Carpentry and Woodworking - joinery

What is the best way to make mortise and tenon joints for the rails and stiles on furniture doors? In other words what equipment and methods would make the job fast and accurate? What are some other ways to join them? Also, what is a good cabinet/ furniture making book? thanks Gerald

Hmmm... not entirely sure as I've not made rail-n-stile doors myself yet, but I don't think they are pure mortise-n-tenon joints. For straight up M&T joints, you can use either hand tools i.e. a back saw and chisels, or if you prefer power tools you can cut the tenons on a table saw or a router table (or w/ a hand held router and special jigs). The mortises can be cut w/ either a special power mortiser (looks like a drill press but has the reinforcements to take the abuse), a hand held router w/ a jig, or just use a drill press to drill a series of holes side by side to remove the bulk of the waste and then clean up w/ a sharp chisel. Another option would be 'loose' tenon joints, where you drill/chisel/route mortises in both pieces, and join them w/ a large tenon (separate piece) that plugs into both. A little like a big, really strong dowel.

As far as books, I'd say toddle on over to www.taunton.com and root around. All kinds of excellent woodworking books (they also publish Fine Wood Working and Fine Home Builder magazines).

Sorry I can't give you more specifics on rail-n-stiles.

Monte

I personally have done mortise and tennon joints on cabinetry for my clientele.

You can do the tennons on the table saw with tennoning jig, which you can purchase at www.rockler.com. "Not necessary, but makes the job go faster" It will be about $70.00

To do the mortises which are the most time consuming thing, I bought a Jet mortising machine from www.rockler.com for 199.99 or so. It comes with 1/4" 3/8" and 1/2" mortise chisles.

I'll tell ya, it has to be some of the most well spent money I've ever invested in. It litterly cuts your time in more than half.