Wood Joints: Mastering 13 Basic Wood Joinery Techniques

Artisans have been practicing wood joinery for more than 5,000 years. The earliest known techniques date back to the ancient Egyptians, whose furniture bested the test of time. That tradition influenced Western civilizations, and Diderot, an 18th-century author, produced upwards of 90 artworks showing different types of wood joints. Given that woodworking joints continue to outlast adhesives and mechanical fasteners, mastering basic joinery methods allows artisans to create exceptional hand-crafted projects. The following rank amongst the most essential wood joints that craftspeople need to know.

What is the Easiest Way to Join Wood?

The butt joint represents the most basic way to join together two pieces of wood. It involves simply butting the boards together to form a 90-degree right angle. With the boards butted against each, you can then secure the joint with glue and/or some sort of mechanical fastener. The butt joint is considered the most common wood joinery technique and is used in construction and woodworking projects.

What is the Strongest Joining Method for Wood?

A mortise-and tenon-joint is considered one of the strongest wood joints. Listed among the top-tier skills a woodworker can possess, a mortise (slot) is cut into one board, and a corresponding tenon (tab) is cut into the mating board to fit tightly into the mortise. When the two interlocking pieces of lumber are combined, these woodworking joints can last thousands of years.

Types of Wood Joints Worth Mastering

Woodworking enthusiasts enjoy learning wood joinery techniques they can use to create awe-inspiring handcrafted furnishings. Professionals can charge far higher rates for items joined together with traditional methods. And wood joinery also holds the key to restoring historic structures and artifacts. If you fall into any of these groups or simply relish woodworking skills, these are types of wood joints to consider mastering.

Through Dovetail Joint

This wood joinery technique may be the most respected. Often used in high-end chests of drawers, the through dovetail is largely considered the gold standard even by people outside the woodworking trades. This wood joint requires enough tool-handling skills to cut several dovetail-shaped pins into the ends of the mating boards.

The perfect shaping of the dovetails can be done with a chisel and handsaw—an old-school approach—or with a router jig. And when the dovetail-shaped pins interlock with the sockets, which are the spaces between the pins, the 90-degree joint enjoys a unique aesthetic appeal. It’s also a sturdy joint that stands the test of time.

Half-Blind Dovetail

When a woodworker doesn’t want both edges of the joint be visible, a half-blind dovetail is a good option for creating an attractive, strong joint. The same basic joinery method is used to craft a half-blind. But the difference is that one board is cut directly into the extending end. The other is cut inside of the end. When they are interlocked, one dovetail is hidden. Furniture makers employ this joinery method when creating drawers.

Sliding Dovetail

The sliding dovetail follows the same basic idea as the through dovetail joint. But in this scenario, one board has a dovetail-shaped slot cut across its width or length without interruption. The mating board has a matching dovetail pin that extends across its width or length and fits tightly into the pin. To join the boards together, simply slide the pin into the slot.

Box Joints

The box joint tasks woodworkers with applying the same techniques as a dovetail. The primary difference stems from the fact the wood joints do not taper back to emulate the angled dovetail appearance. Using a chisel and handsaw, or a jigsaw on the router table or table saw, the joints are cut straight into the ends of the materials. It’s also possible to craft a blind box joint by following the same strategy as the half-blind dovetail. These woodworking joints may be a reasonable choice for inexpensive furniture making. They lack the aesthetic value and durability of classic dovetails.

Tongue and Groove

The tongue-and-groove wood joint provides superior strength to fasteners when bringing the edges of two square boards together. One edge has a shallow groove cut into it that runs the length of the board. A mating board has a tongue that extends from one edge that fits tightly into the groove. Each board usually has a tongue on one side and a groove on the other. This allows contractors or DIYers to cover entire floors, ceilings, and other areas with matching tongue-and-groove materials.

Mitered Butt

A mitered butt joint is similar to the basic butt wood joint, except that instead of cutting the ends of the boards square at 90 degrees, each is miter-cut to 45 degrees. As a result, when the miter-butt joint is completed there's no end grain showing. Most people find the butt-miter joint much more attractive than the basic butt joint.

Dado

To make a dado joint, woodworkers use a router, or dado blade on a table saw, to cut a square, flat-bottomed slot, typically along the length of a board or piece of plywood. The depth of the dado is usually half the thickness of the board, and its width is equal to the thickness of the mating board. To assemble the joint, simply tap the mating piece into the dado. Depending on the project, the joint can secured with only glue or glue and nails or screws. If you don't wish to see the dado joint, cut a blind dado. In this variation, the dado is contained within the board and is hidden from view.

Half-Lap

Few wood joinery techniques are as appropriately named as the half-lap. That’s because the half-lap wood joint involves reducing the ends, edge, or inner sections of two boards of equally thick lumber in half. Woodworkers cut the grooves using tools such as table saw, miter saw or router. The two pieces of material overlap and interlock, nesting neatly into one another. The half-lap ranks among the weakest types of wood joints, requiring plenty of glue.

Biscuit Joint

Biscuit joints are clever ways to join boards together without showing a hint of joinery techniques. This method involves using a portable power tool known as a biscuit joiner to cut a series of narrow, semi-circular slots into the edges of both mating boards. Then, into each slot in one of the boards, insert an oval-shaped, compressed beech spline, called a biscuit. Be sure to squeeze a little glue onto the biscuit, into the slots, and along the edge of the board. Spread glue into the slots of the second board, then press the two boards together and clamp them securely until the glue dries. There are several ways to use biscuit joints, but they are mostly used to join boards edge to edge to create wide panels, such as tabletops.

Pocket Joint

Pocket joints are another way to reduce the appearance of joinery and produce a more sleek appearance. This type of wood joint requires using a pocket-hole jig to drill steeply angled holes in one board. Then, you glue and clamp the two boards together and drive pocket-hole screws through the pocket holes to complete the joint. The jig provides a quick and easy way to precisely drill the pocket holes, ensuring very tight, strong wood joints. And note that pocket-hole screws are available with coarse threads for driving into softwood and fine threads for screwing into hardwood. Choose the appropriate screw for the wood you're using. This wood joinery strategy is commonly used to build cabinet and furniture.

Rabbet Joint

Earning their moniker from the French term “rabat,” which means a recess in a wall, rabbet joints are a fundamental technique in the cabinet-making trades. In a rabbet joint, the woodworker cuts an L-shaped notch into one board to accept the second board, forming a 90-degree right angle. Rabbets are usually cut with a table saw or router. Typically the rabbet depth is half the thickness of the board and its width is the full thickness of the mating board. For example, if joining together two 3/4-inch-thick boards, the rabbet would be 3/8 inch deep x 3/4 inch wide. Rabbet joints are widely used to strengthen corner joinery in cabinets, drawers, and wooden boxes, among others.