Using the French chair maker's vise on the hayrake table.

Using 80-20 for most of my jigs saved me a lot of time, but I still needed a fast way to cut shoulders on the 45 degree tenons. Given that it was only one table, it didn't make sense to me to spend a lot of time engineering a way to treat it like a production run. So, I used the French chair maker's vise that I built back in July of 2012:



It's really simple to use. The top surface is reference-flat. The material is clamped lightly in the vise, and the shoulder line is lined up with a gauge stick that's set to the height of the saw blade in a side-cutting saw that's also part of this arrangement. Once everything's in alignment, the material is clamped, and the saw cuts both shoulders to be in exactly the same plane. Clever, simple, efficient. Gotta love that...

 

 SO how accurately does it cut? Very accurately, as long as the gauge stick is right on, which is the current problem. As pretty as this picture is, I actually need to make a new gauge stick. The tenon sticks up above the vise, I'm actually cutting on the wrong side of the line. The joints all came together fine, but the tool should be working more accurately than this. (To be fair, the blade was pulled out farther than normal for these shoulders, so there may be some error introduced there, but even still... I need to give this some attention.)



Clean shoulders will make or break the look of a mortise and tenon joint, so they have to be done right. For this particular table, this was the most efficient way to get the job done that I could think of. For multiple tables, I might set up something on the table saw (if it was set up, which it's not, yet) or with router templates. But for one table, (8 angled joints) the chair maker's vise is such a quick and intuitive tool that it just made all the sense in the world to cut the shoulders that way.

Joinery's done... chamfers are next.