Mark E Smith
Member
- Messages
- 190
- Location
- Arkansas
Just got me an MLSC bird's-mouth router bit set, going to make some octagon planters, and maybe a few bird houses, never made these and a little confused. Every picture I see the routed edge is along the grain meaning when put together the grain will be running up/down, wouldn't this put enormous strain on all these joints since expansion and contraction will be side to side. Shouldn't the routed edge be on the end grain, then Exp/Cont is up/down and the side to side and the glue joint (which I thought was the whole point of (birds mouth joint) would be stable, or does it make a difference since each piece is so short, just curious since I have no experience with these, never knew these were around, I have always just did the math cut both sides of the board then went through the labor intensive task of putting dowels in each joint...probably way I rarely made these things...lol...also how do you determine how long each piece needs to be for a given diameter of final product.