Square hollow hole punch

[Glynne]

I'm looking to make a jewellery box / chest in the Greene & Greene style as below: -

The joints are essentially rounded finger joints and screwed together with the screw heads being hidden by square plugs.
I'm looking for a small (say 4mm or 5mm) square hole punch so as I can accurately cut the recesses for the plugs.
I could cut these with a chisel but with 20 plugs, accuracy is likely to be an issue (let alone being laborious) and on something small like a jewellery box will be noticeable.
Veritas do make these punches but I haven't found a UK supplier and importing from Canada with freight, duty, Vat and the admin fee can add up.
My other thought was to use a morticing chisel but my smallest is 1/4" (actually comes out at 6.5mm) and this is too large for the design I have in mind.
Does anyone have any thoughts / suggestions as to a way around this please?
Thanks.

 

[NazNomad]

Edit - suggested 1/4 inch but you've tried that

 

[NazNomad]

5mm - https://www.scosarg.com/5mm-japanese-mortise-chisel-bit

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Veritas do these, which are derived from hollow mortice chisels but 'punchier'.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.a ... at=1,43456

I think Axminster sell them, and probably Classic Hand Tools. Might be a bit spendy, I don't know if you want to invest this sort of cash, but the 3/16 one looks exactly what you want. I guess a cheap 3/16 hollow mortice chisel could be better value.

Mike.

 

[Glynne]

Hi Mike,
These are what I was referring to in my post, but I can’t find a UK supplier.
Ive had a look at the usual suspects, Axminster, Classic Handtools, Woodworkers Workshop etc. but can’t find anything in the UK so with postage, duty, Vat, admin charges etc. $29.50 will start to mount up.

 

[Glynne]

5mm - https://www.scosarg.com/5mm-japanese-mortise-chisel-bit

Thanks Naz.
This will probably be the solution unless anyone is nipping over to Canada!

 

[marcros]

5mm - https://www.scosarg.com/5mm-japanese-mortise-chisel-bit

Thanks Naz.
This will probably be the solution unless anyone is nipping over to Canada!

I have a colleague coming from the USA in dec if it helps.

 

[custard]

Depends how fussy you are but using a morticing machine for this job brings another problem. You often (probably more often than not) get a situation where the auger runs out fractionally from the chisel, leaving a small groove outside of the square mortice. On a normal mortice this is irrelevant as it's obscured by the tenon shoulders. However, for your application it would be visible and, to my eye at least, would spoil the work.

It's for exactly this reason that, even though I've got a mortice machine, I generally cut through tenons and bare faced tenons with a chisel, that's the only way to guarantee really crisp edges to the mortice.

 

[custard]

I've just read this again, I didn't appreciate you were planning on using the mortice chisel hand held as a punch. That can work, but you first need to pre-drill a hole that's only a whisker smaller than the mortice chisel, and the mortice chisel is still quite prone to wandering.

I've been down this road when trying to speed up through-tenons while still keeping the mortice edges ultra crisp. I cut the through tenons with a morticing machine then used the tiny size differences that exist between metric and imperial bits to replace the bit with a fractionally larger chisel but with no auger, punching through using the leverage of the morticing machine arm. It can work, but it's all a bit of a faff, personally I suggest practising a few times with a regular hand held chisel on a bit of scrap.

 

[Glynne]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Mark, that’s a really kind offer but I think the logistics of me ordering it, getting it delivered to the states, your colleague bringing it over and then you sending it on is a bit of overkill for the amount involved. But thank you for the thought.

Custard. Yes I’m fussy ( or a perfectionist, or have OCD - and probably a bit of all 3).
The plan (!) wasn’t to use a mortice bit and auger for the reasons you mention. I was thinking of using the chisel to lightly mark out the recess. I was then going to use a separate bit to drill out a counterbore for the screw body and then return to morticer chisel to complete the recess. This is similar to how the Veritas punch works.
There is the danger that the screw hole might not be perfectly centred within the square recess, but as long as there is sufficient leeway between the size of the screw head and the recess, it doesn’t really matter as long as the recesses line up which I can do with a guide. I hope that makes sense.

(Just read your further post thank you - I think the above still makes sense?)

I take your point about doing it by hand but 20 recesses, ~ 5mm square is probably more difficult for me that recesses that are much larger.

 

[MikeJhn]

I don't ' know if I am missing something but if you cut the square hole with a mortice chisel and then make a tapered square peg would that then fill the hole sufficiently to make a neat plug? slow taper and cut to length after fitting.

Mike

 

[xy mosian]

It is possible to fit a square peg in a round hole!
Take a square peg and remove the corners to get it started in the hole, apply glue and tap it in. Trim the excess as required. This example was in Oak.

The larger hole to the left, and its cousins, was finished in the same way.

This image shows some I did in France about ten years ago. Sorry the image is not up to standard, it's taken from a larger image and fudged.

xy

 

[ColeyS1]

Grind the sides of the auger until the scallop disappears. Don't be too hasty, take off a little at a time. If you take off too much you risk having woodchips getting stuck between the auger and chisel.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[DrDerrick]

I'm looking to make a jewellery box / chest in the Greene & Greene style as below: -
The joints are essentially rounded finger joints and screwed together with the screw heads being hidden by square plugs.
I'm looking for a small (say 4mm or 5mm) square hole punch so as I can accurately cut the recesses for the plugs.
I could cut these with a chisel but with 20 plugs, accuracy is likely to be an issue (let alone being laborious) and on something small like a jewellery box will be noticeable.
Veritas do make these punches but I haven't found a UK supplier and importing from Canada with freight, duty, Vat and the admin fee can add up.
My other thought was to use a morticing chisel but my smallest is 1/4" (actually comes out at 6.5mm) and this is too large for the design I have in mind.
Does anyone have any thoughts / suggestions as to a way around this please?
Thanks.

I just came across this and expect you don't need them any more, but if you're still interested, I have a set of 6 Veritas square punches that I'm selling. Let me know if you're interested.

 

[Glynne]

I'm looking to make a jewellery box / chest in the Greene & Greene style as below: -
The joints are essentially rounded finger joints and screwed together with the screw heads being hidden by square plugs.
I'm looking for a small (say 4mm or 5mm) square hole punch so as I can accurately cut the recesses for the plugs.
I could cut these with a chisel but with 20 plugs, accuracy is likely to be an issue (let alone being laborious) and on something small like a jewellery box will be noticeable.
Veritas do make these punches but I haven't found a UK supplier and importing from Canada with freight, duty, Vat and the admin fee can add up.
My other thought was to use a morticing chisel but my smallest is 1/4" (actually comes out at 6.5mm) and this is too large for the design I have in mind.
Does anyone have any thoughts / suggestions as to a way around this please?
Thanks.

I just came across this and expect you don't need them any more, but if you're still interested, I have a set of 6 Veritas square punches that I'm selling. Let me know if you're interested.

Thank you for the offer but yes I have finished the box.
I used a mortice chisel with a guide in the end which did work out well.
If you’re interested, the build is in a separate post Greene & Greene box

 

[desmo11225]

Hello All
I am looking for a 1 inch or 25 mm square mortice machine chisel too but so far they are all Very expensive , any ideas folks. desmo11225

 

[Droogs]

these might help

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1PCS-Square- ... z0DbC8ZwrQ

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6-30mm-Morti ... 6ggyjqaNhQ

 

[Trevanion]

Hello All
I am looking for a 1 inch or 25 mm square mortice machine chisel too but so far they are all Very expensive , any ideas folks. desmo11225

They quite often come up on eBay and don't fetch a lot of money since they're not an often-used size since after doing a few holes your arm will be very sore, especially on a little machine like a Sedgwick. If I need a 1" mortice I tend to run two passes with a 1/2" chisel as it's easier, a little bit faster (In my opinion) and not so stressful on the machine.

 

[SamTheJarvis]

Hello All
I am looking for a 1 inch or 25 mm square mortice machine chisel too but so far they are all Very expensive , any ideas folks. desmo11225

They quite often come up on eBay and don't fetch a lot of money since they're not an often-used size since after doing a few holes your arm will be very sore, especially on a little machine like a Sedgwick. If I need a 1" mortice I tend to run two passes with a 1/2" chisel as it's easier, a little bit faster (In my opinion) and not so stressful on the machine.

Would like to echo this. Compound square morticing is a standard approach to quickly morticing large mortices. Considering how long it takes to set up our morticer, for a 1" mortice I would probably just drill a 24mm hole and hand chisel the rest, unless we had 20+ to do.