’ blended thickness. In half of the lap joint or halving joint, the material is eliminated from both members so that the resulting joint is the thickness of the thickest member. Most commonly in half-lap joints, the members are of the same thickness, and half the thickness is removed. For timber joinery, this joint, in which long-grain wood faces are joined with glue, is the most potent inability to withstand shear forces, exceedingly even mortise and tenon, and other commonly known strong joints.

2. BRIDLE JOINT:

A bridle joint is a woodworking joint, much like a mortise and tenon, where a tenon is reduced on the quilt of one member, and a mortise is reduced into the opposite to accept it. The distinguishing function is that the tenon and the mortise are reduced to the entire width of the tenon member. The corner bridle joint (additionally referred to as a slot mortise and tenon) joins contributors at their respective ends, forming a corner. This form of the joint is generally used to house a rail in uprights, together with legs. Although a mechanical fastener or pin is frequently required, it provides good energy in compression and is resistant to cracking. The bridle joint is very popular in workbench creation. A variant of the bridle joint is the T-bridle, which joins the quilt of one member to the middle of another. The T-bridle joint is very sturdy and accurate for joining 2 pieces collectively.

3. DOVETAIL JOINT:

A dovetail joint or dovetail is a joinery technique commonly used in woodworking joinery (carpentry), including furniture, cabinets, log buildings, and traditional timber framing. Dovetail joints are known for their resistance to being pulled apart. The dovetail joint is generally used to connect the sides of a drawer to the front. A series of pins reduce to extend from the top of one board interlock with a series of tails cut into the case of any other board. The pins and tails have a trapezoidal form. A wooden dovetail joint requires no mechanical fasteners. The dovetail joint could be very sturdy due to the manner the tails and pins are shaped. This makes it hard to drag the joint aside and is genuinely not possible when the glue is used in addition. This form of a joint is used in boxed-type structures such as drawers, jewelry packing containers, cabinets, and different portions of furnishings wherein energy is needed. It is a complex joint to make manually, requiring skilled craft.

4. TONGUE AND GROOVE JOINT:

Tongue and groove is a technique of fitting similar objects together, edge to edge, used especially with timber in flooring, parquetry, paneling, and comparable constructions. Tongue and groove joints allow flat portions to be joined strongly collectively to make a single flat surface. Before plywood became common, tongue and groove boards were extensively utilized for sheathing buildings and assembling concrete formwork. It is one of the most robust joints and is widely used for re-entrant angles. The impact of timber shrinkage is hiding while the joint is beaded or otherwise molded. In luxurious cabinet works, glued dovetail and a couple of tongue and grooves are used. Every piece has a slot (the groove) cut alongside one area and a skinny, deep ridge (the tongue) on the alternative edge. The tongue initiatives a bit much less than the depth of the groove. Two or extra pieces thus suit together intently. The joint is not normally glued, as shrinkage would then pull the tongue off.

5. MORTISE AND TENON:

A mortise and tenon joint connects two portions of wood or different materials. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to sign up for portions of wood, mainly when the adjacent portions connect at right angles. Mortise and tenon joints are robust and solid joints that can be used in lots of projects. The miter joint is consisted to be one of the few most powerful joints after the common dovetail joint. They provide a robust outcome and join through either gluing or locking into location. The miter tenon joint also offers an attractive lookout. One drawback to this joint is the difficulty in making it. As requires tight and precise cuts. In its most simple shape, a mortise and tenon joint is each simple and sturdy. There are numerous variations of this kind of joint, however, the simple mortise and tenon incorporate two additives: the mortise hole, and the tenon tongue. The tenon, formed on the end of a member commonly known as a rail, fits into a rectangle or rectangular hollow cut into the alternative, corresponding member. The tenon is cut to match the mortise hollow exactly. It commonly has shoulders that seat whilst the joint completely enters the mortise hollow. The joint can be glued, or pinned to lock it in location.

6. BUTT JOINT:

A butt joint is a way wherein two pieces of material are joined by way of genuinely placing their ends together with nonspecial shaping. The name ‘butt joint’ comes from the manner the material is joined. The butt joint is the only joint to make because it simply involves cutting the wood to the right duration and butting them together. It is also the weakest due to the fact until a few forms of reinforcement are used it is predicated upon glue alone to hold it together.

7. FINGER JOINT:

A finger joint also called a comb joint, is a woodworking joint made by using cutting a set of complementary, interlocking profiles in two portions of wood, that are then glued. The go-section of the joint resembles the interlocking of fingers between two arms, therefore it is called a finger joint. The perimeters of each profile increase the floor region for gluing, resulting in a sturdy bond, more potent than a butt joint but not very visually attractive. Finger joints are regularly confused with box joints, which might be used for corners of bins or box-like constructions.

8. DOWEL JOINT:

Dowel joints are very strong and appealing if several different joints are constructed properly. The dowel is also very useful for substantially growing the energy of weaker woodwork joints inclusive of the butt joint. This form of the joint is secured with an adhesive and a small piece of dowel. Construction additionally calls for nothing more than a drill and a few accurate markings. To acquire ideal markings a unique measuring device may be used to measure the position of the holes for the dowel to be inserted. The device is referred to as a dowel center and they are placed in a pre-drilled hole to create a correct mark on the alternative piece of timber where the following hollow will be drilled. In this joint dowels are glued and inserted into holes instead of screws. By way of using a dowel over screws, the joint turns into an awful lot more potent and can be changed into an attractive feature.

9. SECRET MITERED DOVETAIL JOINT:

The ‘secret mitered dovetail’ joint (additionally referred to as a ‘mitered blind dovetail’, ‘full-blind dovetail’, or ‘complete-blind mitered dovetail’) is used in the maximum magnificence of cupboard and box work. It offers the energy determined inside the dovetail joint but is completely hidden from each out-of-door face via forming the outer edge to meet at a 45-degree perspective even as hiding the dovetails internally within the joint.

10. BISCUIT JOINT:

In contrast to some of the different joints cited biscuit joints are one of the much less used woodwork joints. That is specifically because there are not many places wherein this type of joint is more beneficial than any other form of joint. As its name shows biscuit joints are secured with pieces of wood that are inside the form of a biscuit and those pieces of wood help to prevent movement and add strength. To construct these joints, you want to use a device called a biscuit joiner that is used to cut the biscuit-fashioned holes in the wood. This joint is especially used to sign up for big timber boards together with those you will find on tabletops and it’s also aesthetically attractive if the joint is tight. As mentioned above the biscuit-formed pieces of timber assist to prevent the massive timber boards from moving.

11. DADO JOINT:

A dado is a slot cut into the surface of a piece of wood. While viewed in cross-section, a dado has three faces. You cut a dado perpendicular to the grain. It is far unique from a groove, that you cut parallel to the grain. A through dado passes through the surface and its ends are open. A stopped dado has one or each of the ends prevented earlier than the dado meets the edge of the surface. You use dadoes to connect shelves to a bookcase carcass. You rabbet the shelves to fit in the shape of the dado, which makes the rabbet and dadoes joint. It is a good joint used for woodworking.

12. HALVED JOINT:

A halved joint is a woodworking joint wherein the two parts are joined by removing material from each member at the point of the intersection so that they overlap. The halved joint is differentiated from the lap joint in that the members are joined on the side, instead of on the flat. The simple halved joint is created by cutting a slot in opposite edges of the individuals to be joined so that they slip collectively. Most usually, the quantity of material eliminated is identical to 1/2 the width of the part being joined, although this depends on the relative dimensions of the member. This joint is rather weak and prone to splitting, due to the dearth of shoulders which could otherwise save you from twisting.

The purpose of this woodworking joints article is to showcase the basic types and methods of making joinery to the amateur woodworker and carpenters and for the experienced craftsmen to serve as a reminder, or to expand certain knowledge in this field if needed.

Our goal regarding this article is to provide as much information as possible about each joint. If you know any additional information about any of these joints described, or their other name, do lets us know in the comments below.

Which woodworking joints should be best?

To sum up, depending on the material type, dimension, and other factors the joinery will differ from project to project. Therefore, make sure you put in the required research before you start and it should work out well.

Some of the wood joints are not easy to make using a pen therefore paper we recommend using a CADCAM system which makes the joints technically correct with a click. Do read our article about CAD CAM software for woodworking