Wood – How to make a Bevel Lap Splice joint, for connecting a portable floor

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I'm new to woodworking, and I've read that I could potentially create this joint using a table saw, jointer, or even a circular saw – but I do not want to rent/purchase one and find out that I can't.

Here is what it looks like / description:

Bevel lap splice joint The bevel lap is a variation of the half-lap in
which the cheeks of the opposing members are cut at an angle of 5 to
10 degrees, sloping back away from the end of the member, so that some
resistance to tension is introduced. This helps to prevent the members
from being pulled apart.

enter image description here

I will be making floor panels that will hook together using this joint, and can easily be picked back up and stored.

Best Answer

This will be a tricky joint, and it won't be as strong as you'd like, because the 'neck' of the bevel will be pretty thin. But I'm going to explain how to do it.

You need a table saw and a jig/sled to hold your board vertically. This jig is usually used to make the 'cheek' cuts on tenons, so you may have one.

You'll make two cuts--one shallow crosscut at the deepest point of the bevel, and one face cut to make the bevel itself. Then you can optionally clean up the junction, or, you cut the notch a little deeper (at the expense of weakening the wood further); I show the latter (faster) solution here, since you'll be doing a LOT of these.

enter image description here

  1. Carefully set the depth of the cross-cut to the depth of the bevel. (See picture two.) Cut a notch across the bottom of the wood.

  2. Mount the piece of wood vertically in your cheek-cutting sled. Set the angle of your table saw to the angle of the bevel, looks like about 5-8 degrees might be enough. Adjust the left-right position of the sled so that the top of the cut lines up with the corner of the bevel. (See picture three.)

I have totally exaggerated the amount of kerf and overcut you'll get just so you can see the dangers. In practice you can make the second cut so that it doesn't overcut at all.

The annoying part is you can't test the fit until after step 2, which means you have to recreate the depth for step 1. Not the end of the world, just take your time and sneak up on the depth from the 'shallow' direction.

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