Fake/ Faux or Foolish?

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I normally try to stay positive and not reduce myself to complaining or whinning too much, but has any one seen the new issue of Wood Magazine and the section they call "Skill Builders?"

If you haven't, its just an oxy-moron this month. They go into great detail (2 full pages) on how to make a screwed butt joint look like a through mortise joint.

The thing of it is, with all the accurate drilling they describe, the layout and all that, it would be just as easy to use a real through mortise and tennon. In fact I think it would be easier to do the real Mortise and tennon than to go through the process of making the same thing, but on a shortened scale.

I could see some guy sending in his method of doing this, but this was in a monthly section called Skill Building and written by the staff. Please! I always considered wood to be for the beginner type woodworkers and I have a real problem with this article. I just think its sending the wrong message to woodworkers that don't really know better.
 
I tend to agree with you, and personally don't like to use (won't anymore) faux tenons... but a lot of people do. And as you noted, it is quite a bit of bother to achieve a 'look'... so it IS skill building.

KC
 
I'm with you Travis. Never seen the point in going to great lengths to make a screwed butt joint look like anything else. I think the magazine would better serve its readers by encouraging them to attempt the through mortise joint instead, they're really quite easy.

I even had some reservations about decorative pegs and splines on table tops at a shop I used to work for - even though the details were arguably authentic Greene & Greene. Is a piece of fake joinery ok when its copying original fake joinery?:huh:
 
Maybe they ran out of ideas and needed something to fill the space.:D:dunno: I think that is too much work for a fake tennon. It would have been better to show how to make hidden dovetails.
 
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