Regular Mortice Chisel or Bevel Edged for your Mortices

[Tasky]

So where will I find Mr Ford's YouTube videos?

 

[Jacob]

I guess Mr Ford wouldn't have liked this 'sloppy and wrong' Japanese chap either... :lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWlQi5tjeGo

I guess not. Very slow and fussy!
I wonder how a trad Japanese carpenter would do it?

 

[Jacob]

So where will I find Mr Ford's YouTube videos?

They didn't do them in 1982.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I bet Mr Ford did it very similar to this, what do you think, Jacob. Quick, no fuss and well, does the job.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/2006/08/ ... se-by-hand

Mike.

 

[NickN]

At the 10 minute mark in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kBbe89YgyU

And 17 minute mark in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqgHynGqzd0

All of which goes to show that there's a lot of ways to do it that all get the job done.

 

[Jacob]

Hello,

I bet Mr Ford did it very similar to this, what do you think, Jacob. Quick, no fuss and well, does the job.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/2006/08/ ... se-by-hand

Mike.

That's same as Sellers. Yes works fine but a bit limp wristed!
The trad way for a hard working joiner in production mode would be as per Mr Ford. There's be more or less non-stop malletting from start to finish, no levering, chisel vertical all the time. Head down, brain off, bash that mallet!
A bit like flooring - yer Mr average would be tapping away intermittently with his hammer - Mr expert would have scattered nails all over the place and be hammering fast and non-stop like a nailing machine.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I bet Mr Ford did it very similar to this, what do you think, Jacob. Quick, no fuss and well, does the job.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/2006/08/ ... se-by-hand

Mike.

That's same as Sellers. Yes works fine but a bit limp wristed!
The trad way for a hard working joiner in production mode would be as per Mr Ford. There's be more or less non-stop malletting from start to finish, no levering, chisel vertical all the time. Head down, brain off, bash that mallet!
A bit like flooring - yer Mr average would be tapping away intermittently with his hammer - Mr expert would have scattered nails all over the place and be hammering fast and non-stop like a nailing machine.

Hello,

To be fair, he is instructing the viewers. When he is chiselling, he doesn't stop. If he wasn't talking between times, he wouldn't stop at all. If you time him, and omit the bits where he has the ordasity to stop and explain what is going on, he actually takes less than
than 2 minutes to make a haunched mortice. And neatly. I shouldn't imagine it could be done quicker, and why would you try, 2 minutes for a mortice is fast enough for anyone. But the method is what you by have said, vertical chisel, bevel in the cut and flat face towards the emerging hole, like cutting turf. And everybody does some levering, even you said you make a rounded bevel to assist with it. And as far as him being limp wristed, he is pounding that mallet with an enormous amount of Welly. Tentative he is not!

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

Interesting. The mistake he makes is to move the chisel too often. Sellers gets it right - each cut is deeper than the one before, a longer slice from the work-face without moving the chisel, not a series of shallow cuts moving the chisel for each one, but he has the chisel wrong way around (according to Mr Ford!) - slicing down the slope of the bevel instead of a vertical cut down the face. They both lever away unnecessarily.
It does make a difference - or it would if you had a lot to do in a hurry.

 

[bugbear]

I always wondered who the ultimate master was - the guru of gurus.

Step forward Mr Ford! He is right, all others are wrong.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Who needs gurus? It's an unhealthy preoccupation IMHO. Many have something to offer - but often not a lot.

 

[D_W]

Jacob - which direction is the bevel facing when you're making a cut? toward the waste or away from it?

Bevel at the back as you cut the face of the waste with the face of the chisel against it - like digging a trench you take away a vertical face as you progress away, then turn and come back going deeper. Always vertical, always a cut deeper down the face left from the previous cut, until you turn. I was shown how to do this - it might have taken a lot of time to work it out!
It's like cutting steps down, then turning and cutting them again.

I've found chisels to work better and faster if they're ridden on the bevel. The wood severs more easily at an angle and the starting wall can be worked straight up and down and the opposite side finished at the end. I think you're telling me that the bevel side of the chisel faces the waste when you do it.

The levering of wood that occurs with the bevel side down is minimal pressure, it's just to pull the waste out of the mortise. One lever motion, that's it - not someone looking like they're operating a handle at an amusement park ride, jamming it back and forth.

If that wasn't traditional use, the top edge of the oval bolstered chisels would never have been rounded over. The use of the chisel is still vertical, but the cut progresses laterally through the wood on par with the bevel angle.

(Perhaps i've just got your comment backwards).

 

[nabs]

am I alone in not understanding the difference between what Paul Sellers does and what Jacob is describing? Is there a video of someone doing it the other way?

PS my extensive* experience of creating mortices was all done the 'sellers' way, which as far as I could tell was the same way that Maquire does it, so now I am intrigued about the alternative.

*I have done 8 of them. 11 if you count practice goes!

 

[D_W]

I guess Mr Ford wouldn't have liked this 'sloppy and wrong' Japanese chap either... :lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWlQi5tjeGo

I guess not. Very slow and fussy!
I wonder how a trad Japanese carpenter would do it?

Not like that. For regular work, bevel down facing the material side and flat side of the chisel facing the waste. Hand on the handle, and at the end of each cut, flick the chisel to throw the waste out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZsPs7 ... C17uH1fG1L

(Chinese, but similar effect. This guy has other videos where he's cutting mortises in work, less talk, more hammering. Notice the flick). Finding japanese videos isn't that easy because they're in Kanji.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... aro+tanaka

This guy posts from japan (and is a shade maker or something), and there may be some in his videos. There are several good video series in his postings, including this one. No mortises that I recall, but hand dado work, and mitered dovetails done very quickly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85GrCHbdaJ4

 

[D_W]

am I alone in not understanding the difference between what Paul Sellers does and what Jacob is describing? Is there a video of someone doing it the other way?

PS my extensive* experience of creating mortices was all done the 'sellers' way, which as far as I could tell was the same way that Maquire does it, so now I am intrigued about the alternative.

*I have done 8 of them. 11 if you count practice goes!

In terms of the difference, are you just referring to the direction the bevel faces?

Wearing's book describes the way that jacob does them - cuts perpendicular to the grain rather than riding a bevel, but as is the case with a fair bit of wearings material, there are extra steps in it that you probably won't do after you've made 20 mortises.

 

[nabs]

I just don't understand the difference beteween the approaches discussed - Sellers starts at one end with the bevel facing in the direction he is going - holding the flat face of the chisel vertically. The he goes back in the other direction, again with the bevel forward but this time angled so the bevel is vertical.

How is the other method different?

 

[D_W]

I just don't understand the difference beteween the approaches discussed - Sellers starts at one end with the bevel facing in the direction he is going - holding the flat face of the chisel vertically. The he goes back in the other direction, again with the bevel forward but this time angled so the bevel is vertical.

How is the other method different?

Sellers is always working with the bevel facing the material to be removed. He has to tilt the chisel to cut vertically, or he'll just end up with a V.

I'm waiting for Jacob to confirm, but 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.

 

[woodbrains]

Jacob - which direction is the bevel facing when you're making a cut? toward the waste or away from it?

Bevel at the back as you cut the face of the waste with the face of the chisel against it - like digging a trench you take away a vertical face as you progress away, then turn and come back going deeper. Always vertical, always a cut deeper down the face left from the previous cut, until you turn. I was shown how to do this - it might have taken a lot of time to work it out!
It's like cutting steps down, then turning and cutting them again.

I've found chisels to work better and faster if they're ridden on the bevel. The wood severs more easily at an angle and the starting wall can be worked straight up and down and the opposite side finished at the end. I think you're telling me that the bevel side of the chisel faces the waste when you do it.

The levering of wood that occurs with the bevel side down is minimal pressure, it's just to pull the waste out of the mortise. One lever motion, that's it - not someone looking like they're operating a handle at an amusement park ride, jamming it back and forth.

If that wasn't traditional use, the top edge of the oval bolstered chisels would never have been rounded over. The use of the chisel is still vertical, but the cut progresses laterally through the wood on par with the bevel angle.

(Perhaps i've just got your comment backwards).

Hello,

Unless I'm confused too, I think you are saying what I'm saying as per the Frank Klaus's video I just posted, which I think is what Jacob said, regarding which way the chisel faces. I think Ian Kirby does it the other way around, and with just as much success, he really whacks the chisel hard. I don't really think it matters which way round you do it, if you get it to work efficiently, a wedge being driven into a bit of wood is essentially the same, and not a great deal of finesse is involved with morticing.

Mike.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Hmmm.

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

 

[AndyT]

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

 

[D_W]

some stuff

I don't think it matters, either. For speed, it just matters that you get to the point that you don't have a lot of white space between hammer blows. I'm not there yet on anything close to neat, but it's fun to try it, anyway. For plane mortises (which are far less restriction), it's pretty much as fast as I can go and still be able to use my arm the next day. Bevel facing the work for every part of them ("ride" it).

In terms of the oval bolstered chisels, I think they are bevel facing the work side if prepared traditionally, otherwise, the rounded bit where the bevel meets the top would have no purpose, and that rounded bit is on a lot of old chisels that were put away and not re-done by an amateur later.

Without riding the bevel, the deep cross section benefit is nearly lost, and if you get used to using it, going to a bevel edge chisel is pretty obnoxious.