Bill Tindall
When I stopped practicing on the recalcitrant test piece and got onto mortising the actual stiles they mortised uneventfully. There was something about the test piece that made it act like the mortise sides were springing back on the cut. It may be that something about the grain was not allowing the sides of the mortise to be scraped effectively by the sharp chisel edges. It really was like the tubes you stick your fingers in and then can't pull them back out. I could put the chisel into the bottom of the mortise by hand pressure and then it took two hands and wiggling to get it out again.

While slower, the hand mortises have much smoother walls than when I use a hollow chisel mortiser, a tool that is not trivial to get just right. I will be fitting the double tenons today and molding and coping the joinery. Then its on to my favorite part of wood working, sifting through the inventory to find something just right for the panels.