Regular Mortice Chisel or Bevel Edged for your Mortices

[bugbear]

Not as a rule. But sometimes they tend to over do it - you get sharp edges rounded over, or backs/undersides unnecessarily sanded, polishes over applied too many layers etc.

So a pro only does the minimum required, while the amateur goes the extra mile or two to create fine art... Still not seeing why the pro is supposedly better, here.

Pro's do what they're paid for.

Some pro made guitars are truly horrible, production line stuff, with thick ply sound boards, and great gobs of varnish everywhere.

Some are lovingly made, with care and attention to detail to everything, so that both the sonic performance and the visual appeal are at the highest level.

The mysterious factor behind the difference? Retail cost! A pro working for a low rate will take short cuts, or starve.

BugBear

 

[D_W]

Tasky, you're making more of this than there is.

If Henry knows how to cut mortises faster, the guy who builds furniture is going to want to know. there's a professional maker over here who works by hand, and someone had suggested the domino to him. They said that they could lay out and cut mortises in a one off piece with a budget time of four minutes. His response was that four minutes is what he budgets for a stub mortise and tenon. If all of us are being honest (aside from people like him who do that for a living), we do not do any mortise and tenon combinations in four minutes.

Four minutes is about how long it takes me to cut a mortise. I wish I could say that's how long it takes to cut a tenon with shoulders, but inevitably have a try and correction to something, and half the time spent is fitting rather than just cutting. A practiced pro may do something different that I could *see*. I don't need to know what they're feeling. We're not playing drums or guitar, it doesn't matter how much tension they have - it's the order of the cutting they're doing and steps that I do that are missing from their work. That is massively instructive.

It tells me as an amateur if they're skipping entire steps (for example, if they saw the shoulders of a stub tenon and saw to the line, but I saw close to the shoulders and then chop and pare, and still don't have a fit as good as theirs), it tells me that i have an area to improve on -with repetition and practice - not with finding out how hard they're squeezing or whether or not they're thinking about Buddha or Jesus Christ at the time they're working.

Re: the thing about Americans being technical and not understanding the flow of the music - that's a platitude. We have plenty of people in the states in the following two categories:
1) technically capable but musically tasteful rather than showing you all of their cards every song
2) technically incapable, full of commentary, and who excuse their lack of technical savvy by saying they're "focusing on the music".

#2 parallels woodworking gurus.

 

[Jacob]

An amateur would have dumped this raku Kizaemon Tea Bowl, noted in The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi as an ideal of the Japanese tea ceremony.

In favour of these bits of Staffordshire

 

[bugbear]

An amateur would have dumped this raku Kizaemon Tea Bowl, noted in The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi as an ideal of the Japanese tea ceremony.

In favour of these bits of Staffordshire

Is that an Amateur potter, art historian, guitarist, drummer or woodworker whose taste and knowledge you're castigating on the basis of something you yourself didn't know before you googled it?

BugBear

 

[Tasky]

Tasky, you're making more of this than there is.

Just having a natter around the subject.
As already established, it's pretty much purely personal choice for the most part anyway as to which chisel you choose, unless you're doing BIG mortises that can only be done by a proper mortise chisel.

If Henry knows how to cut mortises faster, the guy who builds furniture is going to want to know.

Maybe, if they're really THAT upset that they take 15 seconds longer than the other guy...
Probably depends on the wood and the type of mortise, too?
No good teaching me to mortise a 3' deep mega-mortise for a ship mast inside 2 minutes if I'm building a spice rack for the kitchen...
I assume mortise chisels and bench chisels became separately designated tools for a reason, with the implication that the mortises you're mortise-chiselling out using mortise-chiselling techniques are a bit too big for benchwork projects with bench chisels, no?

And even if Henry is cutting the finest mortises in history in the fastest times ever, does it really matter?
Do you work non-stop for every second of your woodworking-to-make-a-living life? Is every minute of your time counted and factored in? Will you and your family die of starvation if you take 15 seconds longer to cut a mortise?

If time is THAT much of a factor, why would anyone bother handworking if machines are faster anyway?
Or do you just do as much as is needed, within sufficient time to comfortably deliver?
A wise man once said that "Serious professionals know when enough is enough".

A practiced pro may do something different that I could *see*.

Like with all precision skills, there will be elements of fine motor control that you really cannot see... especially if it produces results measured in thousandths of an inch. Basic science.

I don't need to know what they're feeling. We're not playing drums or guitar, it doesn't matter how much tension they have

So you can tell just by looking what they are doing just by feel alone?
You must have been a dream driving student, then - One watch of the instructor doing it and you pass with a clean sheet?
Us mere mortals, however, are not mindreaders and would usually need to know what others are feeling for.

it's the order of the cutting they're doing and steps that I do that are missing from their work. That is massively instructive.

Again, might be, might not be.
Some people can mark things well enough without measuring precisely, so can skip the layout stage. Others need precise measures but can cut faster.
Some people might scrub off more material faster because they're fat and have more weight with which to bear down on the plane.
It might just be that they bought the Rob Cosman™ Dovetail Saw™ that you could never afford anyway... or that they're working in a different wood.

I learned long ago not to worry myself so much about what other people are doing all the time, so long as I can be happy with what I'm doing.

Re: the thing about Americans being technical and not understanding the flow of the music - that's a platitude. We have plenty of people in the states in the following two categories

While a lot of my favourite players are American and Canadian, you also have a LOT of players (including some famous ones) with a stack of skills that are almost beyond comprehension, but still just try to play every card they have at the same time rather than just the one or two needed to make the Royal Flush. All flash, no feel.
To paraphrase Jacob, these guys are more his definition of amateurs - overfinished, overdone, etc - despite playing as part of quite famous professional bands, sometimes.

The beat has to breathe and you have to make it. To quote a favourite performer of mine, "You have to kick it, not step on it".
This is why I was made to play Country music and learn how the smallest things so often make the biggest difference.

#2 parallels woodworking gurus.

Again, I'd say you're looking at the wrong gurus then, as all the ones I pay any attention to definitely show techniques that work, both for them and when I try them for myself. Commentary too is good, if it lends history, reason or context to what they're doing. Few (none?) of them even claim to be gurus either, so that's just people projecting their own issues... and if those people know ANY better, why aren't they out there putting the gurus back in their places?

Maybe you're just guruing below your own skill level, or need to look at one who shares things concerning the churning-out industry rather than the hobby audience?

 

[D_W]

You're going to have to elaborate to me and others what "feel" nuances you believe there may be in chopping mortises.

I don't think we're talking about a difference of 15 seconds for the person who:
* cuts tenons with one cut and one trim, or
* cuts dovetails off of the saw and cleans them quickly vs. creating some sort of arcane guaranteed success paring routine

One of my favorite things to talk about is the double iron. Cheshirechappie, where are you? I just recently figured out that I could've finish planed all of the plywood surfaces on my kitchen cabinets faster than I sanded them (that wouldn't be true if I had a primo progressive monster stationary machine that went from 100 to 320 grit and spit the ply out of the other side ready to finish).

Time and again, I hear the "your mileage may vary" thing from people about efficiency, and denial of basic rudimentary things. To say that "we don't compare ourselves to anyone", but that's hogwash. If you didn't compare yourself to someone, you wouldn't even know what to play on the drums. At some level, everything we do is comparing ourselves to someone else. If we use "i don't compare myself" as an excuse not to develop a skill (as opposed to give an honest effort in trying and then perhaps give up if we can't master it), that's just a cop out.

Here's where it matters as a hobby. Figure in the last cabinet, I finish planed 20 square feet of ply. In another cabinet, it may have been 40, or it may have been 10. At some level, I recognize that after planing three panels with four to go, I have no problem with the process if it takes 20 minutes. If it takes two hours, I have a big problem. if the number of panels goes to 20, the gap of frustration becomes smaller until I turn around to someone and say "You can't plane faster than you can finish sand with a hand held sander". At that point, you're just incorrect and you've cost yourself time and satisfaction.

To suggest that it's fine to do stupid things under the guise of being a hobbyist would be the same as saying "I play this incorrectly on drums and it sounds bad, but I don't compare myself to someone else....so I don't care. I'm not a pro, this is just a hobby".

We inevitably try to be reasonably good at our hobbies. If we didn't, there wouldn't be so many people bitching about their golf games, lost bets, etc. If it's easy to be better, then we do it. In this case, it's easy. You're making it difficult to rationalize accepting something mediocre or worse. That inevitably leads to the end of a hobby due to lack of interest.

 

[Woodmonkey]

There must be some wet paint around here somewhere that needs watching.

 

[D_W]

This kind of thing tends to happen when nobody is making anything notable and posting pictures.

....wait. No. It happens then, too. The posts of things being built just get ignored.

 

[Tasky]

There must be some wet paint around here somewhere that needs watching.

There's some boiled linseed oil...?
Not sure I know enough about watching it, though - Mister Ford never taught me it, Rob Cosman™ doesn't have a Watching Tool™ for it, and I don't know a professional Watcher to learn from... :lol:

You're going to have to elaborate to me and others what "feel" nuances you believe there may be in chopping mortises.

Since so many here insist you need lots of practice in these things to develop the muscle memory to do it well - All of that relies on feel. The finer the work, the finer the control and the finer the feel needed. Even if you're chopping a mega-mortise, you'll be feeling for fractions of a degree in the alignments and things, no?
The only way someone could be doing this faster than you is with a better/sharper tool or with a better feel for it - Maybe they're faster at repositioning the chisel, or have a more focussed hit with the mallet. That's all from feel.

But can you also not feel when you've moved out of square, or perhaps when you lean too far to one side as you raise the mallet? Even *I* can feel that much...!
There's a lot more to the subtleties in physical activity than you realise, which is why things like backache are such commonplace problems.

I just recently figured out that I could've finish planed all of the plywood surfaces on my kitchen cabinets faster than I sanded them

Well not being funny, but that's kinda what people here have been telling me ever since I joined...

Time and again, I hear the "your mileage may vary" thing from people about efficiency, and denial of basic rudimentary things.

Sometimes that is, sadly, the case though and you have no-one but Mother Nature to blame.
Time and time again I find people who think they should be able to do what taller, faster, younger, stronger, older, smarter, shorter, bigger other people can do just by following the same methods.
People are different and work in different ways. End of. Not everything is guaranteed, even in things where it's regarded as an actual science - Sometimes you have to adapt. I'm not especially tall, but I'm both tall enough and long-limbed enough that a number of boxing and sword techniques just will not work for me - I have to do it differently.
Conversely, you bring me anyone shorter and they just will NOT ever, ever, ever, ever have the same reach advantage than me. It's physically impossible.

To say that "we don't compare ourselves to anyone", but that's hogwash.

Good thing I didn't say that then, isn't it!!
I did say I don't *worry* about it so much. A lot of what other people can do is because they've had more time to focus on that and especially these days I know I don't have that kind of time left anyway. Plus, the longer I spend worrying, the less time I have to spend improving myself, so there's that as well.

If we use "i don't compare myself" as an excuse not to develop a skill (as opposed to give an honest effort in trying and then perhaps give up if we can't master it), that's just a cop out.

Again, which is not what I said.
I will say I'm not going to even learn something until I see how and why it's of any significant benefit over and above what I already do - That is just wasting time.

Here's where it matters as a hobby.

So again personal gauge of what is too long for you, rather than comparing yourself to what a professional does...
To suggest that I must therefore go and spend thousands of hours practicing a couple of techniques to the point where I might start resembling a professional (or in the case of this thread, an amateur with the freedom to do far finer work than a professional), or be forever regarded as a stupid hobbyist by someone whose opinion doesn't even enter my world is just ridiculous, on many counts.
If it weren't, we'd not have this forum full of amateurs sharing ideas and we'd all be off just learning from professionals, no?

We inevitably try to be reasonably good at our hobbies.

DO WE?
REALLY?
OK, "bring me a martial artist. I will rip apart their system and show them a much older way of doing things that is far simpler and far more effective. I bet you nine bob to the noble, most of them won't even want to know how the technique works and will instead go cower back in their safety zone of their own flawed system.
The 'secret' will be freely offered and will be explained and demonstrated for them as much as they like, and they will be free to try it back at me as much as they like until they are satisfied..... 9/10 of them will not even want to know".
That's a paraphrasing from my own instructor and he was right - Many people were bettered, but almost none of them (far less than his 1/10, in fact) wanted to know and learn how he did it.

Fact is, some do. Indeed people here seem more interested in it than many other people in many other hobbies.
However, some require context for how being better at a hobby (or more likely a particular aspect of it) is of much use to them and their specific involvement, but it still remains subjective.
Others really do just use it as a pasttime to pass the time.... because it feels good... because all they want to do is build planes and they're good enough at that already - If they don't need mortises for that and only occasionally use M&T joints in anything else, why should they then go spend thousands of hours studying professional mortisers and repetitively practicing mortises?

If we didn't, there wouldn't be so many people bitching about their golf games, lost bets, etc.

And how often are they bitching about factors other than their own actions, though?
Grass was too wet, wind took the ball, squirrel distracted me, caddy farted, back hurts from too much sex with the au-pair last night, mind was on which yacht would make a good fourth... ?

You should have seen my father-in-law. He had so many different hobbies, from painting to bagpiping to making hats and all sorts in between, but never stuck at any long enough to make any progress... partly because newer interests came along. I think he just enjoyed the newness and got bored easily. Harmonica? Yes, going to become a Blues Legend.... learn one short tune, and then forgotten when he discovers Making Teddybears.... which comprised one half-bear that got binned to make room for Flight Simulators.... etc etc.

In this case, it's easy.

Apparently not, because no MOD EDIT - MIND THE LANGUAGE PLEASE around here knows anything about woodworking, except professionals who are too busy professionalling to teach anyone... unless you're a mindreader, of course!!

To suggest that it's fine to do stupid things under the guise of being a hobbyist would be the same as saying "I play this incorrectly on drums and it sounds bad, but I don't compare myself to someone else....so I don't care. I'm not a pro, this is just a hobby".

Which kinda negates the Shawn Lane example, as stupidity is subjective and he's playing for his own self not as a comparison for/to others...

But is any of this up to you to decide?
It's my hobby and if I want to (or, Heaven forbid, have to) take my time planing just one piece of wood, then is that not for me to decide if I'm happy with it or not?
The Unbreakable Rule of hobbies and general life is this: So long as you're having fun and not hurting anyone, including yourself, it's all good.

Now I agree that by my own standards, there's probably something that could be improved on in your example, but if people are happy with that, then let them be happy. If you want to do something different, then do so.

I'm not EVER going to make a living off these skills and I doubt I will ever get to the Fine Furniture Art levels. I merely came here to have a bash at a few things I'd rather make than buy, not to be the next star of YouTube or to write the next book on what most people seem to already know more about anyway...

 

[Jacob]

An amateur would have dumped this raku Kizaemon Tea Bowl, noted in The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi as an ideal of the Japanese tea ceremony.

In favour of these bits of Staffordshire

Is that an Amateur potter, art historian, guitarist, drummer or woodworker whose taste and knowledge you're castigating on the basis of something you yourself didn't know before you googled it?

BugBear

Sorry BB I couldn't quite untangle that. Is it a riddle?

 

[Jacob]

....
Which kinda negates the Shawn Lane example, as stupidity is subjective and he's playing for his own self not as a comparison for/to others... ......

Is there a prize for long posts?
Didn't have time to read it but I spotted the guitar ref. Listened to it too! Never heard of Shawn wotsit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ODb4yhKXY
Not that impressed - they start out together but either Shawn or the drummer completely lose the plot really quickly. His style is called 'noodling' and any fool can do something similar once they've got the minor pentatonic scale shape off. (nb it's the easiest scale and every aspiring rock n roller learns it on day 2.) Not much music involved. More like juggling.

Just listened to more Shawn of the dead. He's really boring isn't he!

My current favourite guitarist is Carlos Roldan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zaKIIcFHDc&t=1885s

 

[NickN]

Off-topic I know (hammer) , but I tried using a bevel edged and a regular mortise chisel in my current workbench build and...

... they both work.

:lol:

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

Q - How many drummers/woodworkers does it take to change a light bulb/chop a mortice?

A - None, we have machines that do it better now

 

[D_W]

....
Which kinda negates the Shawn Lane example, as stupidity is subjective and he's playing for his own self not as a comparison for/to others... ......

Is there a prize for long posts?
Didn't have time to read it but I spotted the guitar ref. Listened to it too! Never heard of Shawn wotsit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ODb4yhKXY
Not that impressed - they start out together but either Shawn or the drummer completely lose the plot really quickly. His style is called 'noodling' and any fool can do something similar once they've got the minor pentatonic scale shape off. (nb it's the easiest scale and every aspiring rock n roller learns it on day 2.) Not much music involved. More like juggling.

Just listened to more Shawn of the dead. He's really boring isn't he!

My current favourite guitarist is Carlos Roldan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zaKIIcFHDc&t=1885s

Shawn's noodling isn't typical, but it might sound that way if you haven't progressed very far. Sort of like saying you're as good as Jeff Becker once you can sweep .

I doubt Shawn plays anything in pentatonic, or at least very little.

 

[Jacob]

......

Shawn's noodling isn't typical, but it might sound that way if you haven't progressed very far. Sort of like saying you're as good as Jeff Becker once you can sweep .....

It's clever but boring. More sleight of hand than musical performance. I realise it's a whole genre but I don't have to like it!

 

[D_W]

You definitely don't have to like it, but it's not remotely close to sleight of hand. It's straightforward, too difficult for just about everyone, and too much too fast for my brain.

At any rate, as far as the original topic goes, I would never have imagined that we could've posed the following straw scenario:
* I cut mortises
* I see someone else cut mortises three times as fast (or even 50% faster, whatever)
* I choose to, perhaps, examine the order that the person demonstrating bullet point 2 above, I might look at the tool they're using, the mallet, where they start on a cut, where they end, how much material they remove at each step.

And then, the suggestion (and I have to assume only one person is this far off base....) is that we can't learn much from it because we don't know what to feel....

I hope that nobody else new to the hobby doesn't think that they can't learn from someone by watching them without being told what to feel.

This is a new dimension of craziness to me. I am awestruck, but not in a good way.

 

[D_W]

But can you also not feel when you've moved out of square, or perhaps when you lean too far to one side as you raise the mallet? Even *I* can feel that much...!
There's a lot more to the subtleties in physical activity than you realise, which is why things like backache are such commonplace problems.

Someone has to tell you what to feel when you're out of square? Again, I'm baffled. You're out of square, the joint isn't right because of it when you cut your first few. These things actually happen to people when they are beginning. Nobody has to tell them what to feel. If they have a fraction of a brain, they find out that they're out of square one way or another and practice to correct it.

Perhaps there was a book called "the feel of woodworking. instant results after I tell you what I feel".


If you don't want to get better at something, that's fine. It's pretty easy to stay stagnant, but people don't usually go searching for information and inspiration when they're trying to stagnate.

Your Karate example is dopey, and it also has nothing to do with woodworking. It's dopey because you're suggesting that someone who "got better" would not be better. If that doesn't sink in, I'll let you figure it out.

As far as it having nothing to do with woodworking, better is pretty easy here. The same or better results with less effort, better frequency, less stopping. It's pretty easy.

I'm still baffled how something relatively simple can be turned into such a bunch of obfuscation.

There is a discussion on another forum about flattening stones right now. I rarely duck out of pointless discussions, but it literally went to two people (who have practiced for decades) suggesting improving the flatness of stones by rubbing two together. It's not hard to see how that would help (with plenty of small subtleties implied, and if they aren't obvious to the person rubbing the stones in the first place, the hobby should change), but the discussion literally went as far as "you need three stones" to " the three lap method only works on uniform systems like glass".

What does that lead the average person coming into the discussion to decide, that the people improving the flatness of two stones (as would be historically accurate) by rubbing them together have imagined what they're doing?

This stuff is just *way* too far out for me. I'm just looking to watch someone who does something better than I can do it and see what I can pick up from it. I don't to ask them about their feelings, talk about drum sets or discuss lapping telescope lenses.

As is the case with this forum, three people complained that nobody is talking about making things, disappeared without actually offering any discussion about making things, and then the entire group proceeded to ignore three posts where people shared something they made, only to post several hundred posts about things like "you know, it's not possible to actually have perfectly flat stones".

 

[bugbear]

I'm still baffled how something relatively simple can be turned into such a bunch of obfuscation.

Says the man who described a cutting edge as "quiet" and says that wire edges need "managing" (as opposed to simply removing) :roll:

Obfuscation is indeed a problem.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

:lol: Who came up with "riding the bevel"?

 

[D_W]

That's it, Jacob!

From now on, I'm going to use the word pipeline for all stock (wood, metal, plastic). "carving the pipeline today". "the pipeline is very spelchy, i'm wiping out the back side of it".

Aside from that, I think we probably need a list of approved words, context, statements, etc. for Bugbear.