Mortising - 114 years of progress

[woodbrains]

Hello,

1) efficient isn't sloppy. Sloppy is sloppy.
2) a lot of the things in woodworking that are efficient are also neater .

It must be so reassuring, living in your world, wherever that is!

Statement 1 is totally untrue. There are numerous ' efficincies' that can be employed, that result in a structurally sound but sloppy looking outcome.

Statement 2 is true and by making it, you are actually endorsing that efficient can also be sloppy if you apply logic. Many things that are efficient are also neater implies that many things that are efficient are also not neater.

Bruised shoulders on mortices can be a result of speed, it takes less time to take less care here. The joint does not suffer structurally so why spend the time? Similarly, over cut dovetails get the job done without compromising the strength. We see them all the time on piece work in antique furniture.

If you actually mean doing everything correctly with speed, you are just meaning 'well practiced'. You start doing things slowly but correctly and get better with practice. Starting fast and ending up with a sloppy job wastes materials and you might never get neater anyway. You don't try to run before you can walk.

Besides, I agree with Charles, aspiring to work like a piece worker has nothing to recommend it.

Mike

 

[iNewbie]

1) efficient isn't sloppy. Sloppy is sloppy.

You must visit here for a school dinner.

 

[D_W]

If you actually mean doing everything correctly with speed, you are just meaning 'well practiced'. You start doing things slowly but correctly and get better with practice. Starting fast and ending up with a sloppy job wastes materials and you might never get neater anyway. You don't try to run before you can walk.

Besides, I agree with Charles, aspiring to work like a piece worker has nothing to recommend it.

Mike

You guys are really in the weeds. Charlie has a thing of directing a discussion somewhere other than where it was. For example, the two individuals in the original posting are discussing methods. They are summarized as follows:

Method 1:
* easier for students to learn
* takes less strength
* works with short pieces

Method 2:
* sit on the work
* make progressive cuts and get the work done more efficiently
* fewer chips left in mortise when done

The advocate for #2 says his method is faster. The advocate for 1 says his method is slower but can be as neat (not neater) and is easier to learn.

Which method would you do for the long haul given those two sets of facts? You have to assume that the level of neatness of the work is similar. The person advocating method 2 has just plainly said you can do the work more quickly with it. Perhaps someone like me who in a video somewhere on here just did a mortise in 4 minutes and 20 seconds can do it in 3 minutes.

But there's another catch here, it isn't just the 1 minute and 20 seconds that I've lost. I've lost fiddling time and chip clearing time. Those two, I have no regard for.

And yes, on speed, it can come from efficiency (of method) and repetition.

Somehow, this has gotten twisted into making sloppy mortises as fast as possible, and I can't see where. Not all piece-quota work is sloppy. I'm pretty sure that the makers who made my mother's American furniture didn't do so slowly, but I can tell it wasn't fussy, either. In an effort to find what was referred to as sloppy work on another forum, I pulled all of the drawers on dovetailed furniture in my mothers' house and aside from one broken drawer, found dovetails that were executed with lovely proportion in something i'll call 98% neatness. Someone could've taken twice or three times the time to eliminate all signs that they were done by a human, but the effect would've been no better.

What is more common now with the wave of amateurs is to fuss over tons of things that don't matter, and then, for example, make perfectly fitted dovetails that look like they were cut by a laser, with terrible fat proportions.

There is absolutely no part of this discussion that advocates sloppy work, or choosing something that looks less good or is less structurally sound. It is in the same manner as the original fellows posted, the same standard of work, one method is more efficient, which do you choose? The one that is easier to learn, or the one that is more efficient?