Regular Mortice Chisel or Bevel Edged for your Mortices

[D_W]

Hmmm.

Morticing, it would seem, is the new sharpening.....

Yep.
Every five years we have this discussion but it's been running a bit longer!

post681936.html#p681936

It pops up in the US forums, too. It's always a challenge to find someone who is actually spending an appreciable part of their day cutting mortises by hand for pay.

 

[woodbrains]

Hmmm.

Morticing, it would seem, is the new sharpening.....

Hello,

Sharpening mortice chisels, now this is where the universe collapses!

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

... It's always a challenge to find someone who is actually spending an appreciable part of their day cutting mortises by hand for pay.

I did for a few months when I first set up. I made several sets of doors/windows almost entirely by hand - just a band-saw (from a previous business). Slowly got kitted up with a combi and slot morticer etc.
Mr Ford's advice came in exceptionally useful and very timely for just a brief period in my life!!

Hello,

Sharpening mortice chisels, now this is where the universe collapses!

Mike.

Only for modern sharpeners. For the rest of us it couldn't be easier - you can do it pineappled, half asleep whilst looking out of the window!

 

[MikeG.]

.......It's always a challenge to find someone who is actually spending an appreciable part of their day cutting mortises by hand for pay.

I've spent hours and hours a day chopping mortises by hand for my house. It adds value to my house, so notionally that is some sort of pay-back for me, but I take the point that I am not up against the clock. Nonetheless, when bashing a big chisel with a big mallet for many a long hour, one eliminates all unnecessary actions, and learns to avoid inaccuracies and mistakes. For every mortise there is a tenon, and it was these I looked forward to less. Cutting the shoulders with the saw is a doddle, once you get to understanding how to work without a reference face or edge for the setting out. Chopping away the 4 faces is a piece of cake with reasonable grain, but there's a reason that the piece of oak you are working with is "green". It's because the sawmill graded it as not good enough for its 3 grades of joinery oak, and therefore the grain is unlikely to be uniform and straight. This leads to much more work chopping away the waste around a tenon, and even, sometimes, sawing it away. Now that really is a pain!

 

[bugbear]

In terms of the oval bolstered chisels, I think they are bevel facing the work side

D_W unique words again. I know what the bevel of a chisel is. What is "the work side" you refer to? Please clarify.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

The face of the chisel (not the back or bevel) faces the vertical face of the mortice slot being cut.
Same as Sellers vid except you cut the vertical face, not down the slope left by the bevel.
Sellers is just a bit sloppy - no wonder he gave up on it.

 

[worn thumbs]

.......It's always a challenge to find someone who is actually spending an appreciable part of their day cutting mortises by hand for pay.

I've spent hours and hours a day chopping mortises by hand for my house. It adds value to my house, so notionally that is some sort of pay-back for me, but I take the point that I am not up against the clock. Nonetheless, when bashing a big chisel with a big mallet for many a long hour, one eliminates all unnecessary actions, and learns to avoid inaccuracies and mistakes. For every mortise there is a tenon, and it was these I looked forward to less. Cutting the shoulders with the saw is a doddle, once you get to understanding how to work without a reference face or edge for the setting out. Chopping away the 4 faces is a piece of cake with reasonable grain, but there's a reason that the piece of oak you are working with is "green". It's because the sawmill graded it as not good enough for its 3 grades of joinery oak, and therefore the grain is unlikely to be uniform and straight. This leads to much more work chopping away the waste around a tenon, and even, sometimes, sawing it away. Now that really is a pain!

I don't understand why chopping mortises by hand adds value to a house.Maybe if I did I could add value to all sorts of things.

 

[woodbrains]

.......It's always a challenge to find someone who is actually spending an appreciable part of their day cutting mortises by hand for pay.

I've spent hours and hours a day chopping mortises by hand for my house. It adds value to my house, so notionally that is some sort of pay-back for me, but I take the point that I am not up against the clock. Nonetheless, when bashing a big chisel with a big mallet for many a long hour, one eliminates all unnecessary actions, and learns to avoid inaccuracies and mistakes. For every mortise there is a tenon, and it was these I looked forward to less. Cutting the shoulders with the saw is a doddle, once you get to understanding how to work without a reference face or edge for the setting out. Chopping away the 4 faces is a piece of cake with reasonable grain, but there's a reason that the piece of oak you are working with is "green". It's because the sawmill graded it as not good enough for its 3 grades of joinery oak, and therefore the grain is unlikely to be uniform and straight. This leads to much more work chopping away the waste around a tenon, and even, sometimes, sawing it away. Now that really is a pain!

Hello,

This is the crux, cutting the the tenons is much more taxing. Morticing is just bashing a wedge into a bit of wood. It really doesn't matter if the bevel faces the centre or the boundaries, or whether you chop from the centre out or from the boundaries towards the centre, or from one boundary to the other. I've seen it done all ways with equal success. When you have lots to do, you get better and more efficient. If you don't have lots, and that would be most of us nowadays, why not take the time to get a precise result and enjoy doing so, no one is doing piece work! The result is all that matters, no on can tell how long it took or how the chisel was orientated by looking at a slot in the wood, or the finished product.

Mike.

 

[woodbrains]

.......It's always a challenge to find someone who is actually spending an appreciable part of their day cutting mortises by hand for pay.

I've spent hours and hours a day chopping mortises by hand for my house. It adds value to my house, so notionally that is some sort of pay-back for me, but I take the point that I am not up against the clock. Nonetheless, when bashing a big chisel with a big mallet for many a long hour, one eliminates all unnecessary actions, and learns to avoid inaccuracies and mistakes. For every mortise there is a tenon, and it was these I looked forward to less. Cutting the shoulders with the saw is a doddle, once you get to understanding how to work without a reference face or edge for the setting out. Chopping away the 4 faces is a piece of cake with reasonable grain, but there's a reason that the piece of oak you are working with is "green". It's because the sawmill graded it as not good enough for its 3 grades of joinery oak, and therefore the grain is unlikely to be uniform and straight. This leads to much more work chopping away the waste around a tenon, and even, sometimes, sawing it away. Now that really is a pain!

I don't understand why chopping mortises by hand adds value to a house.Maybe if I did I could add value to all sorts of things.

Hello,

I think it was the doors and such that added value, not the hand done mortices per se. But the mortices had to be done, so no point labouring the issue.

Mike.

 

[nabs]

...it sounds like he's talking about cutting mortises with the bevel facing the waste side, and shearing the grain off at 90 degrees. Brute force allows that will work well, but I'm not sure that it's as standard as Jacob says. I do get the point that he makes, though, that you hammer and hammer rather than hammer, fiddle with waste, hammer, fiddle with waste. As long as there's still room for waste to go into.

Wearing's display orients the bevel the same way as the latter here, but the work is not as fast.

thanks DW - I get it now. I see that it would save time if you did not remove the waste on a mortise that goes right through since it will be pushed out when you work from the other side in any case.

I suppose the argument for using the rounded bevel in the other direction is it is easy to use it as a pivot to flick out the waste and thus avoid the mortise getting blocked with chips (or to get the bits out of the bottom of a blind mortise)

 

[MikeG.]

....I don't understand why chopping mortises by hand adds value to a house.Maybe if I did I could add value to all sorts of things.

It's not how the mortises are made which adds value, but the fact that they exist. Here's an example, but this isn't 10% of the oak work in the house.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I wonder whether there's a danger of talking at cross purposes, here. Cabinetmaking and timber framing are significantly different activities, with valid techniques and methods of work applicable to either, but (except very loosely) not both. It's rather like comparing clockmaking with heavy engineering.

The methods of sinking a mortice several inches long and deep and perhaps an inch or more in width in green oak may not be quite the same as those for furniture work in dry wood.

That is in no way a criticism of any comment or participant so far in the thread. It's just an observation, that's all.

 

[AndyT]

Quite so, CC. There are so many different types/scales of woodworking that many threads can have two people, each thinking of their own example, arguing at cross purposes, when each is right, within their own context.

 

[nabs]

good point, and to be more specific perhaps using the rounded bevel of a mortise chisel as a pivot to flick out the chips is a good option where the mortice is narrow and deep (because in this situation the bits are more likely to get jammed between the sides, preventing you getting the chisel deeper?)

 

[D_W]

In terms of the oval bolstered chisels, I think they are bevel facing the work side

D_W unique words again. I know what the bevel of a chisel is. What is "the work side" you refer to? Please clarify.

BugBear

Work side is where the stock is being cut, and waste side is the open area in the mortise where the waste ends up.

 

[Jacob]

In terms of the oval bolstered chisels, I think they are bevel facing the work side

D_W unique words again. I know what the bevel of a chisel is. What is "the work side" you refer to? Please clarify.

BugBear

Work side is where the stock is being cut, and waste side is the open area in the mortise where the waste ends up.

In which case "face" should face the work side and the back/bevel behind with the chippings.
NB to save confusion and to be more logically consistent: flat side = face, bevel side = back.

 

[bugbear]

In terms of the oval bolstered chisels, I think they are bevel facing the work side

D_W unique words again. I know what the bevel of a chisel is. What is "the work side" you refer to? Please clarify.

BugBear

Work side is where the stock is being cut, and waste side is the open area in the mortise where the waste ends up.

Thank you.

BugBear

 

[Tasky]

Quite so, CC. There are so many different types/scales of woodworking that many threads can have two people, each thinking of their own example, arguing at cross purposes, when each is right, within their own context.

None of them are right, though, unless they're using Mr Ford's methods!!
If only someone had uploaded some VHS of his 1982 methods to YouTube...

 

[John15]

Just to clarify, my original post relates to small mortices as used in bits of furniture, not for door making etc.

John

 

[bugbear]

NB to save confusion and to be more logically consistent: flat side = face, bevel side = back.

Your proposed naming is logical, but not traditional. Things are what they are.

If you ever go sailing, are you going to get "sheets" and "painters" renamed too? :roll:

BugBear