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Half Lap Joints
bball:
From searching the web it seems like a common method of making half lap joints is to make a bunch of kerf cuts with a circular saw and then chisel away the remaining wood (http://doityourself.com/power/quickhalflapjoints.htm). This seems like it might chip the wood causing a sloppy join in the end. Has anyone tried this method ? I was think of just using a router to router out the entire chunk of wood but it seems like that might take a while.
bball
wee beastie:
bbal,
if done properly this will hold well. The trick is to chisel evenly then sand ever so slighly. Then, you can connect using your favorite joint compound/glue.
Ideally you can use a radial arm saw that can make cuts adjacent to each other. This way you don't have to chisel anything as the blade will cut it all away. I'm not sure I would suggest doing this with a handheld circular saw, though as the saw may jump. I could be wrong on this, but do so at your own risk as I've only done this using my radial arm saw.
wee beastie
BobA:
You can also use your router but you would have to support the router so that the cuts would be even so a jig is probably called for. Also the lap joint would probably be made in several passes with the depth being increased with each pass. A nice clean joint could be done with a router but only if a proper supporting jig was fabricated. Really not a hard job.
BobA
bball:
Thanks for the input, I am going to experiment with both methods. I was talking to someone earlier who said the saw/chisel method works well if you have a pretty sharp chisel. I still think I'm leaning towards the router method but we'll see how the experiments go :)
bball
skirge66:
I know you didn't spacificly ask about it, another method you might think about is using a table saw (if you have access to one) using a dato blade, very fast and works like a champ...but the blade isn't cheap.
just a thought