| lay one of the mortised pieces on the saw table and raise the blade up until a marked tooth (mentally marked) lines up with the top edge of the mortise. Now raise the blade just a hair (better to be safe for the first attempt) to make the mortise just a hair thicker than it should be.
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| Clamp a stop against the fence. Use a combination square set to the length of the tenon. The distance from the stop to the OUTSIDE of the blade is the length of your tenon. Your stop should be a nice square piece of wood. The end should be square with both the table and the fence. This is important because you want all of your cuts to be accurate no matter what part of the piece being cut is touching the stop. Since I am right handed, I always put the stop on the right hand side of the blade. That way I can use my left hand to move the stock while keeping my right hand on the saw. You lefties are on your own.
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| Start with the a piece of scrap. A good choice would be one of the leftover pieces from cutting the frame to length after milling. Place the end against the stop. Nibble the waste away by swinging the saw back and forth while incrementally moving it away from the stop. Flip and repeat. Test the fit in a mortise and make any adjustments to the thickness by moving the saw blade down. If you followed the first step above, you will have a really tight fit that will need to be adjusted down (thinner). Once you get the adjustment right, cut all the tenon faces.
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| Now WITHOUT MOVING THE STOP cut all of the Tenon edges. The technique is the same only this time you will remove waste with the rails on edge instead of face down. I like to start at the end of the rail and move toward the cheek. This keeps the tenon from chipping or splintering. In case you haven't figured it out already, you will need to raise the saw. Use an already cut mortise to gauge the new blade height and go to town.
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