Something for the hand tool woodworker who has everything?

[Scrit]

I've just caught this on eBay - definitely one for the collectors, methinks

Scrit

 

[Alf]

Oh I dunno, if it's got some bits it's one for a user; collectors tend to shun rust... Funnily enough I saw a box of bits for such a monster at the car boot a month of so ago, but didn't fully register what they were until later. I gather finding ones that are the right size if you don't have them can be something of a problem.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Scrit]

Oh I dunno, if it's got some bits it's one for a user........

Only for masochists or people with muscles like Garth! Frankly it's hard enough chopping out all the mortices for an oak gate on a square chisel morticer (give me a chain machine any day) - but the thought of doing it by hand :roll:

I somehow doubt that you'd ever find one of these in mint condition - a bit big to leave forgotten on some dusty shelf don't you think.

Scrit

 

[Alf]

Not too bad, eh?

I think, if you were used to chopping 'em by hand, then one of those monsters would be welcome. But these days, no, I don't suppose anyone but museums and nutters like me would actually want one.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Scrit]

Well it would be if someone hadn't repainted it....... It's really a quantity thing and I doubt that a joiner could survive doing all the morticing by hand (agreed, there may be a very few exceptions), but I can remember seeing quite a few machines like these apparently converted to use an electric motor, yoke and square chisel, presumably in the 1930s or 1940s when the motors became available cheaply enough.

PS Typical museum, that one's missing its' wooden bed

Scrit

 

[bugbear]

I've just caught this on eBay - definitely one for the collectors, methinks

Scrit

Judging by the variety and numbers of these in old catalogues these were in common use up to the 1940's at least.

BugBear

 

[CHJ]

I remember seeing one in use in the 1950's in a village workshop (no electricity) making a new Oak Field Gate for the farm.

 

[Scrit]

Judging by the variety and numbers of these in old catalogues these were in common use up to the 1940's at least.

The old "bumpers" would probably have been made until WWII (when a lot of things ceased production never to be resumed). Buck & Hickman were still listing the chisels for them in their 1964 catalogue (that's the latest reference I can find for them) but the machines disappeared from their range many years before that. I did try getting hold of some new chisels for one of these in the very lat 1970s, without any joy. Perhaps the lightweight static machines made by Multico, Whitehead, Metalclad and Todd, et al after WWII is what saw them off, although I suspect it was the likes of Wolf - who made relatively low-cost cast drill press/square chisel morticer to work with their electric drills - that did greater damage.

Scrit

 

[Mittlefehldt]

At the risk of appearing totally ignorant, well actually in this case no risk at all, how do those things work?

By the way I did some two inch deep mortises in North American White Oak (Quercus Alba) by hand and it wasn't that bad.

 

[Scrit]

.... how do those things work?

By the way I did some two inch deep mortises in North American White Oak (Quercus Alba) by hand and it wasn't that bad.

Hi there. They work by holding a chisel much the same way as you wood by hand, but the cut is made by pulling the lever downwards - the fulcrum/lever means that a greater cutting pressure can be achieved much the same as striking the end of the chisel with a mallet. The "carraige" or table can also move left-right and fore-aft to so that once a piece is clamped in a long/wide mortice can be cut quite quickly.

Doing a few mortices by hand isn't so bad - chopping out a hundred plus a day as they would have in a gate or door maker's workshop might prove slightly more wearing methinks (hammer)

Scrit

 

[bugbear]

.... how do those things work?

Hi there. They work by holding a chisel much the same way as you wood by hand, but the cut is made by pulling the lever downwards - the fulcrum/lever means that a greater cutting pressure can be achieved much the same as striking the end of the chisel with a mallet. The "carraige" or table can also move left-right and fore-aft to so that once a piece is clamped in a long/wide mortice can be cut quite quickly.

The machine (obviously?) ensure that the mortise is vertical, and the counter weight on the handle/arm also provides INERTIA when the chisel "hits".

These things were the main method of making production mortices for circa 50-70 years (say 1880 - 1950 - ish)

BugBear

 

[Scrit]

These things were the main method of making production mortices for circa 50-70 years (say 1880 - 1950 - ish)

But only in small shops. Square chisel morticers driven on fast and loose pulleys from line shafting appeared between the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862. The earliest reference I've found to them in the UK is to a machine shown by Samuel Worrsam & Co. of London at the International Exhibition of 1862 although several European companies (nitably Bernier & Arbey of Paris and Zimmerman of Chemnitz) were also manufacturing machine working on a different principle (auger outside of the squaring chisel) by this time. By the 1870s all the major manufacturers with the exception of Sagar (1875) and Wadkin (1897) had been established and almost all of them were offering square chisel morticers, especially as by that time there was more of an accent on joinery machines following the introduction of surface planers and thicknessers using rotating cutterblocks. So it's probable that the hand machines are even earlier in origin.

Above: Worrsam & Co square chisel morticer from a catalogue of 1862

Scrit

 

[bugbear]

Above: Worrsam & Co square chisel morticer from a catalogue of 1862

Scrit

Nice drive by on catalogue ownership, and excellent information. I stand better informed.

BugBear