Hand planes are main protagonist in all works I realize, few indeed, but satisfiing pleintfull my passion for classic woodworking.
Is the case of a little table I realized recently for a friend of mine.
Other than piece preparation by my wooden faithful bench planes, I had to face up to some traditional working, as tenon making, performed taking advantage from precision and efficiency of a well tuned plane.
The classic method for table building requires mortice and tenon assembly between legs and rails. Frequently, these tenons are quite large, not exactly easy to make by an handsaw.
The uniform dimensions in thickness and lenght allow me to adopt an alternative method to the handsaw cut: I used a rebate plane (a moving fillister plane I made). The job success depends by accurate piece squaring and their uniform thickness.
Aligned pieces are cut on both sides. The plane depth stop ensures a mirror cut and the tenon appears uniform, neat and with square shoulders. Morever, the process is faster than cutting each piece by handsaws.