Deep(ish) Mortices For First Timer

[Karl Jones]

Morning all

I'm shortly going to be making a garden/side gate out of 4x2 treated timber and want to use blind M&T joints. I don't have a router or a drill press, and wanted to ask for your collective advice on the best method for cutting mortices that are probably going to be 60mm or so deep. Would mortice chisels be fine for the whole cut, or would it be better to combine with a spade bit to remove the bulk of the wood before finishing with the chisels, or something else? I'm not averse to buying a router (what's not to like about a new tool) but I've never used one before and I'm not planning on doing any more morticing any time soon.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Deadeye]

If you're good with your chisel and experienced at mortices, it'll be fine. If you're not, it'll be a "learning experience" The bottoms are hardest. Using a spade bit the width of the mortice sounds alluring...but it's hard to keep it straight and centred, especially if you're overlapping the holes. You could honeycomb with a narrower spur bit and then chisel out, but I'd probably just chisel.

Treated 4x2 isn't always straight and can be quite soft (even a bit damp), which makes a close fit harder.

Unless you want to do it by hand, a router will help massively; you can got an ok one really quite cheaply and you'll find that you use it for quite a lot of other things if you do much woodworking.

 

[Eshmiel]

This might help:

http://www.timberframe-tools.com/reference/handwork-in-wood/mortise-and-tenon-joints/

Without any power tools, or with just a basic portable drill, the method you mentioned is probably the easiest for a novice to master first time. It takes more learning to use a mortise chisel successfully. But if you're already experienced with a mortise chisel ......

The essential part of the drill-then-pare mortise-dig is to keep the drill perpendicular when drilling the line of holes to be pared. You could buy a portable vertical drill guide but good ones are expensive and not-so-good ones can be very frustrating to use, especially to use successfully.

If you can find someone to make you a wooden drill guide - a bit of 2x2 or 3X3 with a vertical hole bored through it of the right dimensions to suit your mortise drilling, used strapped over your marked out mortise to guide your drill, this is a decent poor-man's drill guide for a good few holes (until the guide itself develops hole-slop).

If your mortise is not too wide, you can buy metal drill guides like this:

 

[Karl Jones]

If you're good with your chisel and experienced at mortices, it'll be fine. If you're not, it'll be a "learning experience" The bottoms are hardest. Using a spade bit the width of the mortice sounds alluring...but it's hard to keep it straight and centred, especially if you're overlapping the holes. You could honeycomb with a narrower spur bit and then chisel out, but I'd probably just chisel.

Treated 4x2 isn't always straight and can be quite soft (even a bit damp), which makes a close fit harder.

Unless you want to do it by hand, a router will help massively; you can got an ok one really quite cheaply and you'll find that you use it for quite a lot of other things if you do much woodworking.

Thanks DE. I've never done any "proper" woodworking before - just used screws & nails!

I was planning on trying to use something like Paul Sellers mortice guide to help with the long walls of the mortice, and to probably go conservative on the drill size to minimise the potential for drifting off vertical.

What sort of router should I be looking at - a quick search showed I could get a new Erbauer 1/2" plunge router for around £100, or a used Dewalt 625 for not too much more.

 

[Karl Jones]

This might help:

http://www.timberframe-tools.com/reference/handwork-in-wood/mortise-and-tenon-joints/

Without any power tools, or with just a basic portable drill, the method you mentioned is probably the easiest for a novice to master first time. It takes more learning to use a mortise chisel successfully. But if you're already experienced with a mortise chisel ......

The essential part of the drill-then-pare mortise-dig is to keep the drill perpendicular when drilling the line of holes to be pared. You could buy a portable vertical drill guide but good ones are expensive and not-so-good ones can be very frustrating to use, especially to use successfully.

If you can find someone to make you a wooden drill guide - a bit of 2x2 or 3X3 with a vertical hole bored through it of the right dimensions to suit your mortise drilling, used strapped over your marked out mortise to guide your drill, this is a decent poor-man's drill guide for a good few holes (until the guide itself develops hole-slop).

If your mortise is not too wide, you can buy metal drill guides like this:

View attachment 198075

Thanks Eshmiel

My experience with "proper" woodworking is zero, so this will be a learning opportunity whichever way I go!

 

[recipio]

Hire a chain morticer if you can find one. Saves hours of work.

 

[Jacob]

Mortice chisels are the non powered way to go but only if you want to pick up the skill of using them for further projects, as there is a learning curve and it isn't obvious how to use them efficiently.

 

[Tris]

No longer relevant

 

[Karl Jones]

Hire a chain morticer if you can find one. Saves hours of work.

I only have 6 to cut, so hopefully it won't take me too long to cut by hand or using the drill/paring method.... There is one locally which is £50, plus probably the hire of a 110v transformer and possibly chisels as well - thanks for the steer.

 

[--Tom--]

Chisel and a hammer, larger mortices can be easier than small fiddly ones so a good place to start. Check for square regularly and don’t worry if you end up with a slightly deeper mortice than the tennon.

 

[alex robinson]

Thanks DE. I've never done any "proper" woodworking before - just used screws & nails!

I was planning on trying to use something like Paul Sellers mortice guide to help with the long walls of the mortice, and to probably go conservative on the drill size to minimise the potential for drifting off vertical.

What sort of router should I be looking at - a quick search showed I could get a new Erbauer 1/2" plunge router for around £100, or a used Dewalt 625 for not too much more.

I would definitely go router and clean up with a chisel.

I have that cheap erbauer one and it is ok. Lacks precision, but it has always been precise enough for the crude uses I have put it to (and powerful enough to use in a router sled which is what I use it for 95% of the time). Depending on what you want to do in future, it may be worth considering 1/4 inch plunge as they are much lighter and easier to use. 1/2 all the way if you ever want to use it for flattening in future.

 

[johnnyb]

My advice for what it's worth here is to do much smaller (but wider)ones say 30mm and put some big washer head screws down the middle with plenty of glue.
I'm of the opinion through wedged tenons are best. If you can't do those then something to force the shoulder onto the stile. A brace would be good on 4 inch deep stuff as well. Just make sure your shoulders are square so when they pull up there right. This provides more pull up than drawbore pegging if you make the first pilot through the stile a tight clearance hole.

 

[HOJ]

@Karl Jones , I have attached a picture of the gate you are proposing to make, nicked from your intro, It will give others more info on your intentions and possibly lead to more methods and opinions on how best to build it.



Can you get a picture of the reverse side.

 

[Karl Jones]

@Karl Jones , I have attached a picture of the gate you are proposing to make, nicked from your intro, It will give others more info on your intentions and possibly lead to more methods and opinions on how best to build it.

View attachment 198103

Can you get a picture of the reverse side.

Thanks HOJ - I might actually change the orientation of the TGV boards I'm planning on using to vertical. I don't have any pictures of the reverse other than this image I've just found to illustrate the rails (I was planning on a top, middle and bottom rail) and single cross brace. The gate will be 1800mm high and 1300mm across, so splitting the braces would fall foul of the 45° rule that I've read about.

Frame and top rail is intended to be 4x2 (45 x 95) and the bracing was going to be trimmed down 45 x 145 to 30 x 145 (the TGV is 15mm thick so I was working on having the cladding sitting flush with the frame on the 30mm bracing).

Happy for those more experienced than I (so pretty much everyone on here!) to give me input. I am however also mindful that this is "just" a gate, and not a piece of fine cabinetry!

 

[Karl Jones]

No longer relevant

Que?

 

[Jacob]

Thanks HOJ - I might actually change the orientation of the TGV boards I'm planning on using to vertical. I don't have any pictures of the reverse other than this image I've just found to illustrate the rails (I was planning on a top, middle and bottom rail) and single cross brace. The gate will be 1800mm high and 1300mm across, so splitting the braces would fall foul of the 45° rule that I've read about.

Frame and top rail is intended to be 4x2 (45 x 95) and the bracing was going to be trimmed down 45 x 145 to 30 x 145 (the TGV is 15mm thick so I was working on having the cladding sitting flush with the frame on the 30mm bracing).

Happy for those more experienced than I (so pretty much everyone on here!) to give me input. I am however also mindful that this is "just" a gate, and not a piece of fine cabinetry!
View attachment 198105

For outdoors more common is the plain ledge brace & batten type of gate/door, with no frame, no stiles, no mortice and tenons, no tongues and grooves, just butt joints, nails, thinner than 50mm ledges/braces/battens, square edge boards, no glue. It's quite practical too and weathers better
Once you've got the pieces all sized up and trimmed you can nail one together in half an hour or so!
Over length oval nails used, clenched back.
Example here https://www.ruby-group.co.uk/products/framed-tongue-groove-side-gate
Whatever you do it's a good idea to have a cap on top, wider than the thickness of the gate and with drip grooves each side.

 

[Tris]

Que?

Was going to mention the router in the for sale section

 

[Chubber]

Please let me sound a bit of an 'infectus strangulum' but I think a couple of hours with a 3/8" mortice chisel and a 16 oz mallet digging out a mortice or two in whatever piece of wood would serve newcomer Karl more good than many of the foregoing suggestions, predrilled or whatever.

He'd learnt about grain, holding stock securely, marking lines he can see and work to, and importantly start to develop that very important 'muscle memory' that allows one to simultaneously look at a cutting edge, a line, the head of a chisel and nine times out of ten hit that instead of a thumb.

My bouts of wood-butchery are few and far between these days, but before a new project I sharpen something, make a something, perhaps a new bench hook, scrape the breadboard (having re-sharpened the card scraper ), cut some ply scraps into plant labels...where did I put that white undercoat?

The point of this waffle is that the two most important tools in the workshop are our hands, and like athletes they needed training, and regular kee-fit exercises.

Oh Lord forgive me, I sound like Moses on the way down the mountain ....

 

[Karl Jones]

For outdoors more common is the plain ledge brace & batten type of gate/door, with no frame, no stiles, no mortice and tenons, no tongues and grooves, just butt joints, nails, thinner than 50mm ledges/braces/battens, square edge boards, no glue. It's quite practical too and weathers better
Once you've got the pieces all sized up and trimmed you can nail one together in half an hour or so!
Over length oval nails used, clenched back.
Example here https://www.ruby-group.co.uk/products/framed-tongue-groove-side-gate
Whatever you do it's a good idea to have a cap on top, wider than the thickness of the gate and with drip grooves each side.

Thanks Jacob - having re-read the end of that last post, it sounds mildly dismissive of potential advice for using more advanced woodworking techniques than using a hammer or an impact driver, and that wasn't my intention. I have a mildly perfectionist streak (which irritates my long suffering wide no end) and whilst this is "just" a gate, I do want to do a good job and have something that looks a little more crafted than a short run of featheredge!

 

[Karl Jones]

Please let me sound a bit of an 'infectus strangulum' but I think a couple of hours with a 3/8" mortice chisel and a 16 oz mallet digging out a mortice or two in whatever piece of wood would serve newcomer Karl more good than many of the foregoing suggestions, predrilled or whatever.

He'd learnt about grain, holding stock securely, marking lines he can see and work to, and importantly start to develop that very important 'muscle memory' that allows one to simultaneously look at a cutting edge, a line, the head of a chisel and nine times out of ten hit that instead of a thumb.

My bouts of wood-butchery are few and far between these days, but before a new project I sharpen something, make a something, perhaps a new bench hook, scrape the breadboard (having re-sharpened the card scraper ), cut some ply scraps into plant labels...where did I put that white undercoat?

The point of this waffle is that the two most important tools in the workshop are our hands, and like athletes they needed training, and regular kee-fit exercises.

Oh Lord forgive me, I sound like Moses on the way down the mountain ....

I had watched a few Paul Sellers videos and he makes morticing with a hand chisel look so very easy - I know that's because he's been working with wood for half a century so he's got that muscle memory you refer to (and a large slab of skill no doubt), but I did (do) fancy having a go.

In terms of chisels, I was thinking of these:

https://www.axminstertools.com/axminster-rider-mortice-chisel-10mm-103312
https://www.axminstertools.com/axminster-rider-mortice-chisel-10mm-103312

And am I right in thinking that I should hone them with something like this too:

https://www.axminstertools.com/ice-bear-japanese-waterstone-combination-1-000-6-000g-510469