Studio How-To: Designing a Tenon Shoulder Pocket

This will show you how to set up a tenon shoulder in Studio

You may have seen us set up a two-step Tenon cut in some of our Shaper Sessions videos. Here’s some instructions on how to create that cut in Studio using ShapeShifter.

Anatomy of a Tenon Shoulder design:

1. Origin Anchor
2. Pocket extremity
3. Stock Guide
4. Tenon

First, note the stock size. Here, our stock is a 3” x  4” rectangle with square corners:

Since the Grid will be aligned to the corner of the stock, it’s important to align this guide to the 0,0 point of the Studio Grid based on the edges you intend to grid.

We typically align the X according to Workstation’s Clamping Face, so the stock will be aligned to the positive X and negative Y.  There are a couple ways to do this:

• Drag the shape and it will snap the edges to the Grid
• In the Edit Selection menu change the anchor to the upper left, then enter (0,0) into the Position field

Make sure that Origin Anchor is turned on:

Alternatively, you could also find the stock size using Probe Rectangle and then Export it to Studio using Workspace Export.

Next, determine the tenon size. Here, we're cutting a rounded rectangle tenon that has a ¾” ledge, and the mortise will be cut with the 8mm x 35mm Upcut Cutter. We’re setting up the tenon with these parameters:

Note: Be sure to curve the corners according to the size of the bit that will be used to cut the mortise. The radius of the mortise is equal to the radius of the bit we're going to use.

You can do this quickly and easily by using Duplicate in Place on the rectangle that represents the stock and typing “+ 8mm” (our bit diameter) to the existing Size inputs. Make sure the Size input is unlinked: .

Once you have all three elements, select the innermost and outermost shape and click on ShapeShifter . 

One way to quickly select the two elements is to press Control or Command + A to select all your objects then use the Manage Selection menu to make sure you only select the intended shapes:

Once in ShapeShifter, click on the area between the two lines to highlight the area you intend to pocket. Make sure only this area is highlighted in blue and click “Make Shape.” The resulting shape should look like this:

You now have a compound shape that can be pocketed and finished. Note that your final cut will be an Inside Cut. This is because the inside area of the shape excludes the tenon itself. You can see how the design will cut in Plan Mode:

Note: Generally we encode the cut as a pocket. Once the pocket is cut, change the cut type to Inside to complete the tenon with a finishing pass.