Common Woodworking Joints
How butt, dado, mortise-and-tenon, and dovetail joints differ, where each one earns its keep, and how grain direction decides which to use.
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Joinery & hand tools
The joints that hold wood together
This site explains the foundational woodworking joints and the hand tools used to cut them. It covers tool care, measuring, and the common joinery methods that turn rough boards into furniture built to last through a Canadian winter.
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Three reference guides
Each guide stands on its own and links to the others where the topics overlap, so you can start with whichever problem is in front of you on the bench.
Essential Hand Tools and Care
The small kit that handles most joinery, plus the sharpening and rust-prevention habits that keep edges working in a humid shop.
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Measuring and Marking Basics
Why a knife line beats a pencil line, how to work from a single reference face, and the habits that keep parts square and consistent.
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Why joinery matters
Wood moves; good joints expect it
Solid wood expands and contracts across its width as humidity changes through the seasons. In much of Canada the swing between a dry, heated winter interior and a humid summer is large, so a joint that ignores wood movement can split a panel or push itself apart over a few years.
The joints covered here are grouped by how they handle that movement and the loads placed on them, rather than by appearance alone.
How these notes are written
Plain description, no sales pitch
Each article describes a method, the tools involved, and the trade-offs. Measurements use both metric and imperial because shops in Canada commonly use both, and lumber is often sold in nominal imperial sizes.
Contact
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Email editor@zentriex.org
Location Ontario, Canada
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