# Getting an Old Pigsticker Ready for Work



## paulc (8 Mar 2022)

Hello, 

I’ve recently invested in a few old pigsticker mortice chisels. The blades are all trapezoidal in profile - wider at the back of the blade than at the front. Am I right in thinking this is the correct form for these?

However, the largest of them – 15.5mm at the cutting edge, the one I’m hoping to use soonest, is more trapezoidal than the others and is also wider from top to bottom? 

It tapers suddenly from the tip down 40mm and then more gradually for the rest of the stock. Is this normal? 

What steps do I need to take to get this chisel where it should be for good, accurate work?

Here are its details : Hope it’s OK in metric.

Cutting egde = 15.5mm / Blade length = 185mm

*Width at Back of blade:*

20mm down from tip = 15mm

40mm down from tip = 14.5mm

60mm down from tip = 14.3mm

100mm down from tip = 13.8mm

140mm down from tip = 13.2mm (2.3mm narrower than cutting edge)

*Width at front of blade:*

20mm down from tip = 14.8mm (0.2mm narrower)

40mm down from tip = 14mm (0.5mm narrower)

60mm down from tip = 13.8mm (0.5mm narrower)

100mm down from tip = 13mm (0.8mm narrower)

140mm down from tip = 12.3mm (0.9mm narrower)


Appreciate your advice.

Thanks, Paul


----------



## Droogs (8 Mar 2022)

yep, makes them easier to wiggle


----------



## Eric R (8 Mar 2022)

The explanation I've seen is that the top to bottom difference helps prevent the chisel twisting as you chop so that the walls are straight. In my limited experience using pig stickers with this shape, I am able to chop to the mortice and keep the walls straight.


----------



## D_W (8 Mar 2022)

You'd never get them out of a mortise if they had straight sides. here's where they create a uniform width -you use a chisel like this riding the tip of the bevel (not the whole bevel, but rather a steepened tip). As you're riding the bevel down the stock side of the mortise, the chisel isn't going straight in, it's operating somewhere around the bevel angle and the bottom of the chisel is scraping the sides as the chisel penetrates. 

It's worth learning to ride the bevel if you don't do that when mortising. The tall cross section of these chisels is for slipping the chisel in a heavy cut in a deep mortise - it's a little awkward if a mortise is shallow (even 1 1/2-2 inches deep is a bit shallow to make use of the way a pigsticker is intended). 

This idea of slipping the chisel in a heavy cut is something you can experiment - as you get deeper in a mortise cleaning the ends, you can take a larger and larger cut (instead of the cabinetmaker type cut of 1/8th or so, you can start to take big bits, rotate the chisel (this won't work with a chisel that's not as tall bottom to top) and a fairly large chunk will split from the stock in the mortise. You tap the chisel a few strikes deeper and rotate again and you can take another chunk it. IT's a little less accurate, but for fast work (like deep mortises in lumber that's not that dry anyway in a lot of cases) it's very fast. This deep rotation is also where the rounding on the top of the bevel comes in - to slip the chisel deeper and pull it back out of a deep mortise, it's far easier dealing with the top rounding than a single flat bevel with a crisp angle at the top. 

If you have a lot of mortising to do, you may wish to wax the bevel side of the chisel - especially if it's a laminated chisel (there will be more bevel friction than with hardened steel. I mentioned the friction at one point and someone who's a fan of reading historical texts mentioned that - was it roubo? Never read it - sometimes used or said others used fats to reduce bevel friction when mortising).


----------



## D_W (8 Mar 2022)

by the way, I'm describing why the chisel is tapered in its thickness. It's tapered in its length for the same reason - to prevent getting stuck. 

Plus, if you're making a chisel out of steel that can warp, it's in your favor to taper a chisel in its length a little bit). A double tapered mortise chisel for large work is superior to one that's equal width and tapered in thickness and the latter is superior to a square and evenly machined sash mortise chisel (which doesn't have any of that stuff since sash mortises are shallow).


----------



## dannyr (8 Mar 2022)

paulc said:


> Hello,
> 
> I’ve recently invested in a few old pigsticker mortice chisels. The blades are all trapezoidal in profile - wider at the back of the blade than at the front. Am I right in thinking this is the correct form for these?
> 
> ...





paulc said:


> Hello,
> 
> I’ve recently invested in a few old pigsticker mortice chisels. The blades are all trapezoidal in profile - wider at the back of the blade than at the front. Am I right in thinking this is the correct form for these?
> 
> ...



And handle? The majority seemed to have been sold with a beech handle, occasionally with ash, but the user rehandled pigstick chisels one finds are almost always with ash or sometimes hickory -- two reasons, I think, one that a length of broken pick axe handle (mostly hickory) makes a great nearly fully ready shaped handle of this type, the other is that if you are tempted to clout it with a steel headed hammer, a beech handle really won't like it, leather washer or no. 

As I know I could never guarantee that I wouldn't mistreat it if I couldn't see my wooden mallet, I'd go for ash every time. On the other hand if you find a set with the original beech handles in good nick, you know they've been looked after by a well trained craftsperson.


----------



## paulc (9 Mar 2022)

Thanks for the replies, really informative and interesting. 

Only mortice chisels I've used have had parallel sides so great to get confirmation on the back to front and the top to bottom taper. Really pleased, as it looks a great tool. Not in the workshop now but fairly certain that it actually has an oak handle dannyr, which I've not seen before but looks original.


----------



## D_W (9 Mar 2022)

When you start cutting deep mortises with one, and you fit a tenon and pin or glue it well, the thought of tapers causing inaccuracy will go away quickly. 

Years ago, I had a set of japanse mortise chisels made by a fairly expensive maker (I found them cheap used, but they were supposedly $150 per chisel). They didn't have enough taper on the sides and were extremely tight to deal with in mortises. One day, making M&T face frames, one of them broke at the lamination. I boxed up the other three and sold them on ebay, disclosing that I broke one and they'd be trouble in deep mortises - enough of that nonsense. They sold reasonably well. 

I never looked further at the brand, but it's often the case that a mid-level japanese chisel in europe and the US is half the price in japan. 

FWIW, I bought them for about $50 each and sold them for about $60 each (three sold vs. four bought, of course). They were branded "miyanaga" and a quick look shows bench chisels to be around $70-80 from japan - very typical of what we get in the west as a penalty for not being able to speak or read japanese).

AT any rate, I've only seen sloppiness in rough mortising with exaggerated taper tools (nothing like this - think chinese chisels where the width at the tang is just over half of the width at the blade), and even then, the results aren't that bad - the taper allows really rough work to be done without a chisel sticking - sides of the mortise in that case are cleaned later.


----------



## D_W (9 Mar 2022)

dannyr said:


> And handle? The majority seemed to have been sold with a beech handle, occasionally with ash, but the user rehandled pigstick chisels one finds are almost always with ash or sometimes hickory -- two reasons, I think, one that a length of broken pick axe handle (mostly hickory) makes a great nearly fully ready shaped handle of this type, the other is that if you are tempted to clout it with a steel headed hammer, a beech handle really won't like it, leather washer or no.
> 
> As I know I could never guarantee that I wouldn't mistreat it if I couldn't see my wooden mallet, I'd go for ash every time. On the other hand if you find a set with the original beech handles in good nick, you know they've been looked after by a well trained craftsperson.



I have a set of sorby (I. Sorby or IH, I'd have to look) laminated pigstickers that all have ash handles. I think three of them were unused (two were used sparingly - and I set up and used one of the unused). 

Though just because they were originally handed with ash doesn't mean they were done by the manufacturer or dealer. I don't know the english oaks that well, so I also can't ensure they're ash. All of the handles have tight small radius grain, though - one has the core of what's probably a branch in the handle, but the others don't. 

If anyone is worried about breaking handles (i'm guessing this happened often), a big urethane mallet should be reasonably easy on them without resorting to something awkward like a dead blow). They're hit harder than a typical bench chisel, but it's not necessary to swing them like a blacksmith would hammer steel to retain the heat.


----------



## dannyr (9 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> I have a set of sorby (I. Sorby or IH, I'd have to look) laminated pigstickers that all have ash handles. I think three of them were unused (two were used sparingly - and I set up and used one of the unused).
> 
> Though just because they were originally handed with ash doesn't mean they were done by the manufacturer or dealer. I don't know the english oaks that well, so I also can't ensure they're ash. All of the handles have tight small radius grain, though - one has the core of what's probably a branch in the handle, but the others don't.
> 
> If anyone is worried about breaking handles (i'm guessing this happened often), a big urethane mallet should be reasonably easy on them without resorting to something awkward like a dead blow). They're hit harder than a typical bench chisel, but it's not necessary to swing them like a blacksmith would hammer steel to retain the heat.



mmm, interesting - although I used to think slow growth was always the best wood (I'm obviously not an expert), apparently the toughest ash is very fast growth and the ash handle chisels I have are very wide grain, and certainly not small branch wood, although they could have been fast grown coppice of, say, 9in plus diam. Unlike softwood, which seems denser the closer the rings, as far as I can tell, as one of my ash handles is off, it's not only very hard (age?), but also maybe denser than average ash (or is that the linseed oil?).

I do like the look and ovality of those ps handles, but I do wonder whether something like a big registered handle (note, these were always ash) wouldn't be better, not that I'm doing that to mine. But then I have been lucky enough to also put together a set of laminated blade socket mortise chisels of the old Sheffield type with big socket that doesn't fall off and has a top steel ferrule around the (always ash) handle. Below the socket these have the same blade type and geometry as the pig sticker.

I know these are just handles, but it's a pain if they don't feel or look right, and especially if they break.

Unlike some countries, we never used oak as a chisel or tool handle here in UK, don't know enough to say why - certainly some very old English oak I have is very hard and seems tough as could be.


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

Yes the wider face/flat side taper is functional. You bang the thing in vertically and if it doesn't come out easily you tweak it back a little then tweak it forwards again and it will be looser.
There's a very specific technique for chopping the mortice efficiently - you have the chisel vertical all the time (except for the aforementioned tweak) and you cut a thin slice _off the face of the previous cut_, which will then be deeper. Work towards one end face forwards and stop a little short, turn and work back again face forwards. Chippings take care of themselves and no levering or other fiddling is required. If they haven't already fallen out you just carry on chopping through them.
You may need to clear them from the bottom of a blind mortice and this is where the other MT chisel feature comes into play - the rounded bevel enables better leverage into the corners - it works the same as other curved levering tools such as claw hammer.
Handle needs to be straight grained (cleft) knot free hardwood with the grain well in line with the blade. Ash or beech commonly used. Small branch wood is handy as it's not much use for anything else except knobs and tool handles.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (9 Mar 2022)

I have a sash mortice chisel from a good maker that so badly rhomboid in section it can only have been deliberate. I wonder what on earth the reason for it is.


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I have a sash mortice chisel from a good maker that so badly rhomboid in section it can only have been deliberate. I wonder what on earth the reason for it is.


For cutting rhomboid shaped mortices in glazing bars. It's a particular design of glazing bar which has a plain bevel on both sides (no moulding) but no flat sector in the middle. The resulting tenon will be rhomboid. It's a very neat design and looks trim, but best of all it will let condensation run off more easily and you wont get little puddles on the top of horizontal glazing bars.
PS begs the question - would you need two with opposite angles or cut the mortice from one side and then the other? Dunno!


----------



## dannyr (9 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I have a sash mortice chisel from a good maker that so badly rhomboid in section it can only have been deliberate. I wonder what on earth the reason for it is.



Yeah, I have one like that, which is also longer than usual - assumed it was a reject.


----------



## D_W (9 Mar 2022)

The tops of the oval bolstered mortise chisels wouldn't be rounded if they were intended to be used with bevel toward the waste side. I don't know why anyone would use them vertically straight down the grain - they literally do not scrape the sides of the mortise unless they're used with bevel facing the stock to be cut. 

The cut is also easier to make if it is up the grain (with the bevel, chisel working into the wood vertically, but essentially cutting at the angle of the bevel) than if straight across it.


----------



## dannyr (9 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Yes the wider face/flat side taper is functional. You bang the thing in vertically and if it doesn't come out easily you tweak it back a little then tweak it forwards again and it will be looser.
> There's a very specific technique for chopping the mortice efficiently - you have the chisel vertical all the time (except for the aforementioned tweak) and you cut a thin slice _off the face of the previous cut_, which will then be deeper. Work towards one end face forwards and stop a little short, turn and work back again face forwards. Chippings take care of themselves and no levering or other fiddling is required. If they haven't already fallen out you just carry on chopping through them.
> You may need to clear them from the bottom of a blind mortice and this is where the other MT chisel feature comes into play - the rounded bevel enables better leverage into the corners - it works the same as other curved levering tools such as claw hammer.
> Handle needs to be straight grained (cleft) knot free hardwood with the grain well in line with the blade. Ash or beech commonly used.



Ever use swan neck?


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

dannyr said:


> Ever use swan neck?


No. They are more for deep lock mortices I imagine. I've never used one or felt the need.


----------



## D_W (9 Mar 2022)

dannyr said:


> mmm, interesting - although I used to think slow growth was always the best wood (I'm obviously not an expert), apparently the toughest ash is very fast growth and the ash handle chisels I have are very wide grain, and certainly not small branch wood, although they could have been fast grown coppice of, say, 9in plus diam. Unlike softwood, which seems denser the closer the rings, as far as I can tell, as one of my ash handles is off, it's not only very hard (age?), but also maybe denser than average ash (or is that the linseed oil?).
> 
> I do like the look and ovality of those ps handles, but I do wonder whether something like a big registered handle (note, these were always ash) wouldn't be better, not that I'm doing that to mine. But then I have been lucky enough to also put together a set of laminated blade socket mortise chisels of the old Sheffield type with big socket that doesn't fall off and has a top steel ferrule around the (always ash) handle. Below the socket these have the same blade type and geometry as the pig sticker.
> 
> ...



Oak in the US is also stiffer if it's faster growing (the rings being the weak part) - as well as harder. As far as the center being in a handle, it's generally the least easy to split. I'm guessing if a wide flat area with wide rings were used, parts of the handle can split off more easily. 

Japanese chisels are often branch wood with pith somewhere in the handle (the wood is dense and resiliant there. 

I don't know if there's any significance to the wood being limb wood other than the fact that limb wood isn't stable doesn't matter much in a chisel handle and that it's easy to get limb wood off of a live tree in sizes that don't need to much working.


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

PS forgot to add - the ideal clamp for holding a piece you are morticing is your bum. You sit astride it on a saw horse, or even a purpose made mortice stool. Ergonomically perfect for malletting a vertical chisel between your knees. (careful  ). Much easier than doing it bench height and it's hard repetitive work so the easier the better, sitting down all day! Also you don't need to clamp it or hold it down.


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

paulc said:


> .......
> 
> What steps do I need to take to get this chisel where it should be for good, accurate work?


Sharpen it.
A rounded bevel is useful as well as making sharpening easier.
n.b. the chisel is designed to cut mortices at the full width of the chisel, hence 5/8", 1/2", 3/8" etc down to 1/8", are common.
Your 15.5mm is 5/8" near enough.


----------



## D_W (9 Mar 2022)

Someone has been watching too much youtube. For cabinet size work, this is generally done at the bench standing in line with the length of the mortise. The handles are probably flat on sides of the oval bolstered chisels because if you're standing behind them, you get a feel for straight ahead and they fit the shape of your hand a little better. mortising something properly like this is not physically difficult - you do it in a relaxed standing position. If you're starting to get tired forearms or shoulders, then allow the mallet to rest on the bench (without releasing your grip) while you lever a chisel.

Implementing a count is good for repetitive tasks (as in, something done with 75 repetitions may be exhausting and cause soreness the next day, but you could do it 30 repetitions 15 times in a period of several hours and feel little from it). To do hand work productively, you have to find the point where something like this is the case - that the actual rhythm of the work provides the breaks that you need to work continuously without straining.


----------



## D_W (9 Mar 2022)

Do not follow jacob's advice rounding the full bevel of this chisel - you will regret it if you do. 

look closely at this chisel. There is a small stout bevel at the tip (which may be hard to see) so that you don't chip the edge off easily. Then the bevel is a long straight run, and the transition to the top of the chisel is rounded (which allows it to be slipped around bevel down in a deep mortise - this becomes instantly apparent if you use one if these with a fat blunt face or a sharp transition from having one perfectly flat bevel). 

I think most of the advice given for using pigsticker type chisels are from people who have never used them in actual work - it's not that common if you're working at a bench to have something where they're more useful than a smaller chisel for mortises, but for deep work (like 2 1/2 or 3 inch deep mortises, let's say) they shine because they can rotate deep in. 

Nearly every good oval bolstered chisel still in decent shape has the profile you see here. 









5 vintage mortice chisels 3/4" - 1/4" heavy motice carpentry chisels | eBay


Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 5 vintage mortice chisels 3/4" - 1/4" heavy motice carpentry chisels at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



www.ebay.ca





This isn't the time for paul sellers-ish type willy nilly mix and match advice.


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> Do not follow jacob's advice rounding the full bevel of this chisel - you will regret it if you do.
> 
> look closely at this chisel. There is a small stout bevel at the tip (which may be hard to see) so that you don't chip the edge off easily. Then the bevel is a long straight run, and the transition to the top of the chisel is rounded (which allows it to be slipped around bevel down in a deep mortise - this becomes instantly apparent if you use one if these with a fat blunt face or a sharp transition from having one perfectly flat bevel).
> 
> ...


Nonsense. And boring!


----------



## Phil Pascoe (9 Mar 2022)

Popcorn time.


----------



## Jacob (9 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Popcorn time.


I have my stalker on ignore but had to have a peek as, as I guessed, he knows nothing about hand morticing. I'll stop there, back on ignore!


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Nonsense. And boring!



It would be easier if you gave better advice, but you're not doing much of what you say you're doing. I doubt there are many people doing deep mortises, but furniture mortising is generally done riding the bevel. There is a mechanical part of this that you're completely failing to understand. The mortise does not end up getting scraped by the chisel while being cut unless the bevel is down. You need to think about this a little bit harder. 

The tops of these chisels are very deliberately rounded, and it's only sensible to do that if the bevel is into the stock side of the work. 

I cannot help that you started working long after this stuff was dead trade. But I also can't watch you give bad advice to someone who will probably judge yay or nay whether or not this is doable. You'll have butchering a tool that works wonderfully if used right. They're entitled to do that afterwards, but ought to use it properly first and see how it works. 

There is no good reason to be a hack as a default or first try, though. It makes no sense as it's less effort to actually do it properly.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

By the way, don't flatter yourself with the stalker stuff - I see you as a guy who has done little of what you speak of (but I have no trouble believing you did a lot of shop and site work with power tools) and you speak with such (unfounded) confidence that a lot of people will believe you until they've been around here long enough to see that you parrot the same simplistic thing over and over.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> ...... you're not doing much of what you say you're doing.


I've done hundreds of mortices by hand, before I bought a machine, and still do them occasionally just to keep my hand in


> I doubt there are many people doing deep mortises,


I guess my deepest is about 5" through stiles of many trad doors I've made, but I've never given "deepness" a thought.


> but furniture mortising is generally done riding the bevel.


No it isn't. I've never heard of "riding the bevel" - it's just somebody's "good idea" which may well have caught on in some areas


> There is a mechanical part of this that you're completely failing to understand. The mortise does not end up getting scraped by the chisel while being cut unless the bevel is down. You need to think about this a little bit harder.


Nothing to think about I don't seem to have a problem in this area. Maybe you need to think about it a little harder yourself


> The tops of these chisels are very deliberately rounded,


No they aren't


> and it's only sensible to do that if the bevel is into the stock side of the work.


Makes no sense at all


> I cannot help that you started working long after this stuff was dead trade.


I was taught by someone who spent a long time working when it was still a live trade. Oddly enough - cutting a mortice was the first thing he taught me when he saw how badly I was doing it, I was probably "riding the bevel" or some such nonsense  The vertical chisel idea was a revelation. The idea is to emulate the movement of a hand morticer. Hand Mortiser


> ....It makes no sense as it's less effort to actually do it properly.


Correct. Something you obviously need to learn.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> By the way, don't flatter yourself with the stalker stuff - I see you as a guy who has done little of what you speak of .....


I have done a lot of what I speak of. I see you as a guy who has done little of what you speak of.
Enough of this childish chest beating, fun though it is, back on ignore!


----------



## dannyr (10 Mar 2022)

Hey hey, fellows


----------



## Phil Pascoe (10 Mar 2022)

Popcorn time. I was right.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Popcorn time. I was right.



Movie's over! Just part of the general PSA about tools being made by the maker for professionals at one point, and at a time where their performance mattered from an economic standpoint (mortising machines and power drills probably eliminated the need for pigstickers - to the point that they were never made in an automated process later whereas the bench chisels appear to have been switched to automated grinding setups mid1900s or a little earlier). 

My point about using these also stems from a debate in the US about how the rounded top of the flat bevel is there to prevent bruising the ends of mortises. it doesn't really do much for that. In a mortise where that part of the chisel is buried (which can be pretty deep given the length of the bevel), removing the sharp corner on the top of the chisel allows pounding the chisel in (bevel down) fairly deep, then literally pulling the chisel back up just a hair (you can't break a huge chip off at the point of the cut, but if you pull the chisel up a 16th or so, you can strip a large chip from the sides of the mortise pretty easily) and rotating. The thickness of the chisel allows for a generous amount of rotation. 

This is sort of crude compared to the more standard method of taking equal incremental shavings off of a mortise and has mostly to do with dealing with the ends of a mortise - this will make sense if one uses these bevel down as they'll cut at an angle equal to the bevel angle. Cutting across end grain at an angle is always easier than cutting directly across, and it preserves the ability to rotate the chisel at the bottom of the cut to sever any waste near the bottom. but it leaves you with two triangles to clear. The round part at the top of these chisels always you to move the chisel a little more easily - if it's sharp, they don't move in a deep mortise easily. 

I have never read what I posted here - I figured it out and it helps illustrate why these chisels are often used little - a mortise has to be deep enough so that appreciable work is done with the rounded top of the bevel below the top of the cut. Otherwise, it doesn't do anything. The long bevel on these chisels is a product of the thickness of the chisel, which means you're really not getting into any advantages with them until the whole bevel is comfortably in a mortise. 

Mine came with a crude secondary bevel on the tip of the chisel. It's my opinion after using them that the reason for that in the original laminated chisels is to eliminate riding a wrought iron bevel against wood end grain (lots of friction) so that only a small part of the chisel is in contact with the mortise. This is, again, a matter of effort and efficiency. Something that doesn't matter in sellers-jacobean woodworking, but would've been a big deal when you were doing bulk work with these instead of using a mortising machine. 

The secondary bevel is crude and often not even square, I guess, because it was applied quickly by someone at a grinding wheel. 

The fact that these things have to "go deep" to really get usefulness out of their ability to break out big chips bevel down (at the bottom of a mortise) means that there's not going to be that many instances where they're useful above and beyond a sash mortise type chisel or a smaller socketed chisel with a tall cross section and a little taper. 

The tapered width on them also helps a lot in deeper mortises if you're being a little inaccurate. 

I was only told later (when I mentioned friction) that some of the old texts talk about experimenting with oils and fats on the bevel - never tried it. If you're making a lot of beds or something where you'll have a one pass mortise that's deep, then these things suddenly become useful. if you're making cabinet mortises, probably not, and if you're making mortises that are deep and wide, it's probably far more productive to cut two narrow mortises and then remove the center with a regular chisel, or cut one and then work from left to right or right to left, or remove most of the waste with a turn screw and then pare the walls.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

if anyone is wondering why I'd figure all of this stuff out? I make tools. If you want to make good tools, sometimes it's nice to figure out why they were made a certain way rather than guessing. In the case of something like pigstickers, the answer is usually disappointing (that they have a pretty narrow application - which also explains why a lot of them are floating around with the factory primary bevel still on them, or as with my set, 3 of the five carefully made and marked by the user, and then never used. )

The other thing interesting about this is when I started making chisels, I wanted to make good bench chisels, because people actually use those. Somewhere around half of the emails that I've gotten are:
" can you make me a set of paring chisels?"
" when are you going to make pigstickers?"

I can make both. I've made some of the former. I've never bothered to make the latter because I seriously doubt anyone will ever be doing the narrow range of work that they're good for by hand in volume, and I'm not lighting the forge to make chisels for (no more than) the cost of materials when they're not going to be used. I already gnash my teeth a little bit when making parers and generally only make them for people I consider good friends. Not because most people wouldn't love to have them - it's that I don't have any desire to make tools that are going to be display items. Pigstickers are destined for all but a few people in each country to be display items. 



Hand Tools - Message Index Hand Tools



There's a parallel here, too - and maybe that's that both of these types of chisels in their finest iteration aren't parallel. The work is ground by hand and eye - that makes pigstickers a good choice for someone who freehand grinds like I do, and hand finishes (I used the picture in that thread to show what my parers look like because the poster takes pictures in better light than I could ever hope to).


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

Unstoppable! 
Too long to read, I'd run out of pop-corn.
I glanced some confused comments about rounded bevels.  

If you look at a _*lock*_ mortice chisel you see the chisel itself is rounded. This is to give that extra leverage of the "moving fulcrum" when you are clearing out the most difficult bit i.e. the corners and the bottom of a deep mortice. Even mentioned in Salaman!
Having a rounded bevel on a normal mortice chisel helps you do the same in a blind mortice - you get the pointy end hard into a corner with the bevel against the wall, then lever it against the wall. You get more leverage than you would with a straight bevel.
This is the principle of the claw hammer, prise bar, pick axe, nail puller, various other curved cutting/levering devices _which would not work nearly as well if they were straight, without the curve._
You don't _*have *_to have a rounded bevel on a mortice chisel but it is useful, and it's easier to sharpen. You don't need one in a through mortice.
Hope that helps!

The aforementioned morticing stool is mentioned in Ellis and there's a drawing. Not an essential if you have a spare saw horse.
Just popping out for more pop-corn will be back shortly!


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

i'm not sure if this is too advanced to say jacob - you are talking about a different chisel. 

the pigstickers aren't lock mortise chisels, and they're not claw hammers. If you want to explain how something works and why it was made a certain way, it does nobody any good to tell us how a pigsticker works because a clawhammer is made with a curve. 

so, today's advanced concept - lock mortise chisels and oval bolstered mortise chisels - not the same thing or there wouldn't be two different names.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> i'm not sure if this is too advanced to say jacob - you are talking about a different chisel.


Yes. Well spotted


> the pigstickers aren't lock mortise chisels, and they're not claw hammers.


Spot on full marks!


> If you want to explain how something works and why it was made a certain way, it does nobody any good to tell us how a pigsticker works because a clawhammer is made with a curve.


I think you have lost it here - the point is there are _similarities. _The basic feature being the "moving fulcrum" of a curved lever


> so, today's advanced concept - lock mortise chisels and oval bolstered mortise chisels - not the same thing or there wouldn't be two different names.


Really?  Well blow me down it's obvious when you point it out! 

Seriously though - don't worry if you just don't get it - it doesn't matter and we've wasted enough popcorn already.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

I don't have trouble getting it. I make tools. I cut as many mortises by hand (hundreds) as a hobbyist as you have as a professional, at least based on what you claim. None of those were lock mortises. 

I see the value having learned to understand tool design and understand why similar tools are somewhat different. if a rounded bevel is what people wanted on oval bolstered chisels, they would've ground them rounded (it would've been easier). If a steep flat single bevel was wanted, they would've done that, it would've been easier. If they wanted to make the handles round, they would've done that. It would've been easier. 

But they didn't. 

It really doesn't make a difference what paul sellers said or what a chippie who started in the 1940s or 1930s may have told you - oval bolstered chisels were outdated by then. I'm sure there were still people using lock mortise chisels. You can be the expert on those - just overlaying them on oval bolstered chisels is misleading to people. the rotation happens at the top of the bevel, not through the thickness of it.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> ....
> 
> But they didn't.
> 
> ....


But they did, and still do, if they want to.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

who still makes pigstickers?

the only explanation I ever saw for the profile (which iles put on some and not others) was that the rounding wouldn't bruise the edges of a mortise. That seems to be off the mark to me - it's a short time that the chisel is working at a depth where that would matter and it'll still smash the ends of a mortise, rounded or not. 

tiny, steep bevel, long flat bevel, rounding at the top. Done on all of the quality chisels I've seen from the factory except for the marples catalog (those showed a long flat bevel). 

once the chisels have been used an inch, what a user leaves on them could be anything. They are also like parers in the sense that finding some that are unused or close to unused isn't difficult. I found a ward parer last year that never had any work on the back and the bevel was the factory bevel. Someone had a use for it about five times. 

I rarely find late 1800s-ish bench chisels that are full length.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> who still makes pigstickers?
> 
> the only explanation I ever saw for the profile (which iles put on some and not others) was that the rounding wouldn't bruise the edges of a mortise. .....


Well, now you have another explanation.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

for anyone else here where this talk of rotation depth doesn't make much sense, when you use a mortise chisel bevel down, it doesn't rotate properly until the top of the bevel has sunk below the surface.



https://williammarplesandsons.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/0368213edb6f82fc242fd3935a3304ae.jpeg



take a look at this picture. the bevel on the sash mortise chisel is sunk within about 3/8-1/2 inch of depth.

Look at the pigsticker. the top of the bevel doesn't get into the wood until you're well over an inch into the mortise. You can't rotate at a mortise end without bruising the top of a mortise until the top of the chisel is against the side of a mortise somewhere below the top. You can do that quickly with the sash mortise chisel, but not with the pigsticker.

however, once you get much deeper, the height of the pigsticker allows a much longer throw of rotation (especially if you're close to ends) and you have to rotate the chisel when it's bevel down awfully far to get the top of the chisel to hit the end of the mortise and bruise it (which may not matter, anyway).

the rotation will go at least the thickness of the chisel (the pigsticker is much taller) so needing to rotate that far in teh first place is unlikely.

but the chisel has to be deep before this matters.

how do you get a good view at how valuable this is? Cut a mortise 4.5x3 or so with a firmer and then cut one with a pigsticker. See how it goes cleaning out the ends. More thickness means you can take thick squarish chunks on the corners instead of taking progressive thin strips. If you had a job where you cut deep square bottom mortises regularly, it would make a big difference, but when you get to big mortises, too big and drilling and paring because more useful. Too small, and the advantage of the long tall bevel is lost.

Interestingly, marples always shows a perfectly flat straight line on their chisels in the catalogs. I think they made them that way. Ward and I.H. Sorby definitely did not.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> for anyone else here where this talk of rotation depth doesn't make much sense, .....


You are the only person here talking of "rotation depth" and yes I agree it doesn't make much sense, in fact I have no idea what you are talking about. 
Try getting it down to 200 words. If you can't say it simply it's probably nonsense.


----------



## TomB (10 Mar 2022)

Have you two ever thought about going on a date together? 


Somewhere secluded.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> You are the only person here talking of "rotation depth" and yes I agree it doesn't make much sense, in fact I have no idea what you are talking about.
> Try getting it down to 200 words. If you can't say it simply it's probably nonsense.



think one layer deeper if you can. bevel against the stock to be cut, chisel straight up and down. Hammer the chisel to depth. Lift chisel about 1/16th (this is a fraction of a second, like a reflex), push chisel forward and the chisel rotates on the rounded part at the top of the bevel severing and lifting all waste. If you worried about severing chips, tip the chisel back first, then rotate forward. Fair chance that you will be able to pull the chisel out with the entire chip on it and fling the chip away. next. 

Once you get to the ends, the chips get shorter in height (and thicker) and you angle the chisel, pull back, lift slightly push forward and you hear a pop as the waste is broken free from the side of the mortise. Once again, either dump the waste into the open area or pull the chisel out and fling out the waste. 

rotation depth refers to the chisel needing to be deep enough in wood for this so that the rounded part is below the top of the mortise. the virtue of the rounding is the chisel can be deep in a mortise and not get stuck. If the bevel is totally flat and sharp at both ends, the chisel chips and the top of the chisel cannot be moved where it rotates easily. if it's stuck hard in stock, then you're encouraged to either pull harder to pull the chisel up (which is an unhealthy habit) or just keep levering harder, snapping the tip off of the chisel. 

the entire bevel isn't rounded or it forces a steeper cut from vertical. 

there is one very easy way to see the benefit of this - actual experience. not talking about lock mortise chisels. Not talking about buying a mortising machine. Actually using tools. You said hundreds of mortises. I cut well over 100 just in my kitchen cabinet face frames. No drilling, no goofiness, just mortising.


----------



## D_W (10 Mar 2022)

TomB said:


> Have you two ever thought about going on a date together?
> 
> 
> Somewhere secluded.



No thanks, I don't need to hear "common sense" from someone talking about things they haven't done.


----------



## Jacob (10 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> think one layer deeper if you can. bevel against the stock to be cut, chisel straight up and down. Hammer the chisel to depth. Lift chisel about 1/16th (this is a fraction of a second, like a reflex), push chisel forward and the chisel rotates on the rounded part at the top of the bevel severing and lifting all waste. If you worried about severing chips, tip the chisel back first, then rotate forward. Fair chance that you will be able to pull the chisel out with the entire chip on it and fling the chip away. next.
> 
> Once you get to the ends, the chips get shorter in height (and thicker) and you angle the chisel, pull back, lift slightly push forward and you hear a pop as the waste is broken free from the side of the mortise. Once again, either dump the waste into the open area or pull the chisel out and fling out the waste.
> 
> ...


Sorry no it makes no sense. Try 200 words or a diagram?


----------



## Lefley (11 Mar 2022)

I love two different opinions. You usually end up with the right answers. I’m so guilty of not listening to the other person. They are usually saying what I’m saying just a different way that I can’t see. Or they are from a different generation using new techniques that outdated my tools that work perfect for me but not for them. But I do seem to find when a person resorts to not trying to show how there way is right or better in a technical methodical way, but instead resort to cutting up the other persons ways. They usually have run out of ways to prove there version of events and just try and grey the conversation, by trying to make the other look bad. Just my 2 cents. ( hey we don’t even have penny’s in Canada any more)


----------



## Jacob (11 Mar 2022)

Well it's wet n windy Friday evening so I thought I'd waste a bit of time and keep my hand in with a morticing demo. Doing this for my website so giving it an outing here too.
Here's the kit. Assorted mallets, mortice gauge, chisel (1/2" Joseph Haywood), piece of beech is a drift made to the exact size of the proposed tenons (1/2" x 2" in this case)







Done first would be mark up for the whole job in hand on every component 100% - never miss a mark - that's where you will make a mistake!
Just face and edge here.
n.b. face and edge marks need to be big, bold and joined up, so if part of it is removed by rebating, moulding etc, you can still work out clearly what's what. Sometimes they are done as feeble little squiggles, which is a mistake.











Start anywhere might as well be the middle. Easiest sitting astride on a saw horse - you can use a heavier mallet, comfortable efficient working position and it's very well clamped between your cheeks.






However for this purpose I'll do it on the bench to save hopping on and off between photos. Means a lighter mallet. Workpiece just sitting on bench, best not clamped or marks may be picked up. Here have made a few chops and moved face forwards just short of the end, a clean cut to be made very last thing.






Turned and gone face forwards to the other end






Quite a deep hole already, seems slow at first but rapidly speeds up. No need to lever anything or scrabble about






Turn and work back to other end






Turn again, bevel disappearing must be about half way through











This chisel bevel was reground recently so isn't particularly rounded. It would be eventually, after a lot of freehand sharpenings. If I wanted to a do a lot of blind mortices with it I might grind it rounder on purpose. 


End of part one (10 images)


----------



## Jacob (11 Mar 2022)

Part 2!

At this point turn other side up and repeat the process. Resting over 2 bench hooks so that chippings fall away without marking the underside.






Clean cut to the line. Good moment to quick hone the edge for a clean line






Right through now, chippings falling out underneath






At this point bring on the drift. Take off arrises or they might break out the edge of the hole on the far side






And thats it job done!











The ergonomics are important it's very hard work - you might be at it all day on a big project. The sitting down really helps - easier to wield a heavy mallet. One trick is to keep your elbow in tight to your side and just move your forearm - you start to look and feel like a morticing machine!
No levering needed at any point, except the little wiggle to loosen the chisel.
The mortices will be precise - as per the chisel. It's essential to make the tenons a good fit to match with just a push fit, and exploit that precision. If you are a bit slack here you can give yourself a lot of work!


----------



## Phil Pascoe (11 Mar 2022)

No reason not to use a lump hammer instead of a huge mallet.


----------



## D_W (11 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> No reason not to use a lump hammer instead of a huge mallet.



Is a lump hammer by definition metal? if it is, go over the face with a belt sander quickly before using it on a wooden handle. Relatively small dings on the face of a steel hammer can totally shred wooden handles by progressively separating fibers. 

I am offering this just as an opinion as I like to make chisels (even parers) that can be struck with a metal hammer if someone wants to. if someone would strike the parers pictured earlier in this thread in the course of regular malleting work and damage them, then something is wrong. Not because they should be used that way, but because there's no reason the characteristics that make an excellent parer (which include a stout tang so that the spring is further down the blade) shouldn't tolerate malleting. 

That said, I would guess that the mortise chisels in the "old days" with wooden handles were struck by a mallet similar in hardness to the handles so as not to shock and delaminate the wood (the wood runs in the direction of the bolster and has no hoops to protect it from moving laterally). Using a mallet much harder than the handle is another cause of shock. So you end up with a fat mallet of something slightly harder than ash and beech (whatever is available) and the fatness (and lack of desire for wearing out your forearm before lunch) means a short handle. 

I think you guys use the term lump hammer for what we call an engineer's hammer here. Regular claw hammer length and weight can be anything from 2-5 pounds (3 is typical). Some people call them "mini sledge". 

On to the short handle with a heavier mallet - I've only ever seen one person really going to work who was a day in and day out pro doing big mortises. A daimaker named Hisao. A video of him on a maybe-gone youtube video showed him mortising japanese plane bodies made from macassar ebony with a 6 pound steel mallet. The handle was very short. I doubt anyone here could swing it (I sure couldn't). The proportions are useful for us to think about because maybe his 6 pound hammer is our 2. Short handle, heavy head, relatively large hitting surface. The difference was he was using a chisel that was hooped and made for a steel hammer.


----------



## D_W (11 Mar 2022)

Jacob - I really have no idea why someone would use an oval bolstered chisel for such a small mortise as you showed. That's part of the point here. I also have no clue why someone would think a chisel so tall in cross section would be good both for a small mortise and with the bevel pointed toward the waste side.

You don't realize it and will never admit it, but your illustration is proving my point about the fairly narrow application of these chisels. Is I mentioned earlier, think mortises on very large furniture (like mortised bed parts where the mortise might be 2 1/2 inches deep and 4 1/2 inches wide). In smaller mortises, there's no room for the chisel to work and a firmer is far less effort.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (11 Mar 2022)

I believe I saw it done by R. Maguire, and as was pointed out the cause of damage in most cases from using hammers is that the faces are too small and damage wooden handles - with the size of lump/club hammers it doesn't happen.


----------



## Jacob (11 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> No reason not to use a lump hammer instead of a huge mallet.


Lump hammer too heavy.
Less likely to hit your hand with a mallet (bigger head for equivalent weight). Anyway if you hit it too hard it just makes it harder to pull out. Striking a happy medium!


----------



## Phil Pascoe (11 Mar 2022)

In smaller mortises, there's no room for the chisel to work and a firmer is far less effort.

Or a sash mortice chisel?


----------



## Jacob (11 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> Jacob - I really have no idea why someone would use an oval bolstered chisel for such a small mortise as you showed. .....,,the fairly narrow application of these chisels......


Well it's fairly obvious - it's a 1/2" mortice and it's a 1/2" mortice chisel. A lucky coincidence? In fact a 1/2" mortice is precisely "the fairly narrow application of these chisels" i.e. 1/2" mortice chisels. It's not really a coincidence!
Would a diagram help?


> In smaller mortises, there's no room for the chisel to work and a firmer is far less effort.


  A 1/2" chisel fits very neatly into a 1/2" mortice.
You really do not know what you are talking about do you? It shows and it is really tedious.
n.b. a "sash" mortice chisel is intended for sash (window) mortices and similar. i.e a squarish mortice such as you might find in a window. They are made unrelieved for a functional reason - to ensure that the sides are square to the cut face.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (11 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Lump hammer too heavy.



I have a 2lb lump hammer and a mallet that's heavier.


----------



## D_W (11 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> In smaller mortises, there's no room for the chisel to work and a firmer is far less effort.
> 
> Or a sash mortice chisel?



Sash mortise chisels are OK, but firmers often have sides relieved a little bit. If a sash mortise chisel also has relieved sides, then it's decent for small mortises with some depth. I have had sash mortises that are dead square with no trapezoidal profile, though, and once mortises get to a certain depth if you do accurate work, the chisel gets very tight in the mortise - it's obnoxious and it breaks rhythm.


----------



## Jacob (11 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I have a 2lb lump hammer and a mallet that's heavier.


Congratulations!


----------



## D_W (11 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> View attachment 131347
> 
> 
> I believe I saw it done by R. Maguire, and as was pointed out the cause of damage in most cases from using hammers is that the faces are too small and damage wooden handles - with the size of lump/club hammers it doesn't happen.



Yes - just be relatively religious about making sure that the lumper doesn't run into something harder, take face damage and then chew up wooden handles. 

I forge things here and there and also use steel hammers. Once faces are in good shape, it's easy to keep them that way and a steel hammer suddenly isn't that hard on wood. But I do get the sense that without a hoop, you may be making oval bolster handles more often than....but wait..

...I did also say you won't have the opportunity to use them often as a means of the best tool for the job (that part is definitely true). It may not make a difference, and making handles for chisels isn't a bad thing to be in the habit of here and there so as to avoid the idea that tools are precious vs. able to be used and repaired when damaged.

2 pounds is probably about right for a large oval bolstered chisel (one with significant width) and the short handle is nice for the cause (no handle end slapping around). Having forged four or five chisels at a time with a 2 1/2 pound hammer, I would like to see the person who uses a 3-4 pound hammer for a long duration and honestly says it doesn't leave them with a completely gassed out shoulder. 

The way hisao swing a 6 pound hammer was astonishing. like it was routine work. The rate that he excavated macassar ebony from a blank was equally mind boggling - it would be very hard to duplicate.


----------



## D_W (11 Mar 2022)

For anyone wondering why I'm being such a prig about mortise size, here's the point. The oval bolstered chisels seem to be little used for reasons stated here. 

When I got my first chisels, I used them to cut mortises that were better cut with a firmer, but I did it because I had them. I also followed a method that was bevel toward the waste side. Warm fuzzies - new tools, and mortises made. 

At some point, I got a socket mortise chisel that was sash in size and it was trapezoidal (i had a LN mortise chisel set early on - they were dead square and in sash mortises, who cares - in hardwood mortises 1 1/2 inches deep, they become a real pain). The socket mortise was faster to use in cabinet mortises than teh oval bolstered chisels, and it registered well enough with enough height to make it easy to cut a mortise that didn't suffer faults of wander. 

So, if a small relatively common chisel does better (less effort), why bother with the pigsticker. The mortise needs to be both long enough and deep enough.


----------



## Lefley (12 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Well it's fairly obvious - it's a 1/2" mortice and it's a 1/2" mortice chisel. A lucky coincidence? In fact a 1/2" mortice is precisely "the fairly narrow application of these chisels" i.e. 1/2" mortice chisels. It's not really a coincidence!
> Would a diagram help?  A 1/2" chisel fits very neatly into a 1/2" mortice.
> You really do not know what you are talking about do you? It shows and it is really tedious.
> n.b. a "sash" mortice chisel is intended for sash (window) mortices and similar. i.e a squarish mortice such as you might find in a window. They are made unrelieved for a functional reason - to ensure that the sides are square to the cut face.


Can I ask why you feel the need to try and constantly cut up another member. Is this common place on English forums or just lack of moderation?


----------



## Jacob (12 Mar 2022)

Lefley said:


> Can I ask why you feel the need to try and constantly cut up another member. Is this common place on English forums or just lack of moderation?


I don't. I do my utmost to ignore him. But I am regularly attacked by that member in thread after thread, often with a barrage of pages of vague and confused misinformation and contradiction, as we see here. He kicks off on post 21 and thereafter.
Occasionally feel I must respond.
There's a bit of discontinuity as usually I don't see his posts (on "ignore") so some of what look like replies are not at all.
A bit strange really - I put a bit of time and effort into a demo of a very ordinary morticing procedure. I don't mind, it was my livelihood, still is a bit, and a hobby.
The 1/2" mortice is just about the most common in the anglophone world and has been for a very long time, in doors, windows, furniture. I've done thousands of them, mostly by machine. I've also done them by hand, particularly before I had a machine, and otherwise as necessary. This meant using the heavy mortice chisel shown here and also various sash mortice chisels not shown.
The heavy 1/2" "OBM" in turn is about the most common, and the procedure I set out of how to use one is well known and ancient. The demo was also of a typical size such as found with variations all over the place, in doors , windows, some larger furniture such as tables. The next most common sizes were 5/8" and 3/8" for similar items larger or smaller.
They were designed and used for cutting mortices of their specific width, though occasionally they could be used for other purposes of course.
I've put him back on ignore and will leave it like that, but there are plenty of other details to expand upon if anybody wants to ask a question - about woodwork that is!
PS the small "sash" mortice chisel is rectangular in cross section because it was used typically for cutting small mortices for glazing bars and if not rectangular they would need to have the sides trimmed. It cuts both ways (literally) in a sense as you can't get the cutting edge into the centre due to size. Perhaps needs a drawing to explain - another time if there is one!


----------



## Adam W. (12 Mar 2022)

I think they work very well for their purpose, and that's probably the reason that they were produced in their hundreds of thousands over the course of a very long period, which says it all really.

They can also be used to chase a trench much like a plough plane, which is probably why the plough irons and mortice chisel are a similar shape.

History normally has the upper hand in these kind of discussions.


----------



## planesleuth (12 Mar 2022)

Speaks volumes to me. Anyone that uses the ignore button (and brags about it) has just a small part of the knowledge of others. I know who I would rather learn from.


----------



## Jacob (12 Mar 2022)

Occurred to me that disagreements about mortice chisels are due to some people simply not knowing how to use them?
An arrogant sweeping statement?
Well look here:- LN mortice chisel - handle issue
It's less surprising when you realise that even LN don't really know how to make them! Flimsy inadequate handles, further confirmed by the fact that they make them with parallel ground sides and miss _*another*_ of the essential feature of the trad design which makes them so effective.
Low and behold a quick scan shows an LN rep doing a demo and, amazingly, really not knowing how to to use them, which in view of the above, should not be surprising!



Q.E.D. ?
I'm happy with that, I feel quite vindicated and lucky to have been shown how to use them all those years ago (1982 in fact). 

PS Narex had a go and got the trapezoid shape right to some extent but have failed on the wide blade and long taper. They also have a small button on the end of the handle instead of the broad area of the trad. This would wreak havoc with the face of a mallet. Using a hammer would wreak havoc with the handle itself.
Give them a miss.
Narex Mortice Chisels - 8112 - a 2 minute mortice? Dolls house furniture perhaps.


----------



## raffo (12 Mar 2022)

The video demo is of a shallow mortise. David's point was that the pig sticker is optimized for deep mortises. You haven't refuted that point.


----------



## D_W (12 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Occurred to me that disagreements about mortice chisels are due to some people simply not knowing how to use them?
> An arrogant sweeping statement?
> Well look here:- LN mortice chisel - handle issue
> It's less surprising when you realise that even LN don't really know how to make them! Flimsy inadequate handles, further confirmed by the fact that they make them with parallel ground sides and miss _*another*_ of the essential feature of the trad design which makes them so effective.
> ...




Jacob, you have a lack of exposure and you "vindicate" yourself. LN copied a square sash mortise chisel. Sash mortises are too small for the squareness to matter that much, and there are plenty of older sash mortise chisels that have no taper. It seems like you have a blanket rule for mortises no matter what the tool designers intended 200-150 years ago, and you had someone teach you to mortise in 1982 and thus QED. 

Very odd. From what was the golden age of hand tool use - second half of the 20th century. 

Still failed to explain why they're ground with a rounded top and a small bevel at the tip and flat between. It's not hard to figure out. 

The same as it's a whole lot more sensible to compare two chisels side by side in a given mortise to see where one is better than another. Outcomes, especially comparative and useful are too big of a burden for some folks. Many who say they do woodworking all the time don't have 10 minutes of spare time once a month to compare something that might save them 10 minutes a week for the rest of their lives.


----------



## D_W (12 Mar 2022)

Let me illustrate this nonsense about LN not knowing what they were making (I'm sure they looked at a bunch of vintage samples and picked aspects to copy). They're not just posting on forums. 

It took me about 2 minutes to sift through chisels that I have but don't use much (the firmer in an exception - I use it to cut truss rod mortises in guitars). 







left to right:
* I. Sorby firmer - no taper
* Woodcock sheffield mortise chisel (taller cross section) - no taper
* Champion socket mortise chisel (no clue on age, but would guess 1900 or early 1900s - it's cleanly finished unlike later more roughly finished chisels - tall cross section - square
* I. Sorby sash mortise chisel - no taper

All of these were made without taper because they're not designed for deep mortising. I have cut shallow mortises with all but the second chisel and there's nothing lacking. If you start trying to cut narrow deep mortises with them, what occurs isn't a surprise. 

A more educated guess at this would be that there were tradesmen doing repetitive work who didn't want taper ground on mortise chisels for shallow mortises. 

Not the internet look that all of the variations were specialty things each workman needed to have, but the more realistic expectation that a workman doing a lot of work where a non-tapered chisel was desirable would have non-tapered chisels and maybe none or only a couple of chisels for the odd deep mortise.


----------



## D_W (12 Mar 2022)

looking at the LN video, here's something for anyone who is going one way or another to ponder
* if you chop bevel down instead of straight down, the chisel chops wood up grain. Go to your shop and pare a piece of wood directly across the end grain and the pare diagonally to the top. See what you feel. 
* when you ride a bevel down the mortise, while cutting, the chisel also moves laterally ( in a deep mortise, the chisel is also cutting laterally as well as moving down, cleaning the sides of the mortise. For this reason, you never want to ease the bottom edge of mortise chisels. Adam referred to plough plane blades (the sides are tapered in for the same reason as are decent rabbet and moving fillister irons). 
* when you are riding bevel down and rotate to remove a chip, there is no smashing of fibers that occurs at the top of the mortise -when the chisel is parallel to the wood, the chip has already been long broken off and you can literally lift it out of the mortise if you want (it's laying on the back of the chisel). 

You're left with two small triangles at the end of the mortise after you work across the mortise. To remove them, you lean the chisel back slightly (still bevel down) mallet a couple of strikes, rotate and do it again. You can remove sections of waste that are on the order of 3/8ths of an inch wide easily and cleanly and clean out the entire "triangle" in two quick passes). 

Lie Nielsen's video with charlesworth shows a very prescriptive and relatively slow (but neat) method for mortises. David's objective is to teach something beginners will have success with, as is LN's (selling high angle frogs, etc, and telling people to avoid power grinders despite offering a steel that's got carbides that are a little slower to hand grind). 

I can't think of a great reason to stand aside of a mortise but lean in to view down it vs. just standing behind it. if someone here reads older texts (I generally don't), I would bet you'll find pictures of people standing behind the stock instead of beside it.


----------



## Jacob (12 Mar 2022)

raffo said:


> The video demo is of a shallow mortise. David's point was that the pig sticker is optimized for deep mortises. You haven't refuted that point.


There isn't a point to refute.
The pig sticker is a mortice chisel for mortices. Period. If long enough it'll do deep mortices but also do shallow mortices perfectly well.
The point of my demo above was to show a bog standard very ordinary mortice chisel doing a very ordinary and typical job.
Interestingly my longest mortice chisel is a sash mortice chisel and generally used for very shallow mortices, through glazing bars only 15mm thick etc. They are not designed for deep morticing particularly, but they are designed for small mortices as found with glazing bars. Nobody is likely to do a deep but small mortice in any case, unless for a special purpose, where a drilled hole might do just as well and easier.
The idea of "optimisation" is just over thinking. Though adding a rounded bevel is a useful "optimisation" for blind mortices if you were doing a lot.
PS come to think "deep"mortices are very rare on architectural and furniture woodwork. A 5" door stile max? The trade which would use them would be wheelwrights, carriage and wagon makers. They have their own tools for this - various drills, spoon bits etc for the hole, the "bruzz" chisel for the corners. Must have a look in Salaman, will report back!
PS an afterthought - in general "long" chisels such as the parer are not necessarily for making long cuts but are for precision and control. Particularly noticeable with pattern makers kit.


----------



## D_W (12 Mar 2022)

You're still dancing around the point jacob - of course you can do shallow mortises with a pigsticker. At some point, for narrow mortises, the thickness becomes impractical. 

For shallow mortises, firmers or sash mortisers like I showed were used. Where does it actually make sense to seek out a pigsticker instead of one of those -when the mortise is deep enough for the chisel to work. 

I would guess charlesworth's method comes from wearing or someone - this is not a matter of people doing production mortising (which is what I would assume the pigsticker was actually for - production type work, because the thickness allows rotation and working slightly more crude and much bigger chips than you can work with anything not so tall). 

It's an issue of efficiency. 

One that is probably lost , just like the cap iron was completely misinterpreted (and still is) by most people. The gain with the cap iron is first and foremost efficiency. The fact that almost nobody could describe how to set it practically illustrates that the efficiency wasn't needed. 

Deep mortises would be doors and beds. The lock mortises are square enough that apparently even a pigsticker wasn't enough - backing the whole idea of using pigstickers into a narrow category where they're worth the cost - probably certain site and definitely certain production work. The type that nearly nobody does now. How many beds can someone make?

Riding the bevel isn't as intuitive. It's more efficient. It's perhaps not taught by most (as in, same reason it's not in wearing's book) because it's not as easy to master quickly. 

I'll clean my bench off at some point and use a sash mortiser and a pigsticker and show the difference between the two in speed and chip size. Right now, it's covered with guitar stuff. It won't be that long or I"ll forget. 

And it won't be for your benefit, it will be just about the same as everything else I've posted - for the benefit of someone coming anew to something (using the cap iron, making double iron planes, heat treating in open atmosphere). The pigsticker is used differently.


----------



## Jacob (13 Mar 2022)

raffo said:


> The video demo is of a shallow mortise. David's point was that the pig sticker is optimized for deep mortises. You haven't refuted that point.


Had to revisit this it - odd details kept occurring to me.
1 Raffo is right, I hadn't noticed that it was a demo of a "shallow mortice". Not sure it makes any difference?
2 She spends half the vid explaining how to cope with the faulty and flimsy handle, which also is an issue with these chaps LN mortice chisel - handle issue
Very odd - the last thing you want on a mortice chisel is a little decorative handle which drops off! As far removed from the OBM's massive handle as you could possibly get!
3 But if she could actually get going with a mortice she would then hit the next problem (if the handle hasn't dropped off of course  ) - that is the parallel ground sides of the chisel, completely disregarding one of the key features of mortice chisels everywhere - the trapezoid cross section. More than an inch in and she'd be struggling to pull the chisel out.
4 If she went any deeper she'd be struggling - because she is working with a badly designed fantasy mortice chisel completely unsuited for the job (and very expensive).

PS just noticed that the LN mortice chisel is promoted as "for cabinet maker rather than timber framer"  which presumably means not for hitting hard. Useless in other words. Also accounts for the timidity of the demo vid.
A cabinet maker wants to do the job quickly and efficiently just as much as a timber framer.


----------



## D_W (13 Mar 2022)

Jacob - there's no need to keep making it up as you go along. I had some of these chisels at one point. The handle is hornbeam - you can hit them as hard as you want. Someone there seems to like the stanley style so the chisels are of that proportion (there were a whole bunch here sold like that, all the way up to parers which are about the same length as mine in total, just more metal, less handle.

I'm not sure where you come up with strange assertions like:



> "for cabinet maker rather than timber framer"  which presumably means not for hitting hard.



Just nonsense, Jacob. Barr and some other makers here still sell chisels for timberframing and at the time these were released, two cherries also sold huge mortise chisels that were giant in cross section with softer steel for timberframing work.

They're literally just telling you that they're not for deep mortises in housework - probably because they have received orders or questions and had to take chisels back for being smaller than the buyer expected.

The very thick cross section champion mortise chisel that I pictured above (much taller than it is wide) is the same pattern.

Post a *video* of you making a mortise neatly - so we can see the time and skill level. We'll critique. That'd be just dandy. I'm no pro and have no qualms about videoing planing or chiseling in real time.

You completely danced right around the fact that I showed two sheffield mortise chisels with square cross sections, too - way to go. I'm sure that woodcock and I. Sorby suffered for not having your consulting expertise.


----------



## D_W (13 Mar 2022)

For all of the people complaining about the price of LN's tools, I wonder how many people actually work for less per hour than the average LN plant worker or demonstrator gets. 

The supposed very high price Jacob's talking about is $65.


----------



## Lefley (13 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> For all of the people complaining about the price of LN's tools, I wonder how many people actually work for less per hour than the average LN plant worker or demonstrator gets.
> 
> The supposed very high price Jacob's talking about is $65.


Are these any good for mortising?


----------



## Jacob (13 Mar 2022)

Lefley said:


> Are these any good for mortising?


It's fairly simple.
Basically they resemble the "sash" mortice chisel which means squarish in cross section as intended for small mortices, typically for glazing bars where the mortice can be approaching square in section.
It says they are "correctly trapezoidal" in section which actually is not "correct" for a sash mortice chisel as these are generally rectangular to square in section.
Which means less good for longer mortices compared to the wide blades of a trad OBM but could be slightly better than the rectangular trad "sash" mortice chisel.
They have another weakness in the handle, being relatively small, with what amounts to button at the top. I doubt this would survive the heavy battering a fully worked OBM mortice chisel would get with 2 or 3 times the cross sectional area to hit and fairly flat face to hit, ideal for a mallet. I guess they'd survive a lot better than the feeble LN socket handle.
However they could be pressed into use - I started out myself with a 1/2" sash mortice chisel and did hundreds before I bought a proper OBM, which was very much easier and faster in use. Then I got a machine.
The OBM is the essential "pick axe" of mortice work - designed/evolved to perfection for the job, like the pick axe. They've done a huge amount of work over the years, particularly the 1/2" which is the most common.
So Narex would do and a lot cheaper than LN, but a trad OBM would do a lot better than either.


----------



## D_W (13 Mar 2022)

I'm sure they're fine - cross section is a bit tall if you're making little mortises in face frames, etc, but they're a good design. 

I've never had them but have had other narex chisels - the basic cost narex chisels are austempered ( a different hardening process than normal ) which limits how hard they can be made so you can expect they'll need a steeper angle (a little blunt) to hold up. They're about as hard as the current sorby offerings (the spec says 59, but they may fall a point or two short of that based on a set of parers that I had). 

If it's important to describe the hardening process, I can, but the important take-aways is that they're not hardened like a typical tool in significant separate steps and the tail end of the hardening process that warps tools a lot, they don't use at the cost of not getting the same high hardness that a good set of old wards or I.H. Sorby chisels would have (and not as hard as stuff like iles or anything good quality now). 

That's why they're inexpensive - the whole hardening process is completed at once and the warping is less because of it. 

Whether or not you care about the hardness is dependent on your ability to accommodate them and what you're mortising. 

(their Richter chisels are hardened with normal process and cryo treated at the end - which contrary to nonsense ad claims doesn't increase toughness of tools, it lowers the terminal temperature during the quench process and gives an extra point or two of hardness over normal process. Normal process is already higher potential hardness than austempering and it'd be easy to have a 6 point hardness variation between the two - austempering vs. normal + liquid nitrogen dip)

long story short, if you try one of the narex mortise chisels, try one first before buying a set.


----------



## D_W (13 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> It's fairly simple.
> Basically they resemble the "sash" mortice chisel which means squarish in cross section as intended for small mortices, typically for glazing bars where the mortice can be approaching square in section.
> It says they are "correctly trapezoidal" in section which actually is not "correct" for a sash mortice chisel as these are generally rectangular to square in section.
> Which means less good for longer mortices compared to the wide blades of a trad OBM but could be slightly better than the rectangular trad "sash" mortice chisel.
> ...



Good God. I hope nobody who is doing bench work follows the suggestion that OBM are just standard all around mortising chisels. 

The narex pattern (Sash with trapezoid) are the do-all pattern at the bench for anyone doing cabinet work up to the occasional bed). 

All of this fragile handle talk is insane, as if you do cabinet mortises with a lump hammer - it's very odd.


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

Had a quick flip through the literature to see what is said about hand morticing but not a lot there on such a basic topic except this picture in Corkhill & Lowsley











It shows a blind mortice with vertical chisel cuts as I describe above. Starting in the middle working to one end face forwards, start again in the middle and work to the other end, scoop out chippings (no "levering", they are already loose). Exactly what you'd expect. Not much text.
I tend to start in the middle the same, but then turn and work back to the other end. Don't need to remove chippings from a though mortice you just hack on through them and when it's finished they fall out, or get pushed though. It's quicker as you don't have to change your action.

The problem for the new boys is that they have to reinvent these things and often get them wrong. Just think of sharpening - entirely reinvented by maniacs, gadget designers and salesmen!

Will post on another item - I thought I'd have a go side by side cutting 3 mortices with same size chisels, but one OBM, one sash and one firmer.


----------



## Adam W. (14 Mar 2022)

It's important to remember when discussing these tools is that that kind of mortice chisel is a joiners tool and not a carpenters tool, which would be a lot more robust, a great deal stronger and have a large socket for replaceable handles.


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

Adam W. said:


> It's important to remember when discussing these tools is that that kind of mortice chisel is a joiners tool and not a carpenters tool, which would be a lot more robust, a great deal stronger and have a large socket for replaceable handles.


I don't know what techniques timber framers and carpenters favour for hand work only, but I guess they wouldn't use OBMs as the upper limit for straight forward OBM chisel would seem to be about 3/4', perhaps 1" in softer wood. I assume a lot of drilling out, or varieties of adze, twybil etc?
OBMs above 5/8" seem to be rare. Too big to handle I suppose.
OTOH OBMs down to 1/8" seem to be common, which is a mystery to me - who needs a 1/8" slot? I guess for metal work, straps and hinges etc. but I can't say I've ever noticed a 1/8" slot in old woodwork. Obviously looking in the wrong places!
PS Twybil (mortising axe) [TWYBIL] : Ashley Iles Tool Store
I guess two handed, long handle, for big mortices


----------



## Lefley (14 Mar 2022)

Okay how about this mortise chisel.


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

Lefley said:


> Okay how about this mortise chisel.


Looks good!
A bit of a reading list here as well!








English Mortise Chisels by Ray Iles


We've wanted to sell real English mortise chisels since Tools for Working Wood began. The challenge, of course, was to make a tool as good or better as the old




toolsforworkingwood.com


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

Lefley said:


> Okay how about this mortise chisel.



Those are good chisels - at the same time I had the group of LN mortise chisels, I bought a full set of these (first three, and then another pair - but I bought them at different times and the older ones had rounded tops (which was interesting, though I'm not sure why it would be necessary) and the later ones were slightly less nicely finished and with a flat top (this would've been a few years apart). 

They're not cheap and not functionally any better than an older set. As little as they were used, I was happy to sell them (I used two out of the set of five with any regularity). They're solid steel and a little less tall in cross section. 

Here's a comparison of socket framing mortise type chisel vs. pigsticker, though I have had framing chisels from ps&W that were no longer than the pigsticker here. 




I would never have a use for framing chisels, but they are around where I grew up and other people seem to get them and realize they have no use, so I've been given several over the last 15 years. 

The chisel on the right is from Winstead Edge Tool Works or something of the sort.


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

In the picture above, the OBM chisel doesn't look like it's that long, but it's nearing 13". It just has a super tall cross section and an enormous handle, presumably to discourage a tight grip when one isn't needed.


----------



## Adam W. (14 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> I don't know what techniques timber framers and carpenters favour for hand work only, but I guess they wouldn't use OBMs as the upper limit for straight forward OBM chisel would seem to be about 3/4', perhaps 1" in softer wood. I assume a lot of drilling out, or varieties of adze, twybil etc?
> OBMs above 5/8" seem to be rare. Too big to handle I suppose.
> OTOH OBMs down to 1/8" seem to be common, which is a mystery to me - who needs a 1/8" slot? I guess for metal work, straps and hinges etc. but I can't say I've ever noticed a 1/8" slot in old woodwork. Obviously looking in the wrong places!
> PS Twybil (mortising axe) [TWYBIL] : Ashley Iles Tool Store
> I guess two handed, long handle, for big mortices



English framers cut mortices that are 1 1/2" to 2" deep and through mortices are common the continent, but most of that is bored out first.
The other main framing joint is lap dovetails of various configurations. Framers also cut very long mortices for braces 14" or even much more on a beam, if the braces are full length. These can easily be 2" or more in width and get quite deep as well.







Framing chisels on the right by Greaves, I&M Sorby and a blacksmith made one. The English joiners chisels on the left are fine and down to 1/8"


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

I've only ever had one purpose made chisel for mortising (actually mortising rather than paring joints) that was 1" or so - i mortised a couple of planes with it. It would've been impractical to use in deeper mortises (it as already impractical for any) in hardwood. It was japanese. Maybe it's not as impractical in softwood. Drilling and paring a mortise in good stock is simple, quick and a lot easier physically. 

I don't follow historical stuff, but would guess some of the portable beam drills were used to do that roughing (mechanical indexing post drill looking things that sit on a foot and index automatically as long as someone is powering them turning two hand wheels.


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

(the claims about D2 steel in that listing are interesting - same with A2 - as if there's something about A2 that makes it better for mortising due to "toughness". 

I didn't notice any sharpening issues (poor edge) in the iles chisels so they are probably powder D2 and not ingot D2 - though it was long ago enough that I may not recall. 

ingot D2 is very coarse (a2 comes out OK). A2 has moderate toughness - there are much cheaper steels that are extremely high toughness (ball bearing steel is far less alloyed and 3-4 times as tough and also with higher potential hardness). 

Carbon steel just under 1% (which was probably common) would also be at least as tough as A2. 

If anyone is breaking any solid tool steel in the cross section of a mortise chisel, it's not the alloy - either the steel or the user is defective. 

Over the years, there have been a couple of pictures (probably only two separate that I can recall) of the iles chisels breaking at the butt weld to the bolster. I'm sure they are replaced if that occurs, though it could get complicated in the US. One of the reasons cliftons didn't sell well here (aside from LN making a better plane for what is often less at retailers) is a higher error rate with cliftons and a combination of retailer and manufacturer both doing nothing about it expecting something perhaps from the other side?

Both cases where that occurred were highly publicized on the forums. Being that it appears TFWW is the distributor of Iles stuff in the US, though, I don't see that happening. They are top shelf as a retailer. 

(presumably, too, Iles chisels - including R. Iles - are less expensive in the UK)


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

Not too impressed by their description of how to chop a mortice, they have really missed the point, and they were doing so well!
_"My mortise is about 5/16" wide - but my mortise chisel is a little narrower (1/4")"_
N.B. *If you want a precise 5/16" mortice you use a 5/16" mortice chisel.* 
Mortices are always cut *first *in the ordinary way of things - it should be quite precise and the reference for the tenons to be cut afterwards, unless there is a very good reason for doing it the difficult way. Ditto with a machine morticer

No wonder there's so much confusion about; all that trouble and expertise gone in to making an excellent and proper chisel and they use one the wrong size!









How to Mortise the Moxon Way: Part 2, Chopping the Mortise


we laid out the joint and cut the tenon. Next up: I have to make the mortise. The first thing I want to do is check to see if the tenon I made is still the




toolsforworkingwood.com





PS I haven't read the Moxon text but I guess he is describing how to do it with a normal firmer chisel, not tapered in any way.


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

There's a ron white joke in here somewhere about a lady on an army base who thought everyone else was bad at something. 

Will concede the pencil lines and narrower mortise is a bit weird. 

I test chopped two mortises yesterday in Cherry - 4x2. 4 minutes each start to finish including marking. There's no way I could use a smaller chisel to make those mortises. 

I've done this same thing with two chisels side by side cutting face frames in cabinets and rail and stile mortises for doors (in that case, I couldn't make my pigstickers as effective as a smaller cabinet sized chisel with a tall cross section). 

The idea that these chisels are to be used any way other than bevel down is bonkers for anyone who has ever cut mortises both ways. I have no clue why you cling to it other than your statement earlier that someone taught you to do mortises that way. 

The tall section of these chisels allows you to take huge amounts of material in one pass if not quickly deepening a mortise, striking two or three times and then a tiny push forward breaking the chips loose as you go down. If the bevel is not down, this doesn't work. 

Mortising in hardwood, too, not pine. Demonstrating something that resists chiseling normally with pine is pointless.


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

OK, I read to the end - apparently moxon split mortising the center and finishing to fit by paring. The small mortise shown would be done faster with a smaller chisel. 

Maybe they did finer work more than 200 years ago (paring to fit), but I've never had a mortise off of the saw and chisel come unglued.

I never really read books first (it's a good way to find a method and think it's best - sort of like learning from a teacher "I have to do it this way, master says so, so this method is best"). Nicholson has some basic guidelines for mortises that you'll learn from experience in the first place, but he mentions paring uglies out for fit. Occasionally needed if you're in too big of a hurry, but not a great idea in volume if it starts leading to loose fit in the bottom of the mortise, or even worse, allows that and twist).


----------



## TRITON (14 Mar 2022)

I was taught/shown when cutting a mortice to use a slightly smaller chisel, then pare down the sides. If the slot is 1/2" say, and you use a 1/2" chisel, the chisel tends to get stuck and there's no as they say wiggle room, especially in deep.
Thats my take on it. but its really just about making that easier to get the waste out, so for the most part i use a forstner or drill bit, then pare the sides down.

TBH i dont think there is a truly exact way to do it and arguing over the academic methods is counter productive. Now bench saw safety, thats a whole different kettle of fish...


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

TRITON said:


> I was taught/shown when cutting a mortice to use a slightly smaller chisel, then pare down the sides. If the slot is 1/2" say, and you use a 1/2" chisel, the chisel tends to get stuck and there's no as they say wiggle room, especially in deep.
> .....


Not if you are using a trad OBM with a wide tapered blade, a trapezoid cross section. The whole point of the design is the easily loosened "wedge" section which won't get stuck, or at the most need just a little wiggle to loosen it.
Why it works - the face of the chisel is vertical as you mallet it in but the sides and the back have a slope, so the impression in the wood is of a hole with 3 sloping sides, not parallel. One wiggle and you are out, with a very precise mortice no need to adjust.
I do see the possibility here of talking at cross purposes! A parallel sided chisel is different and knock it in far enough and it could be as solid as a straight nail.
The pronounced taper and bevel on the OBM also presses the chippings back and leaves room for the next bite. You get bigger bites.


----------



## TRITON (14 Mar 2022)

I see what you're saying J, I'd agree with that.


----------



## TRITON (14 Mar 2022)

Did you faint Jacob  someone agreeing with you


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

TRITON said:


> Did you faint Jacob  someone agreeing with you


yes I'm all of a quiver and had to lie down for a minute!


----------



## Droogs (14 Mar 2022)

FFS not looked at this in 3 days and you two are still at it. @Jacob you go on the naughty step and @D W, you go stand facing the corner and both of you wear one of these


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> yes I'm all of a quiver and had to lie down for a minute!



It's a trick - don't fall for it!!


----------



## D_W (14 Mar 2022)

TRITON said:


> I was taught/shown when cutting a mortice to use a slightly smaller chisel, then pare down the sides. If the slot is 1/2" say, and you use a 1/2" chisel, the chisel tends to get stuck and there's no as they say wiggle room, especially in deep.
> Thats my take on it. but its really just about making that easier to get the waste out, so for the most part i use a forstner or drill bit, then pare the sides down.
> 
> TBH i dont think there is a truly exact way to do it and arguing over the academic methods is counter productive. Now bench saw safety, thats a whole different kettle of fish...



This wiggle room is where something like an OBM comes in - "in deep". At some point, I'll make a video of the rotation in the corner. When you use the chisel bevel down, you end up with two triangles of waste, but they're not that large (figure like 15 degrees or 20 degrees off of vertical). Until they get really deep, you can take them off in one pass (like really really deep). That means if the mortise triangle is 5/8" thick at the bottom in length, you can still pop all of it loose with an OBM bevel down, and neatly. But you can't do it with a shorter chisel with less rotation. 

As far as paring, to final size, it's a good way to get a perfect fit, but a mortise and tenon joint generally only needs a good fit with no fatal flaws. The glue will make the joint so strong that the shoulder fit is more important and making sure the joint can't twist is a bigger deal. 

When it comes off of the saw and it's got just a little wiggle room to glue it and not get sprung in a bad direction, then it becomes a production joint for someone working with hand tools. 

I saw someone who works in repair and restoration of old stuff here talk about "stub mortise and tenons" (as in , really small stuff) and mention that they'd budget about 2 1/2 minutes for *both sides* of the joint. 

The real joy in hand tool woodworking is making the neat parts neat and biasing the fit, but doing the rest of the stuff in a way that doesn't involve a lot of stopping and fitting and prissy work. Same with dovetails. If you're making a moulding, make them neat and fit well so that the assembly is easy, but not prissy so that you end up getting in trouble or doing gobs of checking.


----------



## TRITON (14 Mar 2022)

Droogs said:


> FFS not looked at this in 3 days and you two are still at it. @Jacob you go on the naughty step and @D W, you go stand facing the corner and both of you wear one of these
> 
> View attachment 131567


Academic argument is the basis for a good forum, especially when it is based on personal experience of the subject matter. And its not like folk are calling each other rude names. We can agree to disagree, and have a riotous chinwag about it.


----------



## Jacob (14 Mar 2022)

Droogs said:


> FFS not looked at this in 3 days and you two are still at it. @Jacob you go on the naughty step and @D W, you go stand facing the corner and both of you wear one of these
> 
> View attachment 131567


It's a one way thing - I've got Mr Bevel Rider on ignore! 
Actually it's been interesting and throws up a few new ideas as these threads sometimes do.
Would like to know what a 1/8" OBM is used for, there's a lot of them about. I've got three!
Who needs an 1/8"slot? They certainly cut pretty quickly. Maybe for cutting a letter plate slot in a door? Two parallel slots along the grain and a keyhole saw across to take out the middle?


----------



## Jacob (15 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Part 2!
> 
> At this point turn other side up and repeat the process. Resting over 2 bench hooks so that chippings fall away without marking the underside.
> 
> ...


Conclusion?
1 The OBM chisel I use above, or what Joel calls the "English mortice chisel" is very different from the "sash" chisel and all the modern offerings of so-called mortice chisels from LN, Narex and others, except Ray Iles apparently.
Hence rambling arguments at cross purposes.
2 Joel himself seems not to have noticed this and describes the difficult Moxon way of morticing, which is appropriate for the sash or parallel-sided chisel but absolutely not necessary with the OBM chisel which is much easier to use and produces a precise mortice.
3 Many of the demos on Youtube seem to show people trying to mortice with sash chisel variants rather than the OBM and having difficulty - all that levering, "bevel riding" and general hacking, plus having to correct with paring chisels and floats!
4 If you use the OBM you then have a precise reference for the tenons and these can be cut exactly to fit, rather than fiddling about adjusting them too, with router planes, shoulder planes.
5 I show the use of a beech "drift" which isn't essential but is useful and itself becomes the best reference for the tenons to be cut later. You can adjust the drift to be a nice push fit, knowing that it will fit exactly to ALL the mortices cut with the same chisel same size. Then make all tenons to match. Saves hours and hours!
6 Just spotted this. https://cdn.popularwoodworking.com/wp-content/uploads/MORTISE_BY_HAND.pdf
Only had a glance - not too impressed by the technique. n.b. if you are cutting mortices in a groove you have made a mistake - the mortices are the _first _things to cut, followed by tenon cheeks (not shoulders), grooves, mouldings, rebates , tenon shoulders last.


----------



## Adam W. (15 Mar 2022)

I'm surprised that he doesn't call them Old England mortise chisels like the beardy sandal wearers over at Mortise and Tenon Mag.

Kumbaya!


----------



## Phil Pascoe (15 Mar 2022)

Anyone else run out of popcorn?


----------



## Jacob (15 Mar 2022)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Anyone else run out of popcorn?


I haven't finished yet - I'd get some more popcorn in while there's a break!


----------



## Jacob (16 Mar 2022)

8.
I bought a Mortise & Tenon publication "Joined - A Bench Guide to Furniture joinery" and just found it again at the back of a cupboard, I'd forgotten all about it.
Should be interesting - these people are in search of the holy grail of perfect traditional hand tool joinery.
"Knights of the square table"? 
They've obviously got everything going for them, with the modern advantage of online access to information and plenty of dosh for kit, materials and their very attractive premises.

He starts his M&T chapter well - with what looks like the Ray Iles OBM, which looks excellent. Seems you can't buy them on the UK.
He's not sure about which to cut first which is a surprise. He takes it for granted that each tenon is adjusted to fit each mortice! If he had a lot to do he'd soon find out why this is not good i.e. the mortice size is dictated precisely by the chisel, and the tenons can and should be made exactly to fit them, although a little adjustment may be necessary. You need a mortice first to be able to check the tenons- it's only a hairs breadth variation of saw cut on the line, near the line etc which will make it a good fit, and once you've got it you do them all the same.

He works on a pig bench which is a good idea but here's the big deja-vu surprise for me - he's doing it much like I was doing it in 1982 when I was told off by the teacher and shown how to do it properly! He's even slouching side-saddle the same, which is not good - it has to be astride. He's also prying & levering away frantically in all directions probably more than doubling the work time. However he does recognise that levering can damage the edge of the mortice.

n.b. a reminder - what you do is chop the mortice complete, through the chippings, chisel vertical all the time one thin slice off the face of the previous cut, and only when finished tap out the chippings, or prise them out if any left - perhaps with a smaller chisel to avoid damaging the edges.

So far only Corkhill & Lowsley have shown a picture of how to do it and Ellis gives a reasonable description. Haven't seen a vid worth looking at but no doubt they are out there somewhere!







PS Picture here of our man doing a mortice badly (3rd from top on the left.)
Actually there are plenty of other interesting things in the book but it's a touch self important, not to mention expensive.








Joined: A Bench Guide to Furniture Joinery


By: Joshua A. Klein Many woodworking how-to books have a distinctly clinical feel to them, taking a formulaic approach (complete with exploded computer-drafted imagery) to describe a woodworking process from start to finish. This method works well...




www.classichandtools.com


----------



## D_W (16 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> 8.
> I bought a Mortise & Tenon publication "Joined - A Bench Guide to Furniture joinery" and just found it again at the back of a cupboard, I'd forgotten all about it.
> Should be interesting - these people are in search of the holy grail of perfect traditional hand tool joinery.
> "Knights of the square table"?
> ...



Make a video jacob. I can tell your tires get more pressure in them each time you congratulate yourself about technique.


----------



## D_W (16 Mar 2022)

I have a distaste for sellers as I doubt he ever actually did any fine work for income, but...

....I went and looked at his video about making mortises (he rides the bevel) and I have to admit other than the presentation being a little bit too deliberate (he is teaching beginners after all), his mortise method is fine.

I don't know why he feels the need to flip the chisel to the flat back to trim the ends (they can be done bevel against the ends as well as they can any other way - no need to waste time turning the chisel over), but that's small details.

he doesn't get stuck having to explain away the tall height and rounded top of oval bolstered chisels like someone who thinks the bevel should face the open side, and he removes the chips while creating the mortise (which is something anyone with a small amount of sense would figure out pretty quickly).


----------



## Jacob (17 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> 8.
> I bought a Mortise & Tenon publication "Joined - A Bench Guide to Furniture joinery" and just found it again at the back of a cupboard, I'd forgotten all about it.
> Should be interesting - these people are in search of the holy grail of perfect traditional hand tool joinery.
> "Knights of the square table"?
> ...


Another book! “Worked: A Bench Guide to Hand-Tool Efficiency” Book
He doesn't seem to know how to rip saw efficiently. 
He's nearly there but cutting it hanging over the _edge_ of a saw stool is not easy. Much easier to stick it over the end and then reverse half way. You can put much more force into it. Even more if you use two saw horses. Rip-sawing by hand


----------



## D_W (17 Mar 2022)

You should like that guy - he's almost exactly like paul sellers from what I can see (I have no idea who the guy is, by the way). 

The page has all kinds of stuff on it and not much as far as portfolio. I'm not about to sort through his hand tool technique stuff, but I wouldn't sort through yours either. I'm not going to ask if you'd watch any of mine because I don't care and you mentioned running a power tool using business for 30 years. 

But I'll repeat what I said earlier. If you know so much, put up some videos. It's free to do. Go ahead. 

Work on something other than pine, though. For God's sake, all of these sites use stock that looks like it came from the common wood rack at home depot or pre-cut oak or something.

(I'd never rip wood on saw horses, either - that's construction work).


----------



## TomB (17 Mar 2022)




----------



## Jacob (18 Mar 2022)

TomB said:


> View attachment 131838


I just happened to get their promotional email yesterday. They make extravagant claims for themselves which shouldn't pass without comment.


----------



## dannyr (18 Mar 2022)

I think Paul's chisel's getting rusty, will he ever ask for advice again?


----------



## Devmeister (18 Mar 2022)

TomB said:


> View attachment 131838


What an awsome cartoon. Years ago I posted a video on how to thread with the hardinge HLV lathe. The HLV does not thread like most lathes ad it’s different. I bought this lathe at auction years ago. The last price Hardinge had on it was about 150,000 dollars!!’

Not knowing how this lathe works in comparison to day a myford ML7, I contacted Hardinge. They told me no worries and sent me a Manuel on how to thread with the HLV. It was actually simple and I like it a lot.

So one of these Nellys posts a response that 1). I don’t know what I am doing. Never mind it’s happening in the video successfully. And 2). I shouldn’t be proposing to teach the craft.

My buddy at Hardinge laughed and told me to calm down. I was furious and ripped him a new one.

This cartoon says everything. It’s people like that who drive old timers with skills like me underground.


----------



## Lefley (18 Mar 2022)

Jacob said:


> Another book! “Worked: A Bench Guide to Hand-Tool Efficiency” Book
> He doesn't seem to know how to rip saw efficiently.
> He's nearly there but cutting it hanging over the _edge_ of a saw stool is not easy. Much easier to stick it over the end and then reverse half way. You can put much more force into it. Even more if you use two saw horses. Rip-sawing by hand


He certainly has credentials. But it sounds like he is doing it wrong as he doesn’t do it the way you learned. Is that what I’m reading? Popcorn maker is on!


----------



## Lefley (18 Mar 2022)

Over the years I’ve taught hundreds of guys to frame houses. The worst guys were the ones that had one or two bosses in there life , learned one way, the right way they say and have a closed mind. The best guys were the ones that had multiple bosses including myself and took the best of what suited them to acquire there way of doing the job. They ended up with doing a perfect job with with all the bits and pieces they took from each boss to a suite there way of doing it. It always ended up being the most efficient fastest way to achieve the end result for them. And they also were the most open minded, if a new person came along with a different way of doing it or a younger person came along with a new tool or way of doing it . They stopped listen and then either incorporated it into there skill set or not. But they made the best teachers.


----------



## D_W (18 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> What an awsome cartoon. Years ago I posted a video on how to thread with the hardinge HLV lathe. The HLV does not thread like most lathes ad it’s different. I bought this lathe at auction years ago. The last price Hardinge had on it was about 150,000 dollars!!’
> 
> Not knowing how this lathe works in comparison to day a myford ML7, I contacted Hardinge. They told me no worries and sent me a Manuel on how to thread with the HLV. It was actually simple and I like it a lot.
> 
> ...



at least you posted a video! I think a lot of the trouble you find on YT, though, or wherever you post a video is old timers who learn to be confident in their limited experience because they're in a bubble.


----------



## Jacob (18 Mar 2022)

Lefley said:


> He certainly has credentials. But it sounds like he is doing it wrong as he doesn’t do it the way you learned. Is that what I’m reading? Popcorn maker is on!


Try ripping a board on the edge of a saw horse, then try it with the board over the end (in the conventional fashion). The latter is easier, especially if you are putting effort into it.
PS and/or between two saw horses
PPS I "learned" how to do it by having to do it often on site work (period joinery restoration etc) and having no choice. Easiest and quickest preferred every time - but pleasing to see it confirmed in the old books!


----------



## D_W (18 Mar 2022)

I think lots of folks are waiting for you to demonstrate this both efficiently and accurately. With all of the criticism, it must be easy to do. Really - like start a channel and make a video a week demonstrating something from start to finish. I don't know why you lobby us all the time and then show test joints in pine - I would bet many get email from this or that new guru, but their lack of response to your posts is because they tune you out. There's no outcome - show everyone in rhythm and fine work that you'd deliver to a client. 

I don't mean a sandbox frame either. Put up for once.


----------



## dannyr (19 Mar 2022)

I've not followed all the dialogue above (I think only two correspondents (nice word) have done that). But why did I suddenly think of Harry Enfield and 'you don't want to do it like that'?

Oh, and see thread title, poor Paul's still not got his chisel ready


----------

