Mortise marking out question

Re: Mortise marking out question

Harold Blair

>John: Is it possible to angle the tenon as opposed to the mortise? When I build chairs, I angle the tenons. This allows me to cut straight (paralell) mortises. Harold

Re: Mortise marking out question

John in West TN

>Harold, interesting question. I don't think so in this case. The project is a folding bed, and in order for the bed rails to fold without hitting each other, the mortise on one side is tilted slightly so that the rails will pass over and under each other as they fold.

Cheers,

John

Re: Mortise marking out question

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>John -

Make a wedge of the proper pitch, register it against the leg stock, register the gauge against the wedge, and make your mark.

Ed

Re: Mortise marking out question

Alan Hamilton

>John,

I think I would give up trying to use my mortise gauge; I would just use a sliding bevel. Once set it would ensure that all the mortises are scribed the same. It would be some trouble to get the starting points right, but that's about the only difficulty I can see.

Alan

Re: Mortise marking out question

George Makowski

>John, I think I understand what you want to do so let me suggest two similar ways of getting there. Beginning first with a premise about the mortice gauge. The mortice gauge doesn't do anything but mark the opening of the mortice as it will appear on the surface of the stock. So, unless the angle of the mortice is so acute as to begin to alter the dimensions of the opening, not the case in your project, you can mark out the mortice just as you would a square one.

Next, you need to chop out the mortice at the angle you want. You may want to drill out most of the waste with a brace and bit drilling in at the needed angle in reference to an angle gauge planed to the angle you want. Or you can chop it out with a chisel using a block gauge in the same way.

Good chips!

George in North West AL

Re: Mortise marking out question

John in West TN

>George, thank you for the response. I'm not sure that I've explained this well. The mortise opening is square in all regards and the mortise is square in its depth, however, the mortise opening is tipped every so slightly to the right of an imaginary centerline.

Cheers,

John