# Botched mortises



## TCrossan (Sep 9, 2013)

Ok, so I'm trying to make a trestle table with heavy white oak members and wedged through mortise joinery.
Everything is going just swell until I botched the beveled sides of the mortises. They are much too high an angle and the tenon will not fill the void when I try to drive the wedges in.
I need advice PLEASE!
I wasn't smart enough to cut and fit them one at a time so they are all wrong. Or at least I think they are wrong.
Also, it would be a plus if the finished project looked like it was designed that way too!


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

You may be able to use wedges to nearly fill the gaps at the mortise
ends, then wedge your tenons. It's like using 4 wedges instead of 2.
Try a test on scrap and see if you can get an acceptable result.

If you've already cut all the tenons, you can cut them off and
end-mortise the parts for loose tenons… actually just gluing them 
in and then proceeding to refit them as conventional through
tenons. Widen the mortises while you're at it to make the 
wedge angle shallower.


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## mbs (May 8, 2010)

I agree with Loren's second recommendation.


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