Klein Tools Fox Wedge, Stainless Steel, 4-Inch 7FWSS10025

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In boatbuilding, planks can be fixed to the frames using oak trenails, wedged at each end and driven into blind holes in the frames. Used for splitting mating surfaces, flanges and wedging split fasteners, this range of fox wedges are useful in the engineering industry. The tenoned rail should be as dry as possible and it is worth drying on a radiator or other source of dry heat. While I’ve not used one in actual making work, I do use a version of the technique, (sans dovetailing the mortise) when I do repair work on chairs and tables where the extant joints loosened a few years prior and the piece has remained in use. The wedges then serve to fill the gaps causing the play, giving a mechanical boost to the strength of the joint and allowing glue to work properly.

I was going to ask what the forklift driver is going to say on Monday morning, but then I saw they were scrap! Eventually I took one of the forks back to work and cut it into fox wedges using the metal cutting bandsaw.

Though we never cut through a section as I did, it is comforting to see just how the wedges work to both compress the wood fibres and also close off any and all relevant air pockets and that there is zero splitting. Drilling a hole to strengthen a slot or right-angle is a classic trick, distributing the forces that would otherwise tend to be concentrated at the intersection of the two planes. I started off making 6 wedges, two for myself and two for two other fitters on the day team, then I made 4 more for two of the shift fitters.

In a video I once saw the same technique used in wooden boatbuilding when fastening the outer boards of the hull to the frames with wooden (round) plugs. Key to a good fox wedging of the tenon is straight, knot-free, non-fractious grain in the tenon area. First, chop the mortise to the exact width of the tenon with no allowances to the wide width of the tenon. When this happens, you rely on glue alone, which may well hold, but the idea of the joint is to create additional mechanical strength within the wood and the whole joint — integrity — integrated, whole, complete. when cutting the saw kerf, is it generally safe (and perhaps necessary) to cut at least 3/4 the depth of the tenon?I’ve always been wary of draw bore pinning quarter sawn oak tenons because I’ve always been afraid that the area between the pin and the tip of the tenon would split along the grain. Many woods are known more individually for their pliability and this will help you determine whether one or two will work in your project.