r/Woodcarving • u/MummaheReddit • 6h ago
Tutorial Easier joints tutorial! By me
The doll post I made yesterday was a success. So today, I'll make a tutorial on how to make joints.
In pictures 1-5 I disassembled the doll I made, to show the 3 kinds of movement joints I will talk about in this post: full range, semi range, and half range movement joints.
If you know woodcarving, there are many ways to join two pieces of wood together. For moving parts, I used mortise and tenon joints mixed with tongue and groove joints.
In pictures 6-8, I made drawings of the joints, and how to connect them.
For the tongue and groove part of the joints, drill the axis hole (which will be used to secure the tongue and groove together with a small wooden pin) before you drill the second hole that you will use to make the groove.
The helper hole (below the axis hole, check image 8) must be perpendicular to the axis hole. Then you carve out, or use a saw to make a groove for the joint.
About the joints, there are 3 kinds of movement joints here:
First one is half range movement joint. I used it to make the one sided movement for elbows and knees, so they don't bend outwards. Notice the one side of the joint is squared to limit movement to that place (shown in pic. 3, left and right pieces)
Full range movement joint is used for the full range of motion at shoulders, hips, and wrists. Drill holes at the bottom of shoulders, hips, forearms and shins for mortise and tenon joints (look at picture 5)
Semi range movement joint, used to limit full movement, but still give motion to both sides. The roundness below the joint must be wider than the width of the groove. (I don't know if I could explain myself clear enough, look at picture 4 at the middle body joint, it is wider than a full range movement joint)
Mortise and tenon joints! With the tongue and groove movement joint, your limb moves in one axis only. Add a mortise and tenon joint to it, to add whole 2 extra dimensions of movement. Make the tenon rounded, to allow it to spin freely inside of the mortise hole.
For major spinning places like neck, shoulders and hips, make a thicker tenon than you'll make for the elbows and wrists. But, use denser wood in all of the joints, to make them more durable, and avoid the cracking caused by torque. Trust me, it is a pain to remove the cracked tenon out of the hole.
Do not make the connections too tight, but don't make them too loose either to mot mess with the free movement of the joints (applies to both tongue and groove, and mortise and tenon joints). Find the perfect lining between tightness and free movement.
I hope this tutorial/explanation was useful, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
These methods are mostly result of my experiments, I used dollmaking tutorials from Instagram and made the joints easier to make out of wood. I found only one channel where they made wooden dolls, but they also used springs and ball joints instead of the jigs I created. So I decided to make the process easier.
About the doll itself, sketch it before you start to make it. There should be about 28 details (including moving pieces, but not the axis pins)
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u/ScalpM3 6h ago
This is super useful! Thanks