Floating tenon vs dowel. This is a broad percantage of course as type of wood matters here. I will be looking at. Time for another hand tool shootout this time looking at butt joints comparing the kreg jig festool domino biscuits hand cut and machine cut mortise and tenon joints. Mortise and tenon is pretty much the strongest joint.
When done correctly a biscuit joint is at least as strong as a similar size mortise and tenon joint and decidedly stronger than a dowel joint. A strength test some years ago i had a discussion with a woodworker friend whose opinion i respect. His argument was simply that when you assemble a typical tight mortise and tenon joint. Perhaps more glue surface area would improve the dowel joint result.
Mortise and tenon joints revisited. Mortise and tenon vs. It looks like the glue failed on the dowel test. On page 70 of jim tolpins book building traditional kitchen cabinets he writes joining wood with compressed hardwood wafers let into slots is a viable alternative to mortis and tenon joinery.
Loose tenon joints also called floating tenons such as common dowel joints. Mortise and tenon joints are the strongest glue joints in woodworking but theyre time consuming to cut and fit. It would be interesting to repeat this test with a tenon designed to leave as much wood cross section as the smaller dowels. Loose tenon it seems to me that both would have the same basic strength with a possible slight edge given to the bead lock just because of the overall width of the tenon as compared to the overall width of two dowels.
Mortise and tenon vs loose tenon i make my own tenon stock from off cuts of the same wood as long as its long enough for safe planing and rounding the edges it sure cuts down on the scrap wood. My jig is the same as the one in american woodworker and works very well cost was nil except for the holddown clamps. Since the wood broke on the tenon joint the limit is the wood not the tenon. Some test have shown that loose tenon has roughly 95 of the strength of integral tenon.
This is assuming an integral tenon which is not the same as loose tenon.