When you construct anything with wood, you’re confronted with the problem of how to make two pieces stay together. This is called joinery, and in woodworking traditions it’s a specialized trade. Masters of joinery have developed ingenious ways to assemble pieces of wood, with perhaps the most legendary examples coming from Japan.

In the 10 years I spent there I often visited the Horyuji Temple in Nara, the world’s oldest wooden building, built without a single nail. During that time I worked with a German carpenter practicing Japanese joinery. Let’s just say that, as a woodworker who focuses mostly on utilitarian projects, I decided the required precision and patience were not for me.

However, that doesn’t mean I do all my wood joinery with glue, screws and nails. Many joining techniques call for cutting, shaping, digging and boring. But modern woodworkers — especially those on the clock — do this with power tools rather than chisels, mallets and hand saws.

If you’re starting out in woodworking, you don’t need to know how to make the most elegant joints unless that’s your specific interest. But you do need to know how to make some basic ones so your projects don’t fall apart.

What Is Wood Joinery?

It’s the art and craft of assembling wood to form a structure. Some types of wood joinery are necessary for any woodworking project that involves more than one piece of wood, so every woodworker needs to understand and use joinery techniques.

You can join pieces of wood in a straight line or at an angle, with 90 degrees the most common angle. Joinery is needed to construct tables, chairs, cabinets and drawers, as well as buildings and other large projects.

Many joints rely on fasteners to hold them together, but some of the more elegant ones work without them. The latter, as you might expect, call for more effort and a higher level of precision.

Wood Joinery Tools

These range from simple hand tools that have been around for centuries to modern power tools. The hand joinery tools you’ll find in a typical wood shop include:

• Chisels: Used to cut and pare shapes for joining. There are many types. Some, like mortise chisels, create specific types of joints.
• Mallets: Used to strike the chisels. They’re usually made of wood to prevent damage to the chisel handles.
• Hand planes: These shave wood to the precise dimensions needed for a tight joint.
• Hand saws: Precision tools. Japanese hand saws, which are widely available in North America, have thin blades and ultra-sharp teeth that cut on the pull stroke. Dovetail and back saws are other types used in joinery.

Most of the power tools you find in a wood shop have joinery applications, and some are intended just for joinery:

• A power saw: A table, miter or circular saw shapes wood and cuts grooves for various types of joints.
• A router: Another groove-cutting tool that also shape wood and digs holes.
• A jointer: A power planer that makes the perfectly flat, clean edge you need for lamination, the process of butting and gluing panels or pieces of wood together.
• A biscuit joiner: Cuts a precise groove for a biscuit, an oval-shaped spline used with glue to make a hidden butt or corner joint.
• A dowel jig: Used with a drill or drill press, positions dowel holes precisely on the ends or edges of wood. This way you can make hidden joints with cylindrical wooden dowels.
• Clamps: Hold glued joints together until the glue sets. A typical wood shop needs a collection of bar clamps, C-clamps and spring clamps.

A master craftsperson may also have tools for making specialized joints. These include jigs and saws for dovetail and finger joints, which make super-strong and elegant joints for drawers and cabinets. All of these take years to master.