LEARN TO MAKE MORTISE AND TENON JOINTS

Part three of our series on woodworking joints focuses on the time-honoured mortise and tenon.

THE WORD ‘MORTISE’ originates from the 13th century French word mortaise – a hole or groove into which another part is fitted to form a joint. ‘Tenon’ has been in English usage since the late 14th century. It describes a projection that’s inserted to make a joint. It’s derived from the French tenir, which means ‘to hold’ or ‘hold on’. The applications of mortise and tenon joints vary enormously. They’re used on items as small and delicate as jewellery- or trinket boxes, or projects as large as the construction of wooden ships and cathedral arches. The first-known artefactual evidence of mortise and tenon joinery is from a wood-lined well discovered in Altscherbitz near Leipzig in eastern Germany. It’s been dated at around 7 000 years old and is regarded as the world’s oldest intact wooden architecture. Mortise and tenon joinery has been found in the wooden planks of the ‘Khufu Ship’, sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt around 2500 BCE.

There’s solid historical evidence of the Phoenicians using mortise and tenon construction to lock planks together on the hulls of their ships. This technique involves the use of mortises along the top and bottom edges of the planks, and loose tenons that couple the ship’s hull planking together. These tenons are then pegged (dowelled) to lock each plank to the next one in the assembly.

So it’s clear to see that if you can master mortise and tenon joinery, you’ll be paying homage to a time-honoured building method.