# Mortice chisels



## chaoticbob (15 Nov 2016)

I've been chopping mortices using the Paul Sellars method with ordinary chisels - I don't get quite as neat a result as he does for some strange reason :? 
I've been looking at proper mortice chisels on the Axi site - there's quite a price spread, eg for a half inch chisel it's £11.50 for Axi Rider, £40 for Kirschen, 60 for a LN. Am I going to notice the difference as a learner?
Regards, Robin


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## marcros (15 Nov 2016)

My 2p worth... Treat yourself to a pig sticker type from eBay and give it a go. I much prefer them and they are generally not much money.


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## D_W (15 Nov 2016)

Ditto that. Look for clean pigstickers that aren't covered with pitting, and that have a nice taper from bottom to top (so they don't stick easily in a mortise). Mortising will be far faster than it would be with the small sash mortise chisels, and no less neat when you're done.


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## AJB Temple (15 Nov 2016)

Horses for courses. My experience:

If I am cutting green oak - e.g. large mortice slots in timber frames, then after rough machining to clean to most of the waste I tend to turn to an old Ward one and a half inch chisel for the sides and a big pig sticker for end grain and corners. The pig stickers tend to have quite a bit of heft to them and the steel is generally good. I bought all of my old chisels as job lots on eBay and typically paid an average of £2 each. All of them were returned dt serviceable condition in short order on a Sorby pro belt sharpener. (You can't beat having a sharp belt). 

However I find the pig stickers rather unwieldy for finer work in seasoned smaller section timbers. At the cost effective end of the market I tried Narex. These are about £15 each and they are fine, but somewhat unrefined. The handles are not fantastic. I also tried Robert Sorby (ex eBay as part of a job lot of stuff) and they are fine. 

I treated myself to a set of LN socket chisels, both mortice and bevel, and for fine work I think they are excellent. Very well finished blades and sockets, and comfortable high quality handles. Some people say that Veritas or others do better steel, but my experience of the LN is they have good edge retention and are easy to sharpen and give a good feel in the hand. LN do a wide range including some small and delicate chisels and they are very good and consistent quality. I would be indifferent between Veritas and LN and satisfied with either. 

For a step above that you are into Blue Spruce territory and there you are really paying for a superior finish. 

If you like fine tools that will last a lifetime, the LN or Veritas will do that. If you want good steel and good value then Narex are fine. I would pick up some old chisels off eBay anyway, as you never know when you need to abuse one and they are so cheap you have nothing to lose as long as you have a grinder or some such to refresh the bevels. 

There are also some very cost effective sets of Japanese chisels around (and some super expensive ones as well). I like these as well and although they are designed to be hammer struck, they can be very effective. Usually Hitachi No 1 or 2 steel and hollow ground backs. Different shape to western style chisels but no less effective. 

So - a chisel is a chisel is a chisel. They are all flat bars of metal with a sharp edge. Some are nicer to use than others and you should just try a few different ones and see what you like.


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## undergroundhunter (15 Nov 2016)

The mortice chisels I tend to use the most are my vintage sash mortice chisels by Marpels and Sorby. I do have some pig stickers but sometimes they feel a little bulky.

Matt


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## ED65 (15 Nov 2016)

chaoticbob":2pe1ii99 said:


> I've been chopping mortices using the Paul Sellars method with ordinary chisels - I don't get quite as neat a result as he does for some strange reason :?


How good are your edges? And are you maintaining the chisel's edge during a longer session of chopping?

Couple of not-so-random thoughts....

Have you compared results drilling out the majority of the waste and then paring out the remainder? Nothing at all wrong with the method Sellers demonstrates (not _his _method if you get my meaning) but you should try the other way and see how you like it. You might find you prefer to chop them in some woods and the other way in others. I think it's worth trying drilling and paring now in case you have to make use of that method for oversize mortises at some point in the future.

Highly recommend getting a pigsticker or two and trying them out for yourself; as a purpose-made tool they do offer some clear advantages for chopping mortises the traditional way so I think everyone should try them at some point. And as you're in the UK you should be able to acquire a good one for little money, an opportunity not to be wasted IMB.


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## Jacob (15 Nov 2016)

Ey up Bob. Pop up here I can lend you a mortice chisel or two.
A lot of the new so-called mortice chisels are no good as they are not trapezoid in cross section. This is an essential feature and makes them work much better. I thought LN had got it wrong - they might have caught up by now, but too pricey anyway.

The Axi rider claims - "Tapered cross section prevents chisel binding in deep mortices" - so maybe they have been following the message boards and picking up a few tips?

cheers

Jacob


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## AJB Temple (15 Nov 2016)

The LN ones don't bind in the mortices Jacob. My current set are a year old and are fine. Like a lot of people I expect I have acquired far too many chisels over the years(given some, inherited some, bought some). Good steel makes all the difference. Apart from my big 3" and 4" slicks, the ones I use most at the moment on timber framing, are old Ward (lovely steel) and some huge pig stickers of a make I can't remember.


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## Jacob (15 Nov 2016)

I've got parallel sided and they are not as easy to use as tapered. With a taper you lever it back a touch which widens the cut slightly and loosens the chisel very slightly when you lever it forwards. It's not much but every little helps if you've a lot to do!


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## Argus (15 Nov 2016)

chaoticbob":28w6n701 said:


> I've been chopping mortices using the Paul Sellars method with ordinary chisels - I don't get quite as neat a result as he does for some strange reason :?



If you look at Seller's mortises, he uses his home made gauge to run a chisel down the sides when finished, then idividually matches each tenon to its own mortise. Even so, chopping deep mortises with a bevel edge chisel demands a hands-off attitude to levering deep chips because the things can break without warning - hence the short chisels available on the internet.

So-called pig stickers were intended for deep cuts and are beefy enough to give deep cuts some welly; added to which the rounded bevel sharpening effect allows you to pivot the heel on the side of the mortise. 

Jacob's right about the trapezoidal effect - it reduces friction drastically and makes for much easier work.... some of my very old piggies are also very slightly tapered in length which indicates a preference in the old chippies (framers, really) who bought them that way for something that cut quickly and without fuss.

..... but it boils down to what you make. Big framing chisels may be a bit oversized for small furniture.


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## Jacob (15 Nov 2016)

I was taught that you don't lever anything with through mortices and a only a touch with blind.
You just keep the tool vertical all the time (except for very slight tilt to free it after each blow) and the chippings just fly out or get pushed through at the end.
Blind mortices the same except you need to get into the corners and lever - which is where the rounded bevel come into use.


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## CStanford (15 Nov 2016)

Jacob is right -- there's nothing to lever, really, except perhaps for loose chips and that doesn't require a huge chunk of steel. If you're levering and encountering a lot of resistance you are trying to lever beyond (to far in front of, or too far below) where the chisel has actually made a cut, and this is incorrect IMO. It's much easier to cut a mortise than it is to bludgeon one. The word chopping, itself, is more a misnomer than anything.

Paul Sellers' original YouTube video was in response to a video posted by Peter Follansbee who demonstrated chopping a mortise with a traditional pigsticker. To fully appreciate the contrast you need to watch both. Sellers' video using plain Blue Chips looked effortless compared to Follansbee's. The Blue Chip removed more material per blow, maybe half again as much, and it just all looked, and sounded, so much more controlled and efficient to my eyes and ears.

If your mallet arm and elbow hurt after cutting mortises then rest assured you're doing something wrong. If you're hitting the chisel as hard as you can, you're doing it wrong. Nothing in furnituremaking requires you hit, push, or pull anything as hard as a grown man is capable of. It's should require no more effort than grounding a carving, or really just setting in a carving. In fact with a bevel-edged chisel your biggest worry should be going too deep. They get to depth in a hurry.


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## G S Haydon (15 Nov 2016)

Proper pig sticker as Jacob has described. LN are sash mortise chisels. Fine if you make window sashes or do lot's of small shallow mortise work but you can pick up sash mortise chisels secondhand that look better suited than the LN. The LN's look like very odd and likely suited to only a very few people.

Just had a look at the Rider chisels. Look well suited to furniture work and pretty good value. I'd be interested to hear what they're like. In general the Rider chisels look like a Narex product with different branding.


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## D_W (15 Nov 2016)

CStanford":20ltc3ym said:


> Jacob is right -- there's nothing to lever, really, except perhaps for loose chips and that doesn't require a huge chunk of steel. If you're levering and encountering a lot of resistance you are trying to lever beyond (to far in front of, or too far below) where the chisel has actually made a cut, and this is incorrect IMO. It's much easier to cut a mortise than it is to bludgeon one. The word chopping, itself, is more a misnomer than anything.
> 
> Paul Sellers' original YouTube video was in response to a video posted by Peter Follansbee who demonstrated chopping a mortise with a traditional pigsticker. To fully appreciate the contrast you need to watch both. Sellers' video using plain Blue Chips looked effortless compared to Follansbee's. The Blue Chips removed more material per blow, maybe half again as much, and it just all looked, and sounded, so much more controlled and efficient to my eyes and ears.



I haven't experienced the same thing with bench chisels, but it may be because sellers is cutting a mortise that only has holding wood on one side (which is significantly different than cutting a mortise as we normally do). 

I did find the bench chisels to require more grip on the handle to prevent twist. 

Certainly can cut mortises with them, but the pigstickers I've used have hung easily with the bench chisels in a normal mortise, and they leave cleaner sides (which probably doesn't matter) with twisting. I've never had one that looks like a telephone pole that paul uses, and he made a strange comment on the RI chisels that's quoted on the TFWW website. Something about the RI pigstickers being the best chisels he's ever used or some other such thing. 

For a smaller profile, someone living in England and buying firmers with flat sides for 2 pounds each will be further ahead.


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## CStanford (15 Nov 2016)

Sellers arranged his demonstration to match Follansbee's exactly, with the acrylic (glass or whatever) on one side so the viewer could see what the chisel was doing. It's an apples-to-apples comparison.

Follansbee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1bo6NVYCc0

Sellers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_NXq7_TILA

The plain Blue Chip kicks tail. And the mortise walls are smoother, likely due to the arrises of the Blue Chips being sharper (leave 'em sharp!) and scraping the walls clean as he levers each section of material out of the mortise.

The speed and ease aspect is as simple and understandable as driving a thick wedge vs. a thin one.


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## chaoticbob (16 Nov 2016)

Thanks for all the advice - though some of the later discussion was over my head, I have read all and shall inwardly digest.

An ebay search on pig stickers yeilded this 





amongst other things, but the actual chisels seemed a bit pricey - certainly nowt there for 2 quid or so.
I'll get a couple of the Axi Rider things, I have a possibly unreasonable prejudice against the brand because I bought a plane which wasn't so good as an ancient ten quid Record from an 'antique' shop.
I don't think I have any problem with sharpening steel - or maybe I do :twisted: . Discuss.

Jacob - thanks for your kind offer, I'll drop by when the Rider chisels have arrived, and see what you think of them.
Regards, Robin


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## D_W (16 Nov 2016)

CStanford":cagpkp48 said:


> Sellers arranged his demonstration to match Follansbee's exactly, with the acrylic (glass or whatever) on one side so the viewer could see what the chisel was doing. It's an apples-to-apples comparison.
> 
> Follansbee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1bo6NVYCc0
> 
> ...



I guess the people who made a living doing those had no clue. The pigstickers must've been for people chopping telephone poles. 

Maybe some days, Paul Sellers has no idea what's going on. Must've been this day:

"The best chisel I have ever used." - Paul Sellers

https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/sto ... MS-MORT.XX


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## D_W (16 Nov 2016)

chaoticbob":2lvufqp8 said:


> Thanks for all the advice - though some of the later discussion was over my head, I have read all and shall inwardly digest.
> 
> An ebay search on pig stickers yeilded this
> 
> ...



They won't be 2 quid on ebay, they'll be that on the street. Of course, it's hard to find what you're looking for at random sales. 

I don't know anything about the chisels you're buying, but I'm sure they'll cut a mortise. Get familiar with them and use them. If they seem to have a shortcoming, you can certainly bring it up. 

I'll bet they'll last better than my miyanaga chisel on another thread.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (16 Nov 2016)

When I began bashing out mortices about 25 years ago, this was with firmer chisels. They were thick blades and 30 degree bevels. They were hard work - limited penetration of the wood, and hard to pry the waste away. 

Three Woodcock firmers on the left ..





I heard about Oval Bolstered Mortice Chisels (aka pigstickers) and bought a few vintage chisels. The early ones were discarded and eventually replaced with long blades. As Jacob reminded us, the tapered sides aid in preventing these blades getting stuck in the mortice. Wonderful chisels and a clear step up from the firmers.






The journey continued when Ray Iles brought out their version in D2 steel. There is a lot of hype about how this steel lasts forever. Well, it is true that they last much longer than the laminated steel of the vintage Wards I have, however this is only really relevant if you are working very hard and abrasive woods. The Wards (among others I have) do a great job and will last through several mortices before one needs to rehone. The RI just last longer. More relevantly, they are beautifully made, and the blades are long. The problem these days is finding good quality vintage mortice chisels.

Here is a 1/4" RI flanked by a couple of Wards ...






So several more years go by and about a year or so ago I began testing blades for Lee Valley, and then testing handles as well. Their mortice chisels have the size and heft of an oval bolstered type along with the appearance of a sash mortice chisel. I cannot really comment about the handles, since the ones I have are pre-production and larger than the production (they are fine for my large mitts but I recommended that they be made smaller for the production version). The blades, however, warrant a closer look. They are superior to the vintage and RI versions. Like the others, they have trapezoid sides. The steel is either A2 or PM-V11. Frankly, I chopped metres and metres of mortices, and my arms gave out before the A2 steel did. The PM-V11 would last even longer. As I pointed out earlier, the laminated vintage steel did the job ("good enough"). The A2 (which is also what LN use) is better. The PM is better still, but is it necessary? Still, that is not the best thing about these blades. They are fuller/deeper at the pointy end, and this creates more control (this is the important point) and better leverage .... I do not lever much, but eventually one does need to lever, and then they are better at this.

RI, Ward, Veritas ...






The gap between the vintage OBM chisels and the Veritas is not huge. If looking to save bucks, find a couple of vintage chisels. If you have the bucks to spend, either the RI or Veritas will make you happy, the Veritas a little more so .. but only if used them side-by-side. I think good/bad chopping technique could make a greater difference than the physical side of these chisels.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## undergroundhunter (16 Nov 2016)

D_W":1qzlgoyk said:


> chaoticbob":1qzlgoyk said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for all the advice - though some of the later discussion was over my head, I have read all and shall inwardly digest.
> ...



From all the things I have read and seen Paul isnt keen on pig stickers for furniture work, he seems to prefer the bevel edged chisel as most people know. It would be interesting to know where TFWW got this quote from and if this was the full quote or is this an edited version, I will be seeing Paul at the weekend I will try to remember to ask him.

Matt


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (16 Nov 2016)

Paul Sellers wrote on the Tools for Working Wood Blog ...



> 04/24/2010
> Paul Sellers http://www.woodworkingschool.co.uk
> Hi Joel, Hope this finds you well. Not sure when we last spoke. I am fully
> returned to the UK and launched New Legacy School of Woodworking. Going
> ...



Regards from Perth

Derek


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## swagman (16 Nov 2016)

Paul Sellers disclaimer is an interesting read; #-o 


_Home » My disclaimer

With the aim of delivering sound teaching to a broad range of people pursuing woodworking I write and present via as many avenues as I can. I am concerned that this may confuse my readers and viewers who may wonder who I am associated with.

That is why this page has been created; to make clear who I work for and why.

I am the founder and owner of New Legacy School of Woodworking. I also work for Rokesmith Ltd which trades as Woodworking Masterclasses. I write, teach and present for these two companies and this is how I earn a living.

I have many friends in woodworking and business. *However, beyond these two, I have no obligations or interests either contractual or implied which would make me recommend or endorse any tool or service over another.*

*In the future I will be paid a small royalty on products that I have presented or written.*


Page updated: 10 December 2014_ https://paulsellers.com/my-disclaimer/


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## Jacob (16 Nov 2016)

You can't take royalties _and_ be disinterested. He's a bit confused.
But thats OK they all are. You read them and make up your own mind, and he is one of the better ones to read.


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## CStanford (16 Nov 2016)

Interesting quotes but I'm not sure what they have to do with the video. Being the best pigsticker you ever used doesn't really mean much if they aren't your preferred tool in the first place. That falls under the old saying 'the worst sex I ever had was wonderful.'

For some reason, I imagine a pigsticker might work better in green wood. I don't know. I don't build with it. Perhaps this explains their popularity 500 years ago. I've owned a pigsticker. I've cut mortises with a pigsticker. I thought, and still think, they pretty much stink at the job. A regular sash mortise chisel is much easier and faster to use (Marples must have made and sold tens of thousands of them), a plain bevel-edged chisel even better. It's easier to sink a little bit of steel into wood than a lot of steel. Levering out loose chips and material, as in the video, does not require a huge hunk of steel. Why? Well, because they're loose. They've been cut away from the neighboring wood. If you are exerting yourself, and beating and pounding, and making a lot of noise, disturbing the neighbors, not to mention the sleeping cat, and flailing around, and taxing a chisel to the breaking point something is not being done correctly. It's that simple. And it's all in the video. Unless you think Sellers is all about guile and obfuscation, then it's all in the video.

To the OP who is using bevel-edged chisels to chop mortises -- they will work and quite well. This fact may not square with the desire to buy something new but there it is anyway. Your first mortises are going to be lousy using anything except a dedicated mortising machine. The answer is not a shopping spree but more practice.

Or, we can drill and pare and do our best imitation of a dedicated mortising machine but in two steps. :wink: And if there is highly figured and swirling grain right where you'd like to have a mortise it could be a safer bet anyway. Or do a better job of stock selection the next time.


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## D_W (16 Nov 2016)

swagman":3vqocnfc said:


> Paul Sellers disclaimer is an interesting read; #-o
> 
> 
> _Home » My disclaimer
> ...



Perhaps it should be changed to "the best chisel that I have ever been paid to write about until the next one". 

Though that statement may have been made before being paid. You can't get paid and be unbiased. You can't get free things and be unbiased, which is why the FTC in the US has rules requiring disclosure that you received something for free if you did and you are discussing said free item. Not that most people follow them.


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## D_W (16 Nov 2016)

D_W":38hwm7b5 said:


> swagman":38hwm7b5 said:
> 
> 
> > Paul Sellers disclaimer is an interesting read; #-o
> ...



Would appear from Derek's excerpt that the positive comments about the RI chisels precede the comment about receiving something in return for talking about them.


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## D_W (16 Nov 2016)

CStanford":2apqc5wm said:


> To the OP who is using bevel-edged chisels to chop mortises -- they will work and quite well. This fact may not square with the desire to buy something new but there it is anyway. Your first mortises are going to be lousy using anything except a dedicated mortising machine. The answer is not a shopping spree but more practice.



If we lived in the land of tools as they do, I think spending a fiver or tenner on an appropriate firmer could be excluded from shopping spree. Buying 300 pounds worth of brand new mortise chisels that are whiz-bang-hold-an-edge-forever-and-you-never-need-to-learn-to-sharpen-quickly-steel .... not so much. If a tool seems to need happening often, then I would learn to sharpen faster.


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## CStanford (16 Nov 2016)

Here is Marc Adams, of the well-known (in the U.S. at least) Marc Adams School of Woodworking, cutting a mortise with what I believe may be a Berg bevel-edged bench chisel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohVYmDh2UME

It's a rather large mortise, and in poplar, but still...

Illustrates yet another approach to doing the work with a plain bench chisel.

There are companion videos on tenons and layout.

School website: https://www.marcadams.com/


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## AndyT (16 Nov 2016)

CStanford":2q7vxmcc said:


> Here is Marc Adams, of the well-known (in the U.S. at least) Marc Adams School of Woodworking, cutting a mortise with what I believe may be a Berg bevel-edged bench chisel:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohVYmDh2UME
> 
> ...




Well, that is an approach I've never seen used or suggested anywhere else. He uses a chisel which is narrower than the mortice.

That means he takes two cuts in each position and still needs to cut the sides separately.
Ok, it works for him, but it looks very inefficient.


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## CStanford (16 Nov 2016)

In the video he's cutting a through mortise which puts a premium on clean margins on at least one side of the mortise. You can't hit and hope you never get a runner or a little grain collapse at the margins. 

It's probably not an approach that would have been used by the guys who chopped all the mortises in Chippendale's shop (or maybe it would have been who knows?) but for a one-off maker, in a one-man shop, making one piece of furniture at a time, I'm not sure when or where 'efficiency' comes in. If the whole project goes to pot at the joint cutting stage, time-wise, it was probably ill conceived on several fronts at the outset or destined to drag on regardless.

I would have drilled (with a brace and dowel jig) and pared a through mortise of that size but I definitely would outline the margins with a little chisel whack, very much like his approach. Anything other than perfectly straight and crisp margins spoils the look of a through mortise. That said, there would be virtually nothing to prevent one from using the same approach on a blind mortise and I suspect Adams does them pretty much the same way. It would be a lot faster in a setting where he's not providing commentary while doing the work and maneuvering the workpiece(s) for the benefit of camera angles and lighting.

If there's another way to maintain, if not practically guarantee, crisp margins on a through joint (even if using machines) I'd love to hear it. This is no different than the incised crosscut line on a tenon shoulder being the part of the joint that shows. What's visible is made by a knife, or a chisel registered against a straightedge.


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## woodbrains (16 Nov 2016)

Hello,

If it wasn't for all the chasing the stock around the bench top and putting it in and out of the vice over and over......I think it is a good forgiving technique. Perhaps all the to-ing and fro-ing was just for the demo, and he would normally clamp the stock down to the bench top, which I would do. I do think it is a good technique, though. Once the boundaries were established, it is likely that swapping to a mortice chisels and chopping full width would work well too.

I remember my high school woodwork teacher telling me off for setting the boundaries with a BE chisel before I chopped the mortice. I was 11 YOA and thought it was a good idea to prevent any splintering past the lines, which would have been pencil as we didn't have marking knives. (The long boundaries would have been gauged, but not the ends). He obviously just wanted me to chop as tradition dictated. Ive tried my best not to stick to tradition the rest of my life, if there is logically a better way. Many times, there are!

Mike.


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## CStanford (16 Nov 2016)

Yes, obviously a *too short* demo piece of stock that would have been difficult to clamp and not get in the way of the camera work if not the operation itself.

Other than 'registered' chisels there are no mortise chisels of the width he was making I don't think. I guess pigstickers max out at 3/8"? Don't know. That looked to be a 1/2" mortise but I'm not sure. My gosh a 1/2" pigsticker mortise chisel would weigh about seven pounds wouldn't it? :lol:


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## woodbrains (16 Nov 2016)

Hello,

I only have registered and sash mortice chisels. Oh and some firmers. I'm a furniture maker not a blooming ships carpenter. Pigstickers are a bit crude for my tastes. That said, I don't often mortice by hand these days, occasionally for fun, or demos at school. Sometimes it is quicker for a one off but a hollow chisel morticer is my weapon of choice.  I must say, spending hundreds on LN or Veritas and the likes could get a nice bench top morticer. I don't see the sense in boutique mortice chisels.

Mike.


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## CStanford (16 Nov 2016)

Agree!


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (16 Nov 2016)

woodbrains":z60tvqme said:


> Hello,
> 
> I only have registered and sash mortice chisels. Oh and some firmers. I'm a furniture maker not a blooming ships carpenter. Pigstickers are a bit crude for my tastes. That said, I don't often mortice by hand these days, occasionally for fun, or demos at school. Sometimes it is quicker for a one off but a hollow chisel morticer is my weapon of choice.  I must say, spending hundreds on LN or Veritas and the likes could get a nice bench top morticer. I don't see the sense in boutique mortice chisels.
> 
> Mike.



I do not find OBM chisels crude. (As an aside, I share Joel Moskovitz's preference for calling them this rather than their "pigsticker" nickname - just so we are referring to the same chisel). They are precision instruments in the right hands. One of the design features I came to recognise - when the abused vintage chisels were replaced with ones in good condition - was that sharp lands aid in cleaning up the sides of a mortice. Many of the vintage chisels have been derusted and have lost this design feature. Of course newer chisels, such as the RI and the Veritas, will have this feature since the blades have not been abused. The slicing action of the lands is less easy to replicate using a BE bench chisel since the latter is apt to twist slightly in the hand. Sellers is skilled and makes this look easy. I would expect that the average beginning woodworker would not be aware of what he is missing out on. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

The crux of the issue is that neither the Follansbee mortise cut with a pigsticker, nor the Sellers mortise cut with the pigsticker (both highly experienced woodworkers) looked as well, or were done as quickly, as the one Sellers cut with a plain bench chisel. If the only thing in between is a little practice then that's a small price to pay, exceedingly small when considering the fact that everybody in this game has a set of bench chisels already. I don't believe that this is a skill that took Sellers (Marc Adams, et al.) years to develop, more like a dozen or so practice mortises, maybe less, sump'n like that? 

Learning to hold, position, and strike a bench chisel without causing it to twist is a good skill to have -- one better learned sooner rather than later.

We have quality video of two (three counting Marc Adams) well-known and skilled professional craftsmen, who presumably work at speed for a paying clientele, or have done so in the past. It's not hard to compare the results and the video speaks for itself it seems to me.


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## AJB Temple (17 Nov 2016)

I thought it was pretty slow and fiddly, but it's difficult to know how much that was influenced by being filmed. I think efficiency is relevant. I am not making a living from my woodwork, but that does not mean I have unlimited time - sometimes we just need to get on with it and get a job done. A through mortise like that with at least one visible end is worth doing neatly though.


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## PAC1 (17 Nov 2016)

I am not sure the answer is new or second hand chisels. Clean mortises are a function of sharp chisels and technique. On technique there are three or four methods all have their place. The techniques demonstrated in the videos are ok. For half inch mortises I would drill out the majority of the waste and then trim the Mortice to size with a chisel.
Dedicated mortice chisels are good if you chop a lot of them by hand but as demonstrated an ordinary be chisel does an acceptable job


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

To my eye, the bench chisel in the Sellers video did a better job. It was faster too.


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## G S Haydon (17 Nov 2016)

In all three videos the best demo is the Sellers with the bevel edge. It's a concise demo that creates a mortise quickly. 
Regard the OBM/Pig Stick I'm sure the best ones I have are tapered in their width too. For instance the 12mm is that width at the edge and more like 10mm at the bolster.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":36bupegw said:


> To my eye, the bench chisel in the Sellers video did a better job. It was faster too.



The problem with both the demonstrations was that they were aided by the glass wall. This in particular aids the bevel edged chisel (Sellers), as it offers support to maintain accuracy. 

It would have been better if both parties chopped their mortices unaided by the glass wall. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

Not really a problem since both were using the glass, same species of lumber, etc. Sellers arranged his demo to match Follansbee's. That was the point. If the glass "helped" one chisel it helped the other. Don't tear something vital this morning with such a huge stretch.


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

G S Haydon":2pag59n4 said:


> In all three videos the best demo is the Sellers with the bevel edge. It's a concise demo that creates a mortise quickly.
> Regard the OBM/Pig Stick I'm sure the best ones I have are tapered in their width too. For instance the 12mm is that width at the edge and more like 10mm at the bolster.



Anything to keep them from looking like a hundred dolla' railroad spike with a pretty handle. :lol:


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":3ckrs65p said:


> Not really a problem since both were using the glass, same species of lumber, etc. Sellers arranged his demo to match Follansbee's. That was the point. If the glass "helped" one chisel it helped the other. Don't tear something vital this morning with such a huge stretch.



The point I was making, Charles, was that the glass aided in guiding the BE chisels a whole lot more than the OBM chisels. Good OBM chisels guide themselves by virtue of their design. That is why they developed as they did over a couple of hundred years. 

So, in actual fact, the videos were not equivalent. For someone with Sellers' skill it may not have mattered, and very likely was not a factor that even occurred to him as a result. However, the point of a OBM is that it does not need steering, in fact cannot be steered. This reduces user-error. 

I am not arguing that BE chisels cannot be used, or even that they cannot be used efficiently. I am simply stating that, given the choice of a decent BE chisel or a decent OBM chisel, I would go for the latter every time. In fact I do. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## PAC1 (17 Nov 2016)

Derek Does you preference for the OBM apply regardless of size of mortice? For instance cutting mortices by hand: 5/16ths and down I use a mortice chisel. 3/8ths and up I would drill out the waste and then pair down using a BE Chisel.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (17 Nov 2016)

Hi PAC

I use OBM chisels most commonly in 1/4" and 5/16" sizes. Most frames I use are around the 3/4" mark. Occasionally I use a 1/8" and a 3/8". I have a 1/2" chisel, but cannot recall when I last used it. I'd rather do a double 1/4" mortice-and-tenon joint. Wide mortices in hardwood call for other methods. They are really hard work. Frankly, that is the time to use a power router! I do.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## swagman (17 Nov 2016)

And you have the cheek to point the finger at me for using a honing guide Derek.. =D>


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## PAC1 (17 Nov 2016)

Thanks Derek, In practice I do not cut many mortices by hand, a well set up Hollow Morticer is used. The Router is also a good alternative.
Certainly 3/8ths and above are usually machine cut.
My point is the OP mentioned half inch mortices which as I say if cutting by hand I would drill out. I did not want the OP thinking we all cut large Mortices by hand using a Mortice Chisel.


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> CStanford":25jujgbn said:
> 
> 
> > Not really a problem since both were using the glass, same species of lumber, etc. Sellers arranged his demo to match Follansbee's. That was the point. If the glass "helped" one chisel it helped the other. Don't tear something vital this morning with such a huge stretch.
> ...



You simply have no way of knowing how the glass affected the test. It's your biased opinion, at best. In a regular furniture sized mortise there's not enough of the bleedin' pigsticker in the hole to even matter. That's why the things look so patently absurd, for instance, when chopping a two inch long mortise in a cabinet door frame to a depth of three quarters or so. By the time you get to a depth where it might (and I stress "might") matter, an inch or so, you're done. Hence the results you saw on the video. Tap, tap, tap, whoa, I'm already to depth... rinse and repeat. With tools you already have.

It does not take a professional craftsman with 50 years' experience to control a bevel edged chisel being powered with a mallet. If it does, we're all screwed way beyond just making mortises.


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## G S Haydon (17 Nov 2016)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> So, in actual fact, the videos were not equivalent. For someone with Sellers' skill it may not have mattered, and very likely was not a factor that even occurred to him as a result. However, the point of a OBM is that it does not need steering, in fact cannot be steered. This reduces user-error.



Not sure I agree Derek, something that cannot be "steered" sound like a benefit of a machine based approach, something that has become very normal in today's word when using hand tools. It is the very fact that things can be "steered" which makes hand tool work freeing and versatile.

Here's and OBM (wish we could just call it a moritise chisel)

















Kee's had some pictures of Dutch example with this feature too. They cut clean, don't bind (because they can't unless you're a half wit) and can be "steered". 

Sorry if it sounds blunt (much like the edge of my mortise chisel) . Think I might dust off my video camera


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (17 Nov 2016)

Graham, no steering = no twisting, especially in wild grain. Just my experience since much of the wood I use is wild grain.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## G S Haydon (17 Nov 2016)

Derek, no steering = no freedom and binding mortice. Looks like I'll need to find a clean piece of wood and a railway sleeper (primary use for Jarrah http://www.railwaysleepers.com/railway- ... y-sleepers) . Having said that you make those sleepers look stunning in you furniture


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

According to Frank Klausz it is the trapezoidal shape of a mortise chisel, when viewed head-on, that lends it its "steerability." So to the extent that any chisel has this shape, "pigsticker" or not, then it is steerable to some degree and one can also therefore have it go off-course. 

For a chisel to be truly self-jigging and silly person proof it would need to be a perfect rectangle if not a perfect square and be honed exactly square to its sides. The AI pigstickers are neither.

I have some old Marples sash mortisers that are rectangular as far as I can tell. Ian Kirby also advocates for a rectangular rather than trapezoidal shaped chisel, for what it's worth. He can be seen in photos using Marples Blue Chip sash mortising chisels. I've never had hands on one. I assume they're the same shape as my boxwood handled Marples.

If you hone a rectangular mortise chisel a little off-square it will go off-course in the mortise. I can certainly attest to this. Something to keep in mind, though I don't use mine that much anymore.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (17 Nov 2016)

Either we are conversing at cross-purposes, or we work differently. The only time I "steer" a mortice chisel is when placing it in position at the surface. The chisel is aligned square to the mortice lines, and then struck straight down. I do not seek to steer it on its journey straight down, nor does it need to be steered. 






The only chopping direction is straight down. I learned that this is the method advocated by Maynard. No attempt is made to lever out waste. The waste is being forced into the (drilled) hole on the right (obscured in the photo). 






By the three-quarter point it is likely that you will be at full depth.






Continue to the end of the mortice …






… and then turn the chisel around and return.






About half way you can lever out the chips.

Continue to the end of the mortice and clean up.






There is no steering anywhere here.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

I cut mine with a central v and never have that row of jammed chips as in your photos. I hate that look and they often bruise the margins, especially with the chisel you're using. Not a big deal on a four-shouldered tenon but not all can be four-shouldered all the time.

To my eye, it's like using a 36" bar Husqvarna chainsaw to trim the holly bushes -- a little over-the-top. When a really big mortise is called for they aren't made in a size to accommodate. I just don't see the advantage unfortunately, certainly not in the 1/4" and 5/16" sizes.

Whether or not 'steerability' is an issue of importance in any particular person's work doesn't change the fact that a trapezoidal chisel is steerable and can go off course. The AIs are trapezoidal.


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## G S Haydon (17 Nov 2016)

Neat work but there is more than one way to skin a cat. Moving with the bevel in the direction the chisel creates a slicing action rather than the blunt chopping against the end grain, makes for easier work and less stress on the edge so less need for miracle steels. Sellers demonstrates it well in the video, but it's no his method exlusively. It shows up in the "Practical Woodworker - Bernard E Jones". If we're calling one way the "Maynard" :lol: I'll conced to calling the other way the "Sellers".

Having a chisel with tapered edges such as a bevel edge reduces resistance, or a mortice chisel like I've shown, tapered in it's length removes pretty much any resistance. Sash mortice chisels are ok but in my limited experience a stout bevel edge, like a marples, is better on lighter work.

And let's be honest, mortising by hand is pretty much like the Dodo. HCM and similar have been around so long (150 years) no serious professional has been mortising by hand unless their client base is niece or they've been learning a skill during their apprenticeship. 

It's then left to the fools (of which I am one) to experiment in lieu of actual hand tool woodworkers who have long since perished.


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":frejk2kb said:


> I cut mine with a central v and never have that row of jammed chips as in your photos. I hate that look and they often bruise the margins, especially with the chisel you're using. Not a big deal on a four-shouldered tenon but not all can be four-shouldered all the time.
> 
> To my eye, it's like using a 36" bar Husqvarna chainsaw to trim the holly bushes.
> 
> Whether or not 'steerability' is an issue in any particular person's work doesn't change the fact that a trapezoidal chisel is steerable and can go off course. The AIs are trapezoidal I believe.



It's pretty easy to leave the starting end short a eighth of an inch and avoid the bruising if there's no shoulder on the tenon at the end of the mortise. 

I just watched sellers' video again, i guess it's worth doing once a year or so to notice that it's clear that he's comfortable with the bench chisel, but he has no clue how to progress in the mortise with the mortise chisel, he leaves strange areas of waste with it, and he literally hammers the bench chisel much faster. He also takes really inconsistent thickness chips with the mortise chisel, but not with the bench chisel. Why is that?

I don't have to work to cut mortises just as fast as he did with his bench chisels with the oval bolstered chisels I've had. Minus just a little bit of speed that he'd be minus, too, if his mortise was bound by wood on both sides (cutting the mortise of a plane is about twice as fast in the cuts where the wood is held only on one side - I doubt that's any different). 

I did a couple of face frames last year with bench chisels, and didn't find them faster than anything other than the japanese mortise chisel I have...or had until it broke. That one had a problem of binding in a mortise, which makes it fairly difficult to cut a fast mortise. I gave it a fair shake to figure out if it was me or the chisel - until it broke after only about, maybe 100 mortises.

(I wonder why sellers wouldn't use a larger mallet with the larger chisel - I'd imagine if he used both tools an equal amount of times, he'd cut a mortise at the same speed)

By the way, notice how much more slowly the mortise progresses here without the holding wood removed from one side (maybe a bad term to use, I'm not talking about felling trees). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBodzmUGtdw


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

If Seller's effort with the pigsticker was bad I'm not sure what to say about Follansbee's. Didn't look good at all to me.

Sellers does seem more comfortable with the B/E chisel but that's the point, right, to show how well it can work. The fact that he actually used the method during a career in woodworking isn't an indictment of some sort I assume.

Central V is the way to go. Sellers demonstrates something sort of similar, but does them a different way in another video. It works - you never have that row of kibble when starting the job.

There are other Sellers videos on YouTube showing him chopping out with a B/E chisel. It's fast but he does pause to instruct.


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":38k1n3jw said:


> If Seller's effort with the pigsticker was bad I'm not sure what to say about Follansbee's. Didn't look good at all to me.
> 
> Sellers does seem more comfortable with the B/E chisel but that's the point, right, to show how well it can work. The fact that he actually used the method during a career in woodworking isn't an indictment of some sort I assume.
> 
> Central V is the way to go. Sellers demonstrates something sort of similar. It works.



Not an indictment on the method with the chisel, just a suggestion that he's not very good using the bigger chisel because he's not familiar with it. Also interesting that it's sharpened like some chisels were in the 18th century, but not the 20th. 

Take a look at the edge of these mortise chisels. They have a long very defined microbevel. It's the only part of the chisel in the wood until you lever them (assuming you cut a mortise with the bevel facing the wood yet to be cut - I don't know why anyone would do it differently as the chisel doesn't clear the waste out of the mortise, but that's a debate that's been had before). Look at the taper on the ends of those chisels. Little of them touches wood. Paul's chisel is set up a little different, and I don't know about the taper on his but the taper doesn't matter since the wood is holding only on one side. 

Can't speak to follansbee, he's an interesting guy, but he doesn't make things that I'd like to make or work to a level of neatness that I'd like to have, so I don't watch much of what he does. The demonstrations with pit saws, etc, are interesting.

Anyway, if chisels are proper for each type, I would guess that the speed in making mortise (and the results) would be about the same for everything. If someone likes to use bench chisels, that's fine, I just don't get the sense that a guy using a chisel that he's used to "teach 3000 students" or whatever it was, and then picking up another one and don't a half-baked job with it is a definitive comparison. It *would've* been an indictment of it if paul somehow managed to use a chisel he's not familiar with to a much greater effect than one he is.


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

Again my focus would be on Follansbee who does use pigstickers and is generally thought to be something of an expert on old tools and methods of work, along with the styles and genres in which he works.

The comparison, if I may, is not between Seller's use of each chisel but Seller's use of a bench chisel vs. Follansbee's use of a pigsticker. I don't see how anybody could come away with any other impression than Sellers is better at mortising with his B/E chisel than Follansbee is with his pigsticker. If Follansbee can be accepted as an expert user of that style mortising chisel and Sellers his, then... ??? Could it be the chisels?


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":3rfdfylv said:


> Again my focus would be on Follansbee who does use pigstickers and is generally thought to be something of an expert on old tools and methods of work, along with the styles and genres in which he works.
> 
> The comparison, if I may, is not between Seller's use of each chisel but Seller's use of a bench chisel vs. Follansbee's use of a pigsticker. I don't see how anybody could come away with any other impression than Sellers is better at mortising with his B/E chisel than Follansbee is with his pigsticker. If Follansbee can be accepted as an expert user of that style mortising chisel and Sellers his, then... ??? Could it be the chisels?



I didn't see the follansbee video, I'd have to go find it. Maybe Paul is just better at mortising. It's hard to tell because you can clearly see in paul's other videos without the window, the mortises don't proceed at the same speed. I'm not a big fan of the stuff like the window mortises, it's beginner magnet stuff. "ooh...look at this video with the window on the side". Just pick up a chisel and cut some mortises. try a couple of different types of chisels, decide what works well and if you manage to find a project where you have 25 or 50 or 100 mortises to cut, you'll probably find what works best pretty quickly. 

The idea that we can come to some kind if global definitive conclusion because two people cut mortises with glass next to a piece of wood is kind of stupid. Especially if it conflicts with the tools that you actually have in hand. That's really stupid.


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1bo6NVYCc0

Sellers seemed to have posted his video in response to Follansbee's and used the same methodology, the windows.

Follansbee's work looks labored to me, even though one side of the mortise is not having to be cut, the windowed side. The walls are not great at all.

He's taking less of a bite than Sellers did with his B/E chisel.


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## Cheshirechappie (17 Nov 2016)

* Activate Grump Mode*

Look fellas, it's all very well for our transatlantic cousins to call mortice chisels 'pigstickers' - it's a well-established colloquialism in North America. However, on this side of the Pond, they're 'mortice chisels', or 'oval-bolstered mortice chisels' if you want to be posh about it. That's to distinguish them from 'socket mortice chisels', 'sash mortice chisels', 'registered firmer chisels', 'firmer chisels' (which may or may not be 'registered' - i.e., have sides at exactly 90 degrees to the flat face), 'bevel-edged firmer chisels' - and so on.

All of those could be used to chop mortices. You could use a try plane for finish smoothing, or a smoothing plane to joint board edges. You could cut dovetails with a panel saw (may be pushing it a bit with a full rip), or crosscut rough stock with a dovetail saw (rather slowly) - but why would you if you have the tool made for the job to hand?

*Grump mode off*

Phew. Feel better now...

(Edit to add - OBM chisels were made in sizes from about 1/16" (which are fairly uncommon, and fetch good money from collectors) to about 3/4". The commonest sizes seem to be in the 1/4" to 1/2" range, which covers most furniture and building joinery applications. If all you intend to make is furniture from solid timber using trad. joinery, you may well only ever need one size - 1/4" or 5/16". Buy one of those, and only buy other sizes if jobs that need them arise. Nobody needs a 'set' of mortice chisels, except for show.

Many of the vintage ones, being hand-made, are not an 'exact' size - they may be 1/32" or more above or below a neat sixteenth-inch size. Doesn't matter - set mortice gauge to size of YOUR chisel, mark both mortice and tenon with the same gauge, and they'll fit.)


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

I just tracked down the follansbee video. I'm a bit baffled by several things:
* the method in general, never seen anything like it
* the chisel is impossibly blunt on the final bevel. I understand why a beginner might fall into that (believing that it will keep them away from sharpening stones), but not sure why peter's are set up like that. It takes but a minute to touch up the end of a chisel on oilstones, especially if you're only maintaining a tiny bevel

There's something strange about his bottom prying that might have something to do with riven lumber, but I still am not following why that demonstration would be relevant to this discussion. It's not up to snuff.


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":v42ra13o said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1bo6NVYCc0
> 
> Sellers seemed to have posted his video in response to Follansbee's and used the same methodology, the windows.
> 
> ...



I think you're playing coy here suggesting the Follansbee video in the first place, this is the first time I watched the whole thing and the results at the end would suggest looking elsewhere. Who likes mortises that go past the marked line? I hope cutting the tenon is step 2 in this situation.

I'll bet sellers' chisel would've had some trouble advancing with that blunt bevel angle, too. I recall the window occurring before follansbee and thinking at the time "gahd...one person does a window, and now everyone selling books and videos and classes is going to do the same thing". The ghee whiz woodworking videos that show us something we can pretty easily figure out for ourselves. As you mentioned before, cut a dozen mortises and you pretty much are set up to make them competently. After that, you can just expect to get better and faster at it because you're....better and faster at it with more practice.


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

I have, by the way, tried a similar thing to what peter is doing in plane mortises. In theory, you could cut both ends of the mortise and pry the chip up between those cuts, especially in good quartersawn wood where the wood doesn't do unpredictable things. 

In the end, it's just faster and a lot neater (which is also ultimately faster) just to mortise "the regular way" making progressive cuts.


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

I like the central v method, but Follansbee didn't really execute it the way I've heard and read it explained elsewhere. 

All things considered, not a terribly inspiring or inspired effort.

I believe that when the Follansbee video hit the airwaves that Sellers mentioned it in his blog and shortly thereafter his video was available. Seemed to be in response, but maybe not. Still doesn't devalue it as a comparison. I'm all about the lowest angle that works and maintains a semblance of an edge and maybe sometimes not even then. I still remember my high school physics, and I've walked straight up a hill before and then traversed it sideways. Lesson learned.

While I love Charles Hayward, I have to say there is the funniest photo in his book Woodworking Joints of a guy mortising what looks like a two inch long or so mortise with the biggest OBM chisel (hat tip to CC) I've ever seen. The thing is huge. Pornographic. And then to top it all off the mortise had already been mostly drilled out. I don't see how it could be done. The chisel was almost as wide front to back as the mortise was long, and then to deal with the little islands of material between the drilled out portions? Not me. A bridge too far.


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## AJB Temple (17 Nov 2016)

Whilst I agree with CheshireChappie that no one needs a "set" of mortice chisels, there are times when it is useful. For example: my original interest in woodworking was instrument making: acoustic and electric guitars. I got quite interested in violin making and did a course in Cremona on that, and it is pretty useful (not essential I admit) to have some small, fine but weighty chisels. On the other hand, these days I am trying to build some timber framing and ended up buying some old pig stickers (part of eBayjob lot) and a couple of big slicks. Horses for courses. Compared with what people are willing to spend on Festool gear, chisels, even fine ones, are pretty cheap and it does not harm to have a selection. Are they necessary - no. Are they nice to have and useful - yes. I do not make fine furniture (or very rarely) so the uses described in the videos do not apply to me. However, I have used mortice chisels for cutting out very accurate wells for bridges, inlays, neck sockets, etc. It just depends what you are doing.


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":1a15cuqn said:


> I like the central v method, but Follansbee didn't really execute it the way I've heard and read it explained elsewhere.
> 
> All things considered, not a terribly inspiring or inspired effort.
> 
> ...



I'm still sort of astounded by all of this. Mortising is a relatively simple operation, something we can all figure out how to do without ghee-whiz videos from youtube. There are videos and discussions suggesting drilling, and then using a chisel (in some way other than paring sides), which I don't understand at all. 

I'd suspect the amount of my mortise chisels - which after breaking my japanese mortise chisel - are the ones in the picture I linked earlier - in the cut is similar to a bevel edge chisel. The penetration is about the same. Couldn't say within 5% if a bench chisel might not be faster, or if they're 5% faster than a bench chisel, but they remind me of the RI chisels as those worked with a small double bevel - no trouble with penetrating. 

I'd make a claim about how they seem to big for small cabinet mortises, but I don't make mortises smaller than face frame style mortises, and they haven't been a detriment in those. Those are about 1 1/4 inches long and 3/4ths inch deep. Once in a great while there's a long one where there's no doors or drawers. You could cut them with anything. If you can't find the easiest or most pleasing way to cut them trying a couple of things if you have to actually make a lot of them, something is wrong. 

(A quick look suggests frank klausz and roy underhill did a mortise with glass and that's where this started. If they got the gimmick from someone else, who knows? It's starting to seem like pro wrestling at this point...one wrestler gets a gimmick that's successful, then 5 people are using it).

I think I might have the woodworking joints book, If I do, I'll track down the picture. I sort of like that kind of stuff. I don't know who is in the picture and what they're doing, but certainly there have been examples of people who have done really fine work who do some individual things that are really strange and make no sense. They have the determination to do fine work, though, and the sense to get it done one way or another, so who am I to argue?


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

A way to pass the time and blow off steam I suppose. Everybody needs a diversion but if it turns out to be a sanity check so much the better. There are some nuggets out there but without doubt the best place to tease it out is in your own shop.

That said, it takes an astonishingly small amount of twist cut into a mortise to ruin one's plans for a productive afternoon.


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

CStanford":1mfdswld said:


> A way to pass the time and blow off steam I suppose. Everybody needs a diversion but if it turns out to be a sanity check so much the better. There are some nuggets out there but without doubt the best place to tease it out is in your own shop.
> 
> That said, it takes an astonishingly small amount of twist cut into a mortise to ruin one's plans for a productive afternoon.



Yeah, not fun -off the trail into the weeds to fix the situation. About as much fun as the mortises with crossing grain you were describing earlier. I'd rather sit on fluorescent light bulbs.


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

Not fun when they end up in last place they ought to be. It's a screw up for sure.


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## Paddy Roxburgh (17 Nov 2016)

Sorry to interrupt David and Charles, but if the OP reads this far I would recommend Narex mortise chisels if you are buying new, I have a couple and enjoy using them and find them better than using a bench chisel. They are trapezoid ground and sharpen nicely and are not too dear (check out Workshop Heaven). At work I tend to cut mortises with a domino and square the ends when necessary with a bench chisel, but at home in my shed I never use a machine and even cut deep through mortises only with chisels ( I find it easier to keep them square than a brace or drill). 
Paddy


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## iNewbie (17 Nov 2016)

Here's the blog Seller made on Mortice chisels with the video reference:

https://paulsellers.com/2012/07/choppin ... els-video/

And his meandering on different chisels...

https://paulsellers.com/2014/02/many-chisel-choices/


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## CStanford (17 Nov 2016)

Makes perfect sense to me:

"As a boy in school I was shown this method and indeed we were trained that way, but once I left school and started to chop mortises in the everyday of life I found that lightweight chisels chopped more effectively, especially on the lighter work of furniture making and joinery rather than the heavy bank doors once common that had 3/4″ wide 5″ x 5″ deep twin and double mortises in mahogany and oak (that’s two or four mortises per corner sometimes on the bottom and middle rails). In my apprenticeship, most of the men chopped mortises with a Marples bevel-edged chisel. They used the ones shortened by wear, admittedly, but I used my then brand new Marples bluechips and have done so now for almost five decades. In all of those years using these and other makers, I have never bent a chisel once. Furthermore, I have trained 3,500 woodworkers, many raw beginners to the bench, and I have never found one chisel bent either."

The assertion that large OBM chisels were the chisels of choice for shops making house furniture just doesn't square with common sense. I bought one, based on all the buzz, and using it was a buzz-kill. They're too big, too heavy, too long. Just too, too. A rectangular in section, so-called sash mortise chisel, THIS I can believe is a furniture maker's tool. There's no real reason to make them with the parallelogram shape, though some firms do, the mortises just aren't that deep. On the somewhat rare occasions a large, deep, or through mortise is needed you just bore the fooker out and pare it clean. Done. Otherwise, if you're cutting and releasing the material, rather than just driving the chisel, then it won't get stuck. And if it does, occasionally, it's just barely. A mortise chisel for furniture doesn't need to be given "the welly," ever. It's like screaming and yelling across a job site, it's just not done unless maybe you just cut your arm off. Some guy beating on a chisel like he's imagining murdering his mother-in-law is not the way of the craftsman. That a halfway decent mortise results doesn't justify all the sturm and drang and artillery brought to bear. Lousy two cents. Off to play with the OES (Old English Sheepdog) since we're using initials today. I need to make sure he doesn't have a BM in the house.

Cheers!


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## D_W (17 Nov 2016)

I can't agree for no need for vertical taper. I have a socket mortise chisel, 1/4" that is square. It's stiff in a mortise 1" deep. it cuts a mortise too perfect and sticks in it. Not a fan. 

I got it, the japanese chisels and OBM to compare (and at the time this whole hullaballoo kicked up, I had a set of blue chips, and tried them, too - right on target with what the video has). 

At one point long ago, I had a bunch of the Iles OBMs, but I don't find them better than vintage ones and they are gone. I bought some at different times and noticed that the early chisels were a lot better finished than the later ones, and that was always an irk. I find the opposite, don't know why, but why question it? That is, I don't see them as ungainly large for small cabinet type mortises, and liked that you don't have to have a firm grip on them to keep them straight - holding tight on a bench chisel for a lot of mortises can be a pain.

Out of interest, I watched a couple of other videos over lunch that get attached to the sellers videos, and I'm sure that most of the budding woodworkers fiddle with routers and such, as videos showing the use of routers have a lot more traffic on them. How boring! The presenters with 3000 square feet of dust collection get downright militant if you suggest that it might be faster to cut them by hand if you only have a couple. 

Besides, how would you make things like these with a router? (George had devised a way to cut the abutments on these with a broaching attachment on a bridgeport, but that kind of thing is beyond my interest, and wouldn't quite work for double iron planes - though I'm sure he could come up with something that would - still, it's easy to do by hand, quick and the chisel doesn't really matter).




Or even more simply, all of the delicate mortises on tables. 

I started with power tools only. A friend of mine has a multirouter and all kinds of gadgets like that. When everything comes together, it's almost like working metal. When it doesn't, you're just left scratching your head saying "what just happened? where did it miss?"...though things like large break outs of material in less than ideal stock are easier to understand and quick to happen. 

At any rate, I've had some large mortise chisels, and now those shown in the listing (they were about $80 for 4, not so bad, I think, and whatever the circumstances may be in the cut, they slip deep into the cut easily and make nice fast mortises)


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## woodbrains (17 Nov 2016)

Hello,

Here in blighty, at least the part I live, OBM chisels, or pig stickers, were simply called joiners mortice chisels. The clue to the fact that they were not designed for furniture makers. 

Mike.


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

woodbrains":1a3rj7eu said:


> Hello,
> 
> Here in blighty, at least the part I live, OBM chisels, or pig stickers, were simply called joiners mortice chisels. The clue to the fact that they were not designed for furniture makers.
> 
> Mike.


Where I live they are just called mortice chisels and they were designed for all joinery including furniture. 
There is also the sash mortice chisel - for window makers - various sizes but most typically 1/2" and slightly less in depth for small glazing bar mortices - of which millions must have been cut in the old days.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (18 Nov 2016)

Hi Jacob

I suspect that you chop mortices in the same manner as I do (straight down and remove waste later)? - see my earlier set of pictures. Care to comment on method?

Any others (than Charles and David, who have said a lot) with to comment on method, possibly with a view to linking method to chisel type.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> Either we are conversing at cross-purposes, or we work differently. The only time I "steer" a mortice chisel is when placing it in position at the surface. The chisel is aligned square to the mortice lines, and then struck straight down. I do not seek to steer it on its journey straight down, nor does it need to be steered.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Much as I was taught to do except I don't see the point of the drilled hole. A through mortice you don't need to lever anything out - most of it flies out as you go but when you are through a few chips might need poking out. Blind mortice ditto except you need to lever out the corners - with the round bevel against the side, and may need to clean out with a smaller chisel.

No need to clamp anything - best done lose on the bench top from the end so you are sighting down the length, or for mass production on saw horses with you sitting astride. Or on the trad mortice stool which I've never had the pleasure of.

I did actually do a lot of hand work when I started but hand mortices just for fun now. If you can call it fun!


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## Racers (18 Nov 2016)

Jacob, how do you get the chisel out if you don't clamp the wood? or do you just have lumps of wood with lots chisels stuck in them?

Pete


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## swagman (18 Nov 2016)

I doubt there would be many, if any professional joinery shops that are still relying on the traditional mortise chisel to remove most of the waste. Time is money, and with the ever rising cost in hourly rates, and if you cant control your costs via an ever increasing use of specialized machinery, its difficult to remain competitive against those that are offering the same service, but have adapted to more modern techniques. All forms of woodwork trades, from the Carpenter and Joiner through to the Cabinet Maker, have seen a huge transition over the last 30yrs away from traditional techniques applied within construction. Rarely will you come across a new home that hasn't been built using prefab roof trusses and wall framing. Most kitchen cabinets are now contracted out to specialized manufacturers that then computer cut each of the components to exacting dimensions. The cabinet Makers role is to then fine tune the fit those cabinets and complete the assembly.


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

Racers":1dittkux said:


> Jacob, how do you get the chisel out if you don't clamp the wood? or do you just have lumps of wood with lots chisels stuck in them?
> 
> Pete


After each hit you waggle it slightly and it comes lose (thanks to the taper etc) but if not you just hold down or tap the workpiece with the mallet conveniently located in your other hand. Clamping just slows things down and the clamp may mark the sides.
The mortice stool / saw horse idea - you hold it down with your bum - quick release and no risk of marks and a very efficient ergonomic working position.
It's a bit like rip-sawing - fast and furious - there would be a lot of them to do so slowly and carefully wouldn't do at all.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (18 Nov 2016)

> After each hit you waggle it slightly



Jacob, I prefer the wiggle rather than the waggle 

I do the same. Not much movement is required. 

The board is clamped over the leg of the bench. I have a really simple and effective method that secures the board and releases it in a second. It makes the process of chopping mortices quite efficient. I'll take a photo on the weekend and post it here.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Racers (18 Nov 2016)

Jacob":1uzpqmwe said:


> Racers":1uzpqmwe said:
> 
> 
> > Jacob, how do you get the chisel out if you don't clamp the wood? or do you just have lumps of wood with lots chisels stuck in them?
> ...



How the hell does clamping slow things down? the wood is fixed so no need to hold it down with the mallet in your other hand, possibly marking it and getting bits underneath it it lifts off the workbench, which will mark the underside, don't tell me this has never happened to you.
A clamp and a pad will make things much easer and quicker.

Pete


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

Racers":1xh8a6zw said:


> Jacob":1xh8a6zw said:
> 
> 
> > Racers":1xh8a6zw said:
> ...


You can't hold in a bench vice as it will mark the sides as you whack the chisel. It has to sit on a bench i.e. supported underneath. Across bench hooks is good as the chippings fall free and don't get under the workpiece.
So first you have to find the clamp, then you have to apply and turn the screw or whatever way it works, then you have to undo it - then do it again if you are going through. And it gets even more complicated if you try to do several side by side.
Hope that helps.


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## AndyT (18 Nov 2016)

Gentlemen, I expect you are both right, but are thinking of different examples.

Imagine a small cabinet door stile, probably only 12 - 15 mm thick, 30 - 40 mm wide, 300 mm long. You'd need to clamp it down to stop it falling over.

Then imagine cutting mortices in a five bar gate - it's a different scale entirely. It would make sense to use a low bench/stool and hold the wood down by sitting on it.

Woodwork covers so many different specialist trades. Carpentry is not the same as joinery or cabinet making, but anyone used to one trade will sometimes need to have a go at another. I think this is often the cause of differences of opinion in online discussion.


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## bugbear (18 Nov 2016)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> Either we are conversing at cross-purposes, or we work differently. The only time I "steer" a mortice chisel is when placing it in position at the surface. The chisel is aligned square to the mortice lines, and then struck straight down. I do not seek to steer it on its journey straight down, nor does it need to be steered.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think you're misremembering Derek; Maynard's technique has the bevel the other way round.

Here's Jeff Gorman with the original article, and some experiements;

http://www.amgron.clara.net/maynard40.html

Jeff's pages on the topic followed a discussion I started on OLDTOOLS in 2001 (!!)

http://swingleydev.com/ot/get/99408/thread/#99408

BugBear


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## bugbear (18 Nov 2016)

Jacob":28awtinf said:


> The mortice stool / saw horse idea - you hold it down with your bum - quick release and no risk of marks and a very efficient ergonomic working position.



A traditional mortise stool has two vertical posts sticking up; the workpiece is held between these, secured by a wedge.

BugBear


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## bugbear (18 Nov 2016)

AndyT":3oth4395 said:


> Gentlemen, I expect you are both right, but are thinking of different examples.
> 
> Imagine a small cabinet door stile, probably only 12 - 15 mm thick, 30 - 40 mm wide, 300 mm long. You'd need to clamp it down to stop it falling over.
> 
> ...



Agreed.

When the workpiece is big enough it's held in place by inertia and gravity. Timber framers don't use many clamps!

BugBear


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

AndyT":2daehe56 said:


> Gentlemen, I expect you are both right, but are thinking of different examples.
> 
> Imagine a small cabinet door stile, probably only 12 - 15 mm thick, 30 - 40 mm wide, 300 mm long. You'd need to clamp it down to stop it falling over.
> 
> ...


Yes if it's narrow enough to be unstable.


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

bugbear":bhtlwqvu said:


> ...
> 
> I think you're misremembering Derek; Maynard's technique has the bevel the other way round.....


Makes no difference which way round. I used to start in the middle but with the face facing the far end and then advance it face forwards for each cut, up close to the end then turn it and bring it face forwards to near the near end. 
Similar to digging a trench - you get down the hole in stages and then advance by attacking the vertical face with a pick before shovelling off the floor


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

bugbear":3dlhbw2k said:


> AndyT":3dlhbw2k said:
> 
> 
> > Gentlemen, I expect you are both right, but are thinking of different examples.
> ...


It's not the size it's the stability. If you cut a 1/4" mortice in a 1" square workpiece you don't need to clamp it - but you might if it was 1"x4"
Either way it needs to be on a firm surface and not in a vice, or you might blow out the far side.


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## CStanford (18 Nov 2016)

Ian Kirby, Central V, rectangular chisel. Article online somewhere but he's been espousing this for decades. That's pretty much how I do mine. His pictorials with accompanying published and professionally edited narrative is far better than I could come up with on a home brew basis. 

The only thing I disagree with is his recommendation to hit the chisel as hard as you can, for reasons mentioned in earlier posts. If you do this using the central v method, once you're to depth with the "V", you'd blow a blind mortise out the opposite side as you can see from the Sellers video, even given allowances for the glass, that it's easy to remove a SECTION OF MATERIAL (not dog kibble) all the way from top to planned depth in a few well controlled chisel blows. This is the key -- the material comes out in large sections, not as confetti. The chisel is CUTTING and not performing the same function as a stump grinder -- just chipping away until it's all gone. Edges last much longer as well.

In a very old FW article from its black and white days he can be seen using an OBM on what looks like a furniture part. In a later article for Woodworker's Journal he's using a Marples Blue Chip sash mortiser. This is the better article in my opinion -- more photos and tightly written narrative that described the layered method and the central v method (he prefers the latter).

Have a great day y'all.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (18 Nov 2016)

bugbear":3lbclicy said:


> Derek Cohen (Perth said:
> 
> 
> > Either we are conversing at cross-purposes, or we work differently. The only time I "steer" a mortice chisel is when placing it in position at the surface. The chisel is aligned square to the mortice lines, and then struck straight down. I do not seek to steer it on its journey straight down, nor does it need to be steered.
> ...



Well BB, then I must do it better than Maynard! 

Jacob, you asked what the purpose of the drilled hole was. It is to create a space for waste to move into.

Here is a relevant photo from Jeff's web page ..






The chisel back is vertical, and the bevel forces the waste towards the hole. The next chop of the chisel forces the waste into the gap of the previous chop. And so on.

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> ..
> Jacob, you asked what the purpose of the drilled hole was. It is to create a space for waste to move into.
> 
> Here is a relevant photo from Jeff's web page ..
> ...


Thats how I do it. Don't need a starter hole though. Each slice goes deeper than the one before so its a lot faster than you expect.


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## Racers (18 Nov 2016)

With a starter hole you can go to full depth from the first chop, much faster than you expect.

Pete


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (18 Nov 2016)

Correct Pete ... well close to full length. 

Jacob, waste has to go somewhere ...

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

Derek Cohen (Perth said:


> Correct Pete ... well close to full length.
> 
> Jacob, waste has to go somewhere ...
> 
> ...


Try it without a starter hole and you will see where the waste goes.


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

Racers":2jky55jg said:


> With a starter hole you can go to full depth from the first chop, much faster than you expect.
> 
> Pete


But you've got to drill a hole. By hand (brace and bit) it'd be much quicker just to chisel. Probably same by machine by the time you've set it up etc. Might as well get a morticer.


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## CStanford (18 Nov 2016)

All this talk of cutting mortises quickly, and speed generally, on projects that take weeks if not months on end to complete (mine included); would have taken an 18th century journeyman four days, maybe.

If boring a single hole in a mortise around an inch deep, probably eight to ten turns of a 10" sweep brace, to give room for waste material to fall into (a solid technique by the way) turns one's production schedule topsy-turvy, I'm thinking something else is wrong besides the mortise work.

Just sayin.'


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

CStanford":2l44f8tk said:


> All this talk of cutting mortises quickly, and speed generally, on projects that take weeks if not months on end to complete (mine included); would have taken an 18th century journeyman four days, maybe.
> 
> If boring a single hole in a mortise around an inch deep, probably eight to ten turns of a 10" sweep brace, to give room for waste material to fall into (a solid technique by the way) turns one's production schedule topsy-turvy, I'm thinking something else is wrong besides the mortise work.
> 
> Just sayin.'


Just sayin' it doesn't help particularly. Try chopping a mortice without pre drilling and you will see.
I'd never heard of this starter hole idea until now. Is it new?


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## iNewbie (18 Nov 2016)

Probably not - the hollow chisel morticer was late 18 hundreds iirc.


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

iNewbie":2er9nhmm said:


> Probably not - the hollow chisel morticer was late 18 hundreds iirc.


We are talking about hand processes in case you hadn't noticed.


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## CStanford (18 Nov 2016)

Jacob":1wgkxcj7 said:


> CStanford":1wgkxcj7 said:
> 
> 
> > All this talk of cutting mortises quickly, and speed generally, on projects that take weeks if not months on end to complete (mine included); would have taken an 18th century journeyman four days, maybe.
> ...



It's more or less a proxy for the 'central v' method, which is certainly not new. The point behind it is to create a space to allow the next chisel blow to remove an entire, or almost entire, section of material from the top to the bottom of the mortise. The material is scooped out after each pass and the mortise proceeds pretty much as per the Sellers video. There is never really any waste in the hole before the next pass is made. Obviously, the space gets larger with each chisel pass and things move along briskly from there. It's worth a try. If not the hole, then the central v method.


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## Jacob (18 Nov 2016)

CStanford":7fvlvpl5 said:


> ..
> It's more or less a proxy for the 'central v' method, which is certainly not new. The point behind it is to create a space to allow the next chisel blow to remove an entire, or almost entire, section of material from the top to the bottom of the mortise. ..


What's this "central V" ? you can start anywhere. I see it as a series of steps each cut going deeper than the one before. Can't see the point of the hole - you are cutting one with the chisel in less time than it would take to drill the hole (by hand).
Try not drilling next time you do one.
These things get over thought!


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## iNewbie (19 Nov 2016)

Jacob":1hvk0ke0 said:


> iNewbie":1hvk0ke0 said:
> 
> 
> > Probably not - the hollow chisel morticer was late 18 hundreds iirc.
> ...



Exactly - like someone hadn't drilled it before the HCM was ever a thought... :roll:


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## swagman (19 Nov 2016)

If you have a pedestal drill handy it saves you a lot of the work in removing the waste. For stopped mortises, its clearly defines the depth you need to accomplish during final clean out of mortise floor. The extra time lost by including the drilling out stage is gained back in time with ease of excavation of the waste material. I am not so clear as to why anyone would not adequately secure the timber being mortised out, considering your working with a sharp edged mortise chisel in 1 hand, and a mallet or hammer in the other. There are a number of safe options available including locking within a vice, or using a holdfast. Sitting on the timber to secure it while its resting on a couple of saw horses might be okay for simple checking out of top and bottom wall plates to seat the studs, but in that case I am talking of work that was balancing on 2 inch of thickness. I am talking of the days when all wall plates were checked out.


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## chaoticbob (19 Nov 2016)

Thanks for all the replys guys. I hadn't anticipated that my question would result in such a wide-ranging discussion about morticing methods, but it's been a good read and I've learned a lot - in theory at least!

I think the main point I've taken from this is that there's no clear answer for someone in my position - I need to experiment and learn what works for me. I'll just get some cheapish mortice chisels and bash away, see what happens. Experiment!

Two thrones to make for the local panto, they're going to be M&T joined, if they collapse it'll be a bigger laugh than any of the jokes in the script.
Thanks again Rob.


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## CStanford (19 Nov 2016)

Jacob":1gas0wat said:


> CStanford":1gas0wat said:
> 
> 
> > ..
> ...



Scroll to the bottom of the page and see the diagram and associated brief narrative will give you the idea:

http://www.amgron.clara.net/maynard40.html

Ian Kirby also uses a similar method, for what it's worth. He trained at Barnsley so I don't guess he's a complete dodo.

This is how I do it. I rarely start with a drilled hole. Sometimes I just feel like drilling a hole. So I drill one. One has to treat oneself every now and then, no?


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## Jacob (19 Nov 2016)

CStanford":emfg7m4s said:


> ........
> This is how I do it. I rarely start with a drilled hole. Sometimes I just feel like drilling a hole. So I drill one. One has to treat oneself every now and then, no?


Yes go for it if that's what turns you on!
But when push come to shove all these methods are out of the window and it's just man and chisel against the elements!


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## Jacob (19 Nov 2016)

CStanford":1snx9d3o said:


> ...... He trained at Barnsley so I don't guess he's a complete dodo.,......


He trained at Barnsley so he's probably an incredible fusspot and only used to pointlessly slow and expensive work


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## D_W (20 Nov 2016)

CStanford":3ful8ipg said:


> This is how I do it. I rarely start with a drilled hole. Sometimes I just feel like drilling a hole. So I drill one. One has to treat oneself every now and then, no?



Wait...this is the guy who had a half hour process specified for something that would take minutes to do with a cap iron. (the website)

And he makes this comment:

>>A narrow shaving aperture is more important than cap-iron position.<<

He's not exempt from saying dopey things. 

I came around too late for the ian kirby tage frid kind of lovefest, but I don't know that it matters that much. Woodworking is woodworking. 

The chinese guy came to mind earlier this year after I'd sold my bandsaw, though, and I've got a few bowsaws which have been just about invaluable for certain things (cutting the body of coffin smoothers, and especially cutting really hard wood billets that is murder on a carpenter's saw - they are either pinched in the cut or their teeth set up for "regular stuff" just have too much grab).


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## CStanford (20 Nov 2016)

Central V or something very similar is mentioned in several of the old standards, old FW mags, if memory serves. Jeff Gorman certainly didn't "invent" it, nor did Ian Kirby.


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## CStanford (20 Nov 2016)

Jacob":3b791prx said:


> CStanford":3b791prx said:
> 
> 
> > ...... He trained at Barnsley so I don't guess he's a complete dodo.,......
> ...



I don't really see much unorthodox here:

http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/hand- ... nd-tenons/


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## D_W (20 Nov 2016)

CStanford":26rr0wjd said:


> Central V or something very similar is mentioned in several of the old standards, old FW mags, if memory serves. Jeff Gorman certainly didn't "invent" it, nor did Ian Kirby.



I tend to think that all of the most efficient methods are a variation of it, the V may just not be in the absolute middle for all of them, or it may not be symmetrical. It's easier to cut diagonal to the grain than directly across it and someone cutting mortises in large numbers (when people did such things by hand) would notice it. 

Keeps you away from the ends of the mortise until you're doing your finish work, too, which is going to save a bruise sooner or later.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (20 Nov 2016)

> Keeps you away from the ends of the mortise until you're doing your finish work, too, which is going to save a bruise sooner or later.



It all depends on what the mortice is for. A tenon with cosmetic shoulders will hide bruising. This knowledge makes it easier to remove chips as there is no need to be obsessive about the mortice ends. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Jacob (20 Nov 2016)

CStanford":269rrra2 said:


> Jacob":269rrra2 said:
> 
> 
> > CStanford":269rrra2 said:
> ...


A very individualistic account and full of oddities - too many to go into!
Oddest is cutting the mortice on the far end rather than the near end, and all that pointless and difficult-looking levering.
Also he's plain wrong about the sides of chisel needing to be square - to what he calls "the flat back face" - why not just "face" in the old fashioned way?
And that "layering" method looks completely impractical - in fact it is roughly what I was doing prior to being told how to do it properly by a tutor, many years ago.

Levering - you can cut the whole mortice without any levering at all. If chips are stuck then this is where a vice can come in useful - hold the workpiece and poke out the chips on a through mortice - a hardwood drift the size of tenon is one way - it also scrapes the sides. But those desperate to lever get their chance removing chips from a blind mortice (when it's finished) - sometimes best done in the vice with a smaller bevel edge chisel.


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## CStanford (20 Nov 2016)

I totally agree with you about the levering. That's why you don't need a chisel as thick as a railroad spike for mortising. It's a total waste of tool steel.

Kirby, himself, doesn't use the 'layering method' but the central V. The waste falls into the space created by the V cuts and is then just lifted out (more or less the same situation when boring a starter hole). This is why a plane bevel-edged chisel works fine with this method.

There's a school of thought, I suppose, on the chisels. Lie-Nielsen makes theirs rectangular. I'm practically positive that my Marples boxwood handled ones were made that way. If they have a parallelogram shape I cannot distinguish it by eye or square. I don't think they were altered by a previous owner. I think it's a minor quibble. I've never run into a moment's trouble.


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## CStanford (20 Nov 2016)

D_W":fhssrg6i said:


> CStanford":fhssrg6i said:
> 
> 
> > Central V or something very similar is mentioned in several of the old standards, old FW mags, if memory serves. Jeff Gorman certainly didn't "invent" it, nor did Ian Kirby.
> ...



It definitely does not have to be in dead center or perfectly shaped, though the point behind the method in getting to depth is that two cuts each meet on the way down and the chip is cut and released with a lift and not a lever (or at least not a vigorous leverage meant to release essentially uncut or partially cut material at the bottom). If the cuts for the V are too sloppy then the purpose is to an extent defeated, at least until you get to depth. 

You're right, in using this method there's really never any sort of hard levering that would damage the ends of the mortise on a planned two-shoulder rather than four-shouldered tenon. But regardless, it's a method that seems to go faster to me, rather than trying to chop across the length of the whole mortise several times until depth is finally reached. With the central v, you cut from top to bottom and then move on, never to come back to that area again.

The cuts are at a bit of an angle until you get to the very ends and the chisel moves through these angled cuts much easier than chopping straight down.


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## CStanford (20 Nov 2016)

Jacob":klglgzfu said:


> CStanford":klglgzfu said:
> 
> 
> > ...... He trained at Barnsley so I don't guess he's a complete dodo.,......
> ...



I assume that the people who buy furniture from the firm appreciate that they're fusspots. Unless I've misinterpreted the history of the firm, Barnsley intentionally cultivated a reputation of working extremely carefully and to very close tolerances.


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## custard (20 Nov 2016)

CStanford":yn6imlmn said:


> I assume that the people who buy furniture from the firm appreciate that they're fusspots.



Yes, they generally do.

http://www.barnsley-furniture.co.uk/pro ... y/storage/


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## CStanford (20 Nov 2016)

No doubt the hidden joinery is as fully developed and well-executed as the overall style and exteriors.

Beautiful work. Prices aren't in the nosebleed range in my view.


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## memzey (20 Nov 2016)

This is a fascinating thread on a topic I didn't think could be so contentious. Thank you everyone for making it such a good read. I fall some way short of having the competence and experience necessary to add something meaningful to it but I do have two books I regularly return to for insights when I need them (which is quite often); Wearing and Joyce. I would say that pages 41 and 42 of Wearing's "Essential" are a good read in the context of our current discussion:


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## AndyT (20 Nov 2016)

One thing that nobody has mentioned... When I learned some woodworking at school in the 70s, for narrow mortices in softwood (probably about 1/4" wide) we had to make them without using a mallet. (Mallets were allowed later on.)

I have done this since, as an experiment, but don't make a habit of it.

Has anyone else tried this, or even do it as normal?


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## Jacob (20 Nov 2016)

memzey":12fc5321 said:


> This is a fascinating thread on a topic I didn't think could be so contentious. Thank you everyone for making it such a good read. I fall some way short of having the competence and experience necessary to add something meaningful to it but I do have two books I regularly return to for insights when I need them (which is quite often); Wearing and Joyce. I would say that pages 41 and 42 of Wearing's "Essential" are a good read in the context of our current discussion:.........


Wearing is a bit of a curate's egg. Good in parts - take nothing as gospel.


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## D_W (20 Nov 2016)

AndyT":9r9s2fim said:


> One thing that nobody has mentioned... When I learned some woodworking at school in the 70s, for narrow mortices in softwood (probably about 1/4" wide) we had to make them without using a mallet. (Mallets were allowed later on.)
> 
> I have done this since, as an experiment, but don't make a habit of it.
> 
> Has anyone else tried this, or even do it as normal?



Not in mortices, per se, but in plane making I've tried various methods of penultimate material removal and push chiseling was one of those. I can't get on with it, too hard on elbows. Presume the mortising wasn't quite as hard? It would be a good lesson in how hard it is to remove material at various thicknesses.


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## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (20 Nov 2016)

AndyT":2grgantf said:


> One thing that nobody has mentioned... When I learned some woodworking at school in the 70s, for narrow mortices in softwood (probably about 1/4" wide) we had to make them without using a mallet. (Mallets were allowed later on.)
> 
> I have done this since, as an experiment, but don't make a habit of it.
> 
> Has anyone else tried this, or even do it as normal?



I recall Adam Cherubini in the USA demonstrating how to pare mortices by pushing the chisel with a shoulder. Adam was one who recreated 18c methods at woodshows.

I wonder what timber he used? 

Regards from Perth

Derek


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## Cheshirechappie (21 Nov 2016)

AndyT":1amih9lo said:


> One thing that nobody has mentioned... When I learned some woodworking at school in the 70s, for narrow mortices in softwood (probably about 1/4" wide) we had to make them without using a mallet. (Mallets were allowed later on.)
> 
> I have done this since, as an experiment, but don't make a habit of it.
> 
> Has anyone else tried this, or even do it as normal?



Yes - many years ago, I did my woodworking in the upstairs back bedroom of a three-bed semi (having moved from the kitchen). To avoid annoying the neighbours (who were lovely people) I did as much as I could without malleting or hammering.

Cutting mortices in softwoods, and softer hardwoods, by paring and shoulder-pushing gives perfectly acceptable results, but - oh boy - is it SLOW! It hurts your shoulder after a while, too.


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## Cheshirechappie (21 Nov 2016)

Jacob":1gpalmkc said:


> memzey":1gpalmkc said:
> 
> 
> > This is a fascinating thread on a topic I didn't think could be so contentious. Thank you everyone for making it such a good read. I fall some way short of having the competence and experience necessary to add something meaningful to it but I do have two books I regularly return to for insights when I need them (which is quite often); Wearing and Joyce. I would say that pages 41 and 42 of Wearing's "Essential" are a good read in the context of our current discussion:.........
> ...



Jacob is a bit of a curate's egg. Good in parts - take nothing as gospel. The only difference is that it's not hard to find the good bits in Wearing, whereas Jacob....


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## memzey (21 Nov 2016)

Well I wouldn't be too hard on Jacob. I think he wants be helpful with his critiques and tries to make things simpler for the beginner in particular. In this case though I haven't come across a more clear, concise and helpful book for the beginner than Wearing although that's not to say such a book doesn't exist. Joyce is certainly more comprehensive but less about basic skill building I find. Ironically Wearing certainly agrees with Jacob on the drilling of holes if you read the last lines on page 42!


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## AndyT (21 Nov 2016)

I think there is a normal, common effect at work here and often in other discussions. Many of us naturally prefer the methods we were taught, above other methods suggested later as alternatives.
Jacob prefers to mortise the way he was trained by his instructor.

If I could remember how I was taught to mortise, I'd probably prefer that, but it's something I've needed to re-learn.
But in general, I can read Wearing and recognise plenty of things imperfectly remembered from what we were taught in school woodwork lessons, so I agree that he provides a good guide to beginners, especially on fundamentals such as establishing a face side and face edge.

We're all a bit different!


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## Jacob (21 Nov 2016)

AndyT":2j5ylhxd said:


> ......
> Jacob prefers to mortise the way he was trained by his instructor.......!


Because it works, is fast, and requires least kit. Prior to that I was fiddling about just like many of the posters on here.
Also I did get the chance to use it - I made a lot of stuff by hand until I got a morticer. Earning a living - not for fun!


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## woodbrains (21 Nov 2016)

Hello,

I think Wearing was referring to chain drilling being unnecessary, which isn't the same as drilling one relief hole for the waste to fall away. Chain drilling is a waste of time if the mortice is to be chopped with mortice chisels. A single relief hole _does_ have a useful purpose. It may not be necessary for some people, but then again if it enables an advantage for others, then it is a valid device.

Chain drilling, followed by paring with a bench chisel, similarly is useful for making mortices that are out if the ordinary. My bench for example, had massive through mortices. Something in the order of 4 1/2 inches long, 1 1/4 wide into 4 by 4 stock. Chain drilling was my preferred method then! 

What Jacob has trouble in understanding, versatility is not a weakness. We can do things in many ways and get the right result, and we can do things differently than how we were taught. The teachers give us a starting point from which we advance from, not dogmatically follow the 'rules'. It is a Japanese adage that says, it is a poor master, who's student does not better him. I expect Jacob's teacher might be a bit disappointed.

Mike.


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## Racers (21 Nov 2016)

Being an autodidact in most things I do, I have developed my own methods which over come the problem I have experienced.
Not having shown a single way of doing something allows you to look at other peoples methods and your own and pick the parts that work together, and for you and the task at hand.

Pete


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## Jacob (21 Nov 2016)

woodbrains":lzh4obit said:


> ......
> What Jacob has trouble in understanding, versatility is not a weakness. We can do things in many ways and get the right result, .....


You can do it how you like. 
I'm just telling of how I do it and why I think it's the fastest and most efficient. 
The whole topic has been over thought and is heavily infected with woodworking memes.

PS feel free to criticise what I say but it'd be better if you didn't make it personal - save me the trouble of answering in the same vein: "what so-called "woodbrains" is laughably incapable of grasping..." etc etc :lol:


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## D_W (21 Nov 2016)

woodbrains":2ah7nk4s said:


> Hello,
> 
> I think Wearing was referring to chain drilling being unnecessary, which isn't the same as drilling one relief hole for the waste to fall away. Chain drilling is a waste of time if the mortice is to be chopped with mortice chisels. A single relief hole _does_ have a useful purpose. It may not be necessary for some people, but then again if it enables an advantage for others, then it is a valid device.
> 
> ...



Presumably, the context of what we're working on with hand tools is mostly cabinet sized work. Bench mortises are more like building a bar. For what it's worth, I drilled the waste out, too, and I am a non-driller type on all cabinet stuff. 

I wouldn't assume someone was talking about timberframe-sized stuff unless they said they were, though. Unless jacob corrects what I'm assuming, I'd see it as he's talking about drilling a hole in a small cabinet mortise whereas the method itself can remove that waste without sending it to go somewhere. 

Personally, I can't get past the part where such a method has you working straight down into the wood after the drilled hole. The chisel moves so much more easily through wood at a slight or more than slight angle.


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## D_W (5 Dec 2016)

I got a couple of more chisels last week, I think the last. One are stanley copies of the blue chip chisels, old enough to have very nice bevels. I like those chisels a lot, they're a little soft but have a nice profile. 

The other is a set of old firmers. I've cut a couple of dozen more mortises, and since Charlie made a big deal about poplar mortisiting, etc, the other day, I figured I'd run the bench chisels through poplar. They work really well in poplar. I've tried other bench chisels, too, but the blue chip type of bench chisels get through a mortise easier than other cheap bench chisels I have (that have thick sides). 

Takes about half (seems like half, at least) of the mallet swing to do the same thing as the oval bolstered chisels. So, I tried cherry, too, and the marples worked fine. Just not as fast as the OVB chisels, which can take a much bigger bite than what I videoed the other day, now that I'm getting used to them, and still leave a clean mortise. Have to work a little bit harder with the OVB in cherry, but they're faster. Can't get around how well the levering works with them. The firmer chisels don't have the same ability.


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## Jacob (5 Dec 2016)

woodbrains":eic20djc said:


> Hello,,....
> What Jacob has trouble in understanding, versatility is not a weakness. We can do things in many ways and get the right result, and we can do things differently than how we were taught. The teachers give us a starting point from which we advance from, not dogmatically follow the 'rules'. It is a Japanese adage that says, it is a poor master, who's student does not better him. I expect Jacob's teacher might be a bit disappointed.
> 
> Mike.


What so-called "woodbrains" has trouble in understanding is what it's like when you are faced with the practical problem of doing a lot of stuff by hand as efficiently as possible - which was the lot of most woodworkers for thousands of years, and was my lot briefly when I first started up. All these half baked ideas are out of the window very quickly - when push comes to shove!


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## Corneel (6 Dec 2016)

Has this video allready been showed in this thread? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZsPs7jaPE&list=PL6yG0ZTQ9Z7bGcp73KnPk-KC17uH1fG1L

Cutting a mortise in less then 2 minutes, 5 cm deep. He makes a through mortise which is quicker then a blind one, but still, by the time you have your piece of wood positioned under the drill press, clamped it down, inserted the drill bit etc, this guy has allready mortised all four corners of a window frame.

David Weaver showed us a nice video too some days ago. Not quite as fast as the Chinese man, but that's how chopping a mortise should look like. No fuss, no extra tools, no extra whatever, just getting the job done. I can't find the link anymore. David?

I am now somewhere halfway my 30 M&T project and am starting to get the hang of it again. Chopping a mortise is now more fun and quicker then cutting the tenons.

What I want to get at, the mortise chisel wasn't invented as a joke. It is simply the best tool for the job. No drilling, and especially no paring of the sides! The mortise chisel produces a straight hole in one go. Every other operation just increases the possibility to make a mess of it and makes the job take longer.


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## Jacob (6 Dec 2016)

Corneel":1b7lz16x said:


> Has this video allready been showed in this thread? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZsPs7jaPE&list=PL6yG0ZTQ9Z7bGcp73KnPk-KC17uH1fG1L
> 
> Cutting a mortise in less then 2 minutes, 5 cm deep. He makes a through mortise which is quicker then a blind one, but still, by the time you have your piece of wood positioned under the drill press, clamped it down, inserted the drill bit etc, this guy has allready mortised all four corners of a window frame.
> 
> ...


Exactly!
Couldn't get the chap's accent in the video - was he from Newcastle?


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## Corneel (6 Dec 2016)

Probably.


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## Corneel (6 Dec 2016)

Ha, I did find David's video. Looks efficient to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpT0KXc0FTY&feature=youtu.be


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## Jacob (6 Dec 2016)

Corneel":37wj4155 said:


> Ha, I did find David's video. Looks efficient to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpT0KXc0FTY&feature=youtu.be


Not too bad but a bit amateur fiddly - tapping away, stopping and starting with all that unnecessary levering.
Also it'd be better on the bench end so you can do it end on and keep the chisel lined up vertical.
A bit pedantic but you wouldn't be marking up after you've put the thing in the vice - all marking should be done beforehand. 
And you wouldn't do it with a knife. Pencil or scribe. 
Nor would you pull a mortice gauge towards you - it's better to push gauges on to the work so they stay in line better and not follow the grain
Basically the hammering should be more or less continuous - just a brief hesitation between moves of the chisel. 
It's a bit like rip sawing - if you haven't got the fast and frantic speed idea then it's really slow. 
I use the chisel the other way i.e. cut straight down the face of the previous cut - it's how I learnt dig trenches with a pick and shovel. Not sure if it'd make any difference either way. Except he seems to be trying to clean up the end with the bevel side!
You can see the clamping problem - at one point the workpiece moves a touch - if this happens much it'll leave a mark. Better to do it on the bench end without a clamp.
PS just had a go to remind myself of the bad old days - yes a clamp helps with small bits or you can't easily pull the chisel out when it's deep. Sitting on it is a good traditional one.
I wonder if in production mode with small pieces, some sort of foot operated hold-down would do it - just to hold it whilst you pull the chisel out

Marks; 5/10!


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## Corneel (6 Dec 2016)

I won't show a video of me chopping :lol:


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## D_W (6 Dec 2016)

Jacob":qqab6fb0 said:


> Corneel":qqab6fb0 said:
> 
> 
> > Ha, I did find David's video. Looks efficient to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpT0KXc0FTY&feature=youtu.be
> ...



Of course it's amateur fiddly. I'm an amateur. I do pause at every first hammer in a mortise - I never planned that, it's just something I do to settle my mind that my first strike is between the lines and going where I want. If I could do a hundred of these in a row, I think I could eliminate the pauses and probably cut the time from four minutes and change to about two - and I'm sure that type of repetition would make each a bit more accurate than they are now. Not sure on the end cleaning with the bevel, I never did it before I tried it in the video, when I lack experience, I'm a constant tinkerer and I thought maybe that would do better to clean waste because of the levering. It does, but it's awkward.

I had the exact same thought about a foot operated hold down, though. It would be super handy for mortises, but I always have random thoughts like that and then realize that I ought to get a couple of hundred more mortises under my belt before I start theorizing on what would be good for production (when I don't do production). I don't agree on using the non-bevel side of the chisel, though, in the middle of a mortise, the bevel works too well. I used to hammer the chisel straight in like a nail and lean it forward as you're describing, but it doesn't go through material as easily.

(Kees - sorry if it was difficult to find the video. I made it unlisted, sort of my policy that I don't want to put up listed publicly-available videos of things that are already done or covered better elsewhere. Someone might get the idea that I put the video up because I thought I was good at it, and about the only thing I can do well is make a good plane in an amateurish way. I've already been told numerous times by different people that my videos are monkey-see-monkey do types with nothing original, and that I have a judgement problem thinking that they're fit to be posted at all - charlie tells me that, but he's not the only one. If you post any video on youtube that is seen by more than a dozen people, there's always a group who likes to send you messages and comments to clip your heels. If Ben Hogan were alive, I'm sure there would be plenty of people telling him what's wrong with his ball striking).

Separate random-thought side comment. Now that we have all of these phones that take fantastic video, anyway, I think it's useful for us to tape ourselves doing various things. It reminds me of the first time I taped myself playing guitar (after I had already played publicly plenty of times in my youth). Holy cow did I learn a lot.

Anyone else going to put up a video cutting a mortise similar to mine but neater and in half the time (should be easy for someone with experience).


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## Corneel (6 Dec 2016)

Videoing yourself is very usefull when trying to learn a craft or sport or someting else you do with your body. You always do things differently from what you think you are doing. Putting it up for public scrutiny does take a bunch of courage though, because as you say, there are plenty of couch surfers with stupid comments.

And I really like to clamp things down when mortising. The piece of wood is being pushed around too much for my liking. I use a holdfast, one wack and steady.


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## D_W (6 Dec 2016)

Corneel":jmm7xch2 said:


> And I really like to clamp things down when mortising.



Me, too. When you use the bevel side of the chisel, if the material isn't clamped either by clamp or by butt or something, then there is no way the workpiece will stay still. I like it for marking, too - even though some may not. It lets you make deep marks without the workpiece moving.


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## Jacob (6 Dec 2016)

Sorry didn't realise David Weaver was our own D_W, in spite of the obvious clue!


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## D_W (6 Dec 2016)

Jacob":33sah8ih said:


> Sorry didn't realise David Weaver was our own D_W, in spite of the obvious clue!



I am not offended by criticism at all!! It gives me and everyone else something to think about and learn from. 

Given that you didn't know it was me, I'm surprised you didn't have worse to offer. I'm pretty happy with the 5/10 grade.


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## bugbear (6 Dec 2016)

D_W":16cvdkmi said:


> Jacob":16cvdkmi said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry didn't realise David Weaver was our own D_W, in spite of the obvious clue!
> ...



I'm looking forward to Jacob making a video showing us amateurs his proper "10/10" mortise technique, including how to mortise a piece of wood that deep and narrow without clamping it.  

BugBear


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## skipdiver (6 Dec 2016)

D_W":38zyq5gf said:


> Jacob":38zyq5gf said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry didn't realise David Weaver was our own D_W, in spite of the obvious clue!
> ...



I do think that Americans view criticism differently to us more sensitive Englishmen. I make stuff for an American lady and it took some getting used to her. What i took as criticism, she merely saw as getting her point across and getting to where we needed to be. She didn't mean to offend but i was sometimes offended, which she thought "very English". Comments such as " that needs to change"- "that needs to go"- "that doesn't work for me" were said right off the bat with no preamble or softening of the blow. This is business was her take on it and now i've gotten used to it, it moves things along quicker.


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## ED65 (6 Dec 2016)

Given the abundant evidence posted in these very forums I don't think that kind of 'directness' is a uniquely American trait Steve (homer)


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## Jacob (6 Dec 2016)

bugbear":3s5f4fue said:


> D_W":3s5f4fue said:
> 
> 
> > Jacob":3s5f4fue said:
> ...


Stage fright. I'd probably cut a finger off.
_how to mortise a piece of wood that deep and narrow without clamping it. _ Sit on it, like the chap from Newcastle (video above).


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## D_W (7 Dec 2016)

skipdiver":2u26v7i9 said:


> D_W":2u26v7i9 said:
> 
> 
> > Jacob":2u26v7i9 said:
> ...



There's kind of a thing in the United States that the person paying can always do or say whatever they feel like doing or saying, and if you're the proprietor, you're supposed to just lump it.

It's not completely black and white, though, and sometimes it backfires.

My sister is a professional photographer, and you take what she does or she tells you to get lost.

we've got a small contractor in my neighborhood who doesn't give an inch to the customer, either, and they've built a loyal base based on the notion that they know more than you, the customer, and that you can cede decisions to them if you don't care to pick every little thing. They are not the cheapest, and they don't dicker on price, but the tightness of even their routine work is super.


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