In this video, you’ll learn two quick and easy tips for better-fitting joints, guaranteed to significantly decrease the amount of cursing.
For the first several minutes of this video, you’ll see time-lapse footage of the Samurai Carpenter, Jesse De Geest, milling some hefty stock that appears to be Doug fir. The stock will eventually become the door frame for some rather large French doors, which he begins assembling about half-way through the video. What’s cool, though, is Jesse’s technique for joining the mullions to the frame, and the tips that he offers for getting a tight joint.
At about 4:00, he starts getting into the technique and when it’s used. The approach, which De Geest says loosely translates into “killing the wood,” involves compressing the wood fibers in order to get a very tight joint. In this case, he’s fitting the mullion into a housing that he notched into the head jamb and threshold. If you over-compress the wood and end up with some slop in the joint? He’s got a fix for that at the very end: water.
