# Router Mortise Jig



## Wood4Fun (Aug 29, 2008)

Figured I'd go ahead and share a new jig I built this weekend.

This is my second mortise jig. The first one I built was taken from a design available on the FWW web site. It attached to the base of the router and the entire jig would slide along the workpiece. Trouble I found with this design were twofold
1. friction between the two pieces of wood made it difficult to move. This was helped by using wax on the jig.
2. It was difficult to set start and stop points

I can't take credit for 100% of this design. I stole it from David Marks, with one exception. His bracket on the underside was fixed and he uses shims to adjust the left/right to line up where to make the cut on the piece. I made the bracket adjustable

I built this and tested it this weekend, and it worked really well. Once I have it setup, it is set for multiple cuts on all the pieces. The last picture shows my tests on a 4x4 piece of fir, along with the test tenon I made.

The only drawback to this design that I have found so far (and actually a drawback to both designs) is that you lose the max depth of the router bit by the thickness of the base you are working with (in my case a 1/2")


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## ACP (Jan 24, 2009)

That's a good looking jig. It certainly does suck to lose 1/2" of depth , but it sure beats messy mortises. Thanks for posting this, I think I may try to build one of these in the future. Jigs are almost as fun to make as actual projects!


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## Wood4Fun (Aug 29, 2008)

ACP said:


> That's a good looking jig. It certainly does suck to lose 1/2" of depth


I'm considering making a second one and using masonite as the base. I'm thinking it would maintain its rigidity by having the 1/2" MDF stops attached to the top and bottom.



> but it sure beats messy mortises


It does make a very nice and clean mortise. I had a mortising machine for a while but I never really liked it. As soon as I made my first mortise router jig I sold it on Craigslist


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## rrich (Jun 24, 2009)

Wood4Fun said:


> I had a mortising machine for a while but I never really liked it.


I have one also. It is probably the most underwhelming power tool that I ever purchased. 

There is one thing that I've learned about the tool. The flat part of the auger bit should be about dime thickness below the points of the square chisel.


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## niki (Jul 16, 2007)

Looks very nice jig

Interestingly, I never built a jig like that...till not long ago, I used the drill press but now, I'm using the router table to cut "Loose tenon"...from the last picture, I can see that you also have in mind the Loose tenon...

niki


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## Wood4Fun (Aug 29, 2008)

niki said:


> Looks very nice jig
> 
> Interestingly, I never built a jig like that...till not long ago, I used the drill press but now, I'm using the router table to cut "Loose tenon"...from the last picture, I can see that you also have in mind the Loose tenon...
> 
> niki


Coming from the master of all jigs, I thank you.

Yes, loose tenons are the direction I am going for all my work... until I run into a reason why they simply wouldn't work.
My venture into loose tenons started as I was working out the design for a project I am working on and having rails that are too long for me to do traditional tenons (unless I were to cut them by hand.... yuck).
I'm hope to use this jig in a vertical fashion - plan on testing that out this weekend to see how it goes


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## lcurrent (Dec 14, 2008)

My Jig http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2534/3926678251_000584e1d8_m.jpg 


My mortises http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2521/3926672699_7222dffbde_m.jpg

Larry


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## Wood4Fun (Aug 29, 2008)

lcurrent said:


> My Jig http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2534/3926678251_000584e1d8_m.jpg
> 
> 
> My mortises http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2521/3926672699_7222dffbde_m.jpg
> ...


Hi.... do you have larger versions of these pictures? I'd like to take a closer look, but the pics are barely bigger than a thumbnail image

thanks


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## NathanT (Sep 11, 2009)

Not my idea, and still working on my LT jig using it, but I've seen plans for using an acrylic sheet as the base. This lets you see the workpiece below the router to confirm your positioning.


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## Jacktoo (Oct 8, 2009)

Love your jig, I think 3/8 acrylic would be perfect for the base.


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