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How to Cut the Maloof Joint by Hand

2 comments
7 years ago
Videos

A Blind Rabbet and a Tenon Walk into a Bar…

When thinking about how to cut the Maloof joint by hand you need to step back and examine it for what it really is. Its a notch that has rabbets cut on opposite faces. The leg part of the joint is 3 dados. Suddenly this iconic joint becomes a lot easier. The cut a notch in the seat, we saw out the extents and fret saw or chop out the waste in between just like a dado or dovetail pin. The rabbets are blind so a bit more complicated, but really almost identical to a hinge mortise. Finally the leg dados are just sawing the extents and chopping and router planing to depth.

But as with any complex joint, the actual cutting of it is a minor aspect. In fact the success of the cutting is based upon strong layout. So I spend a fair amount of time in this demonstration laying out both parts of the joint and taking care to use dividers to transfer dimensions instead of relying upon actual measurements. Still I think some efficiency could be added into this process and that will come with time as I cut a few more of these.

On the whole, whatever your feelings for this joint, it is a great sawing and chiseling exercise.

More How to Joinery

Some of the other popular joinery suggestions I received were for the Rising Dovetail and the Blind Mitered Dovetail. Both of these I have cut in demonstrations for my Apprenticeship students at The Hand Tool School. So I have pulled these lessons from the vault and made them available for individual purchase.

how to cut a blind mitered dovetailhow to cut the rising dovetail

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Jeremy

Great post and fun to see these joints that were clearly designed to be made by power tools made by hand. I’m not trying to be “that guy” but want to point out a couple of things that might be relevant:
-There is another “maloof joint” a splined circular mortise and tennon joint,.I think that this housed dado joint is his most iconic, even if his legacy company disagrees.
-The center point for your arc is off, unless the power tool you are simulating has a zero radius bearing guide. I realize this further complicates an already tricky layout.
I did really like your point about how a sharp corner might be easier to make by hand but could look “wrong” once sculpted. Good video.

    Shannon

    I’m sure there are many more inaccuracies between what I cut and what a power tool version would look like. But that misses the point a little. My point was not to exactly reproduce the power tool joint, but to produce the joint itself. And as stated the square corners while possibly stronger misses something aesthetically so a radiused corner is needed. The exact numbers of that radius are irrelevant as I’m creating that purely for aesthetic reasons. Hell I could curve it out and around and create a cyma curve it I wanted and rough stock of size could be obtained. Therein lies the beauty of this exercise: the techniques to produce it are the same and the actual numbers used are up to the creator.