I found a couple of scraps of poplar in the basement and attempted my 2nd mortise and tenon. I have to say – Im much more pleased with this one. Its far from perfect – but it turned out way better than my first one. Working in hardwoods was much much easier than in whitewood.

I clearly still wasnt taking my time though – you can see I cut well into the shoulder as well..

But the joint seems fine otherwise. Taking my time Im sure I could clean this up. I purposefully left the tenon longer than needed so I could plane it down flush. While it looks flush – I can still feel the end grain even after my smoothing plane so Im not sure what’s up there.

Im more than anxious to get my work bench finished so I have an actual place to work. I can attribute a lot of the sloppiness to just where Im working.