Tongue-And-Groove Joint

Techniques

In this except from Wood Joints By Machine & By Hand, expert woodworker Randall A. Maxey goes through the steps of the tongue and groove joint.

Wood joints book cover, machine and hand techniques.

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Table of Contents

By hand

Tongue-and-groove joints are like edge joints except that the pieces are joined using a tongue on one piece that fits into a groove on the mating piece. The mechanical connection helps keep the pieces aligned during final assembly.

Stacked wooden planks on a table surface.

Three tongue-and-groove wooden boards illustration. — Tongue-and-groove joints are commonly used for flooring planks and cabinet backs

By hand

Creating tongue-and-groove joints with hand tools is best done with special-purpose planes. A plow plane or combination plane allows you to use a wide variety of blades for various joinery and decorative applications. One of the blades creates a tongue on the edge of a workpiece. A complementary straight blade creates a groove precisely sized to accommodate the tongue.

Tongues are formed by creating a rabbet along two edges of a workpiece, leaving a tongue in the middle. A plane especially designed to cut rabbets, like the No. 78 duplex rabbet plane, excels at quickly creating a tongue.

TOOLS NEEDED

Plow plane or combination plane

The plow plane and the rabbeting plane

You can find vintage plow, combination, and rabbeting planes but new ones feature better materials and machining, making them a worthwhile investment.