The hoe eye joint is the oldest wood bonding method. Originally favored by carpenters in ancient Egypt, the ships used by Columbus to explore the New World centuries later were built in this way. Today, this bonding method in the furniture manufacturing industry is even more applied day in and day out. It is often used for frame panel cabinet structures, as well as for the installation of cross-supports on tables and chairs.

This type of joining consists of two elements: a hoe protruding from the end of the plate and a hole in the joint with it. It can provide a large long-grained bonding area, after a good processing combination, can resist almost any external forces, swallowtail joint is even more difficult to disassemble.

There are many variants of the standard hoe-eye joint, such as tooth pin fastening closed-mouthed pass-through is often used to make the board, cylindrical closed-mouthed through-the-mouth, which makes the Windsor chair (a fine bone chair) not only look beautiful, but also very durable.

However, regardless of whether the hoe is semi-closed, wedged, rounded or beveled, the following basic rules must be observed when making it: the thickness of the hoe shall be one-third of the thickness of the work piece; The length of the hoe varies from the width of the body to the general body, depending on whether it runs through the eye work or is treated covertly, e.g. the length of the hoe that is closed is generally about 2 cm or more, although it is determined by the size of the work with which it is joined. The length of the closed-mouthed hoe may be the same thickness as the eye part.

In the following pages, a variety of hoe eye processing methods are demonstrated, for example, the hoe can be processed with a saw, hand saw or even a drill, the hoe can be machined with a saw, a drill, a carving machine or by hand with a chisel, just according to the actual needs and the tool configuration of the carpentry room, to choose the most suitable processing method.

The method of making the opening through

  1. Dash.

Secure the edge of the work piece up with a bench clamp, first marking the length of the hoe on its edge. Then, adjust the line pin spacing on the dasher so that it is equal to the thickness of the hoe — typically one-third of the thickness of the work piece. Adjust the liner stop position so that the proposed hoe is centered relative to the front and back of the work piece. Finally, the dash stop is attached to the surface of the work piece and the hoe line is drawed.

  1. Saw cut the hoe.

The hoe can be processed on the table saw with the help of an open hoe accessories, in order to see the cheek first, and then the sawing shoulder. When the work piece is clamped on the open hoe accessories, place a wooden block between the workware and the accessories to protect the surface of the work piece. Then, lift the saw blade, so that the edge of the blade is aligned with the work piece shoulder line, adjust the auxiliary support position, the blade aligns a hoe line, push the saw cut. After the saw, turn the work piece and saw another hoe line.

  1. Saw shoulder.

In the table saw angle push put on a wooden long mountain, work piece flat on the table saw workbench, its edge close to the mountain, adjust the saw depth, shoulder line aligned saw blade, and then, in the long side of the mountain with a fixture fixed a wooden block, the block to pre-open a corner groove, to prevent sawn off the wood chips between the block and the work surface accumulation. Push the saw to cut the shoulder on one side, then flip the work piece and then saw the shoulder on the other side.

  1. Saw opening the eye.

Reload the opener on the sawing workbench. After the eyeliner (the dash method refers to the aforementioned hoe line) is crossed on the work piece, the work piece is fixed on the opening accessories. Next, raise the saw blade to the eye depth line, push the saw cut, first saw the eye of the cheek line, and finally, as needed, between the cheek saws several more saws, in order to remove the scraps in the eye.

A method of making a closed mouth

  1. Processing the eye.

Secure the work tool to the work surface, in the eye area, using a woodworking chisel equal to the eye, supplemented by a wooden hammer, the cutting edge of the carpentry chisel sloped toward the scrap side, at a distance of 3 mm from the eye line vertical chisel, chisel depth of 6 mm. Next, at a distance of 6 mm from the first lower chisel position, repeat the above chisel hoe joint-carpentry joint manual 4 procedure and remove the waste as follows. After the woodworking cutting edge is cut into the wood, the chisel is pried in the direction of the edge slope by hand, at which point the cutting edge will pull the waste out of the bottom of the eye. Repeat the process, chisel, and squint, and pry the chisel in the opposite direction after cutting near the ends of the eye. Chisel to 3 mm from the other end of the eye line, first drop the edge slope, so that it is facing in the opposite direction, and then chisel. Repeat until the chisel reaches a predetermined depth.

Finally, trim the bottom and end faces of the eye. First with the keyhole chisel (also known as goose neck chisel) to trim the bottom surface of the eye, specific: the bottom side of the keyhole chisel bulge part against one end of the eye, and to the other end of the face direction. The cutting edge cuts the residual waste along the bottom of the eye, making the bottom surface smooth and uniform. Then, repeat the process in the opposite direction. Then, use the chisel that just chiseled the eye to trim the two ends of the eye. Specific: Chisel is perpendicular to the work piece, the chisel edge is aligned with the eyeliner, cutting off the 3 mm scrap that has just not been chiseled.

  1. Saw the cheek.

The order in which the four-shoulder hoe is processed is to see the cheek first and then the shoulder. First, draw the shoulder and cheek lines around the end of the work piece and lead the cheekline to the cross-section of the end of the work piece. Then, the end of the work piece is fixed up with a carpentry table pliers, in the use of a clip-back saw along the cheek line sawing, to the shoulder line stop sawing.

  1. Saw shoulder.

Secure the work piece in the auxiliary fixture (this fixture is not necessarily d’a) and align the shoulder line with the 90-degree saw slot of the fixture. After one side of the saw, flip the work piece, repeat the above steps, and see the other side. The final operation is to saw off the scrap at the edge of the hoe, first by fixing the top of the work piece vertically upward to the tongs and cutting the saw along the dash at the top of the hoe to the shoulder line. Then, flip the work piece 90 degrees to the side up, secure it and saw it along the shoulder line to the hoe. After that, flip the work piece again, face up on the other side, and repeat the steps just now.

Wood wedges reinforce the method of making closed-mouthed slugs

  1. Mill your eyes with a engraving machine.

Fix the work piece between the two pins of the work station, the front and rear end of the work piece should be clamped wooden pad blocks to protect the work piece, the work piece should be clamped under the wooden pad board, so as not to penetrate the work tool after injury to the work surface. Then, add a straight knife to the self-contained rail engraving machine, and the working diameter of the straight knife should be the same as the width of the eye. Next, set the engraving machine milling depth, because usually the eye is deep, (to avoid overloading the engraving machine) should be milled several times if necessary to reach the predetermined milling depth. Next, add a wooden long mountain to the sliding hill that the engraving machine randomly brings with it to increase its support surface. Next, place the engraving machine flat on the work piece, the cutting edge of the mill is aligned with the eyeliner on the work piece, slide close to the side of the work piece and secure it, hold the engraving machine with both hands, the milling cutter along the eye line, from one end to the other end to complete the eye milling. After the eye has been milled to a predetermined depth, use a chisel to square the angle of the eye.

  1. See the wedges on the hoe.

First, according to the method demonstrated earlier, complete the processing of the four-shoulder hoe, to ensure that the hoe length is long enough to run through the eye. The end of the work piece is then fixed upward to the table pliers, and two saws (wedge seams) are sawn out on the hoe head with a clip-back saw, the spacing between the sides of the saw and the hoe is approximately equal to the thickness of the hoe, and the saw stops the sawing when the hoe is about 7 mm.

  1. Insert the wooden wedge.

Make two wood wedges with a thickness comparable to the wedge seam, the width is the same as the thickness of the hoe, wedge and flatten, the wood wedge in the hoe section should not show thickness greater than 6.5 mm. Next, secure the assembled and glued work piece with a bench pliers, head up, glue the wood wedge and wedge it into the saw on the hoe until the wedge cannot continue. To alternately tap the wedge into the two wood wedges, so that the two wedges are about the same degree. After drying out, use a flat saw saw to see off the excess part of the wood wedge, so that it is level with the cross-section of the hoe, and finally, with sandpaper sanding flat.

A semi-closed-mouthed method of production

  1. Use a saw to machine the hoe.

A slotted blade should be pre-installed on the table saw, the thickness of the blade should be slightly larger than the length of the hoe, and then the wooden auxiliary support mountain should be installed on the platform saw (see page 53 of this article). Adjust the support mountain so that the sawing width is equal to the length of the hoe ( part of the blade is embedded in the curved groove of the wooden auxiliary mountain). Adjust the saw depth so that the thickness of the machined hoe is equal to the width of the cutting edge used to process the eye (if you intend to use a engraving machine to mill the eye, it should be equal to the working diameter of the engraving machine mill). Place the work piece face down on the workbench, its side and end cross-section respectively close to the angle pusher and the table saw against the mountain, start the table saw, push the material slot. After that, flip the work piece and finish slotting on the other side.

  1. Process half the shoulder on the hoe.

First, adjust the blade to the appropriate height to complete the slotting of the inner shoulder of the work piece. Then, move the platform in the direction of the saw blade to the mountain, complete the work piece outside the half-shoulder grooving processing, half shoulder width should be equal to the thickness of the hoe (if you want to make a frame-paneled structure like a cabinet door components, then, half-shoulder width should be equal to the side frame panel groove depth). Next, start the table saw and push the material out of the hoe and half the shoulder. If there is no panel opening on the work piece that is joined with this hoe, enter the next operation (step 3) and open the not opening at one end of the eye work piece to accommodate the half shoulder on thehoe.

  1. Open the not opening at one end of the eye to accommodate half the shoulder.

Secure the work piece on the pliers and use a chisel to process the eye on it (see page 71 of this article for details on how to operate). Then, using the half-shoulder processed in Step 2 as a template, draw the edges and depth lines of the notation on the eye work piece. Next, use a hand saw along the notch width line to separate the two saws at the end of the work piece and use a chisel to remove the scrap between the saws (below), each time the cutting thickness should be controlled at about 3 mm, to the notch depth line to stop the shoveling. If necessary, use a chisel to level the inside of the notch.

The method of making the oblique head closed

  1. Design and equipment commissioning. When designing an oblique hoe, draw a full-size projection of the chair on a solid plank or plywood.

Shown above is a full-size construction of the lower frame of the chair, including the legs and braces of the chair. In general, the front and rear sides of the chair are ordinary closed-mouthed hoes, two side-side cross-support ends are oblique hoes, and the legs of the chair must be processed out of ordinary squints. Specific: the two planks are flattened on a plank with a full-size construction chart, the edges are aligned to the corner of the construction chart, the arms of the carpentry active angle ruler are positioned on the inside of the two planks to extract the angle, and it is used to set the sawing angle of the saw blade saw blade of the table sawing groove (translator: after using the carpentry activity angle to take the tilt angle, the tightening screw on the angle ruler should be used to lock the angle, because in the next few steps to use this angle. )。 Next, add a wooden auxiliary support to the mountain next to the saw (as in this paper, the hoe-eye joint-carpentry joint manual 4, p. 53), and set the width of the blade slotting to 18 mm and the saw depth to 3 mm. Test saw on both ends of a piece of waste wood with the same horizontal support size as the side of the chair, and then put the wood on the construction map for a match (see inline diagram), such as the width of the saw blade slot correctly, the two ends of the wood shoulder line should be combined with the structure map, if not, you need to adjust the width of the mountain to increase the slotting, try the saw again until the two re-join. Next, according to the above-mentioned method of matching, repeatedly adjust the saw depth until the cheeks at both ends of the wood also double with the tectonic map.

  1. Process the sloping cheeks.

Once the saw width and saw depth of the slotted saw blades have been adjusted, they can be used to process the sloping cheeks on the work piece to be joined. Specific: First of all, with a saw push and auxiliary push material, at both ends of the work piece to process a single cheek (as shown above). Then, use the carpentry activity angle ruler in step 1 against the one-sided shoulder that has been processed, and draw the shoulder line (inline diagram) on the side of the workpiece. Next, move the table saw to the other side of the saw blade together, align the shoulder line of the work piece to the outer edge of the blade, and then adjust the hill to fit the end of the work piece, secure the hill and start the saw, push the material processing to the side cheek (right). And so on, repeat the above procedure to complete all the processing of the oblique cheeks. If necessary, the saw can be tested on the previous piece of waste wood and the saw width and depth of the saw can be properly fine-tuned to ensure processing accuracy.

  1. Table saw debugging before the saw side shoulder.

First, straight up the slotted blade on the table saw to a 90-degree angle. Then, place a plank parallel to the saw angle push chute, and then use the carpentry moving angle ruler used in step 1 to set the angle of the angle push (see figure above). After that, push the chair side-by-side support work piece facing down at a tight angle (the shoulder of the two long shoulders that have been sawn off the mountain side parallel, if not parallel, indicating that the work piece is reversed, the work piece must be flipped so that its other side can be placed face down), and then according to the length of the oblique hoe and the width of the shoulder on both sides to set the position of the saw against the mountain and saw depth.

  1. Saw side shoulder.

Just like sawing the cheek in step 2, the shoulders on both sides are sawn in two steps. The first step is to maintain the work part position of step 3, use the angle push and the table saw to guide the pusher to complete the one-sided shoulder sawing at one end of the work piece (as shown on the left), and then turn the work item horizontally 180 degrees to complete the one-sided shoulder sawing at the other end. The second step, as in step 3, to use the carpentry activity angle ruler again, re-set the angle push angle to the opposite direction (translation: this sentence is difficult to understand from the text, but the actual operation is very simple: as in the figure above, step 3 sets the push angle, the activity angle is placed on the left side of the chute, the plank is on the slide On the right side of the groove, then, when the angle is reset, the active angle ruler can be flipped 180 degrees horizontally on the right side of the chute, while the plank is placed on the left side of the chute), and then, using the same technique as the first two one-sided shoulders cut, the sawing operation of the two shoulders on the other side of the work piece can be completed.

The method of making the tooth pin fastening and closing the mouth

  1. Mark the pin position on the hoe.

First, make a four-shoulder hoe (as referred to on page 72 of this article), the hoe part should be long enough for it to pass through the eye with at least 2.5 cm protruding part, so that enough wood redundancy can be set aside to prevent the hoe from being cracked by tooth pins. Then, make a permeable eye that holds the hoe and assemble the joint. Next, use a pencil to draw a line between the cheeks of the hoe and the eye part (top left).

  1. Drill the pin hole with a table.

Split the work pieces and mark the drilling position point at 1.5 mm on the shoulder side of the line just now, which ensures that the joint of the work piece is tightly locked after the pin is inserted. Then, set the eyeliner by one-third of the thickness of the hoe and use the dasher to draw the contours of the pin jack on the cheek of the hoe (top right). Finally, a woodworking drill with a diameter slightly smaller than the width of the pin jack is pre-installed on the table drill, and a through hole through the hoe is drilled at the newly scratched drilling position point.

  1. Widen and repair the square pin hole with a chisel, and carry out slope treatment.

For slope treatment, the chisel tilts at a 10-degree angle in the direction of the hoe section and, as indicated by the dotted line on the left, chisels the outer side of the pin jack into a bevel.

  1. Production and insertation of dental pins.

A long triangle-shaped strip of wood is hardwooded and treated on one side according to the slope angle of the pin jack. The final step is to insert the tooth pin, simply put the tooth pin into the jack, with a wooden hammer to hit the locking part joint can be, do not use glue, because this joint is originally designed to facilitate future removal.

The method of making a closed-mouthed double slug

  1. The layout and dashing of the double hoe.

Before making a double hoe, the end of the hoe piece is machined into a four-shoulder hoe (see previous sections for this practice), and then a double hoe line is crossed on top of it with a combination angle ruler (above). The conventional practice is to divide the four-shoulder hoe into three parts, i.e. the width of the double hoe and their spacing are designed to be equally wide. When marking, mark the scrap section in the middle of the doublehoe with an “X” to avoid confusion.

  1. Remove the waste from the barn.

Secure the work piece hoe up to the table clamp, first with a clip-back saw along the side of the dash scrap to the shoulder, and then with a curve saw to remove most of the scrap above), be careful to see, so as not to see to the shoulder. Finally, use a chisel to smooth along the dash.

  1. Double eyeliner.

Refer to the thickness of the hoe, draw a double line on the surface of the eye part, indicating the width of the eye. Then, the hoe work piece and the eye work piece stacked with the workbench, the hoe work piece on the upper, the shoulder and just drawn a double line alignment, with a pencil along the cheek on the eye work piece to draw the eye contours. Finally, the waste in the eye is removed by drilling first, then chiseling or milling and then chiseling.