Mortising chisel *LINK*

Re: Mortising chisel

Steve Kubien

>I am not an expert by any means but here are my thoughts. If you prefer to cut your mortises using a drill press to remove the bulk of the material and clean up with handtools then I do not see a reason for dedicated mortise chisels. If you see yourself going the route of doing the job entirely by hand, mortise chisels will make the task much easier. You can strike them harder and deeper, the straight, flat sides will register better etc.

So, what is your prefered technique? Therein lies your answer. Now, one other thing to consdier is whether you want anyone to talk you out of getting some new tools or not. Some will avoid those discussions and people like the plague.

I hope this helps,

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Onbtario

remove the _9 to email

Are they mortise chisels?

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, Florida

>From the online link you provided:

The precision ground parallel sides and long length of these chisels make them perfect for paring bored and roughed out mortises.

That sounds more like a paring chisel to me.

Agree with Steve

David Miller from Iowa

>If you are going to do it the old fashioned way, you need the right tool. With regards to economics, I guess it depends upon how many you think you'll do.

Good luck, David

Re: Agree with Steve

Asher F.

>Steve wrote:

From the online link you provided:

....

That sounds more like a paring chisel to me.

I thought that the description was a bit confusing, too: on the picture they look like mortising, but sounds like paring.

Dave wrote:

If you are going to do it the old fashioned way, you need the right tool. With regards to economics, I guess it depends upon how many you think you'll do.

I am guessing 15-20 mortises per year in cherry, wallnut, red or white oak. Well, it's a hobbie at this point in my life and I haven't done that many mortises yet to know what I prefer. Previous few times I drilled out most of it and then cleaned out the remaining material. I never tried it by hand all the way, that's why I thought I'd ask first. When I tried cutting it with the router - seemed like more work goes into setting up the machine then it's worth in order to make a couple of slots, not to mention all the noise and dust :)

From the past expirience, cutting dovetails by hand for 8 drawers was a hell of alot easier then messing with router bits...

Asher

Re: Agree with Steve

David Miller from Iowa

>I'd suggest you buy one in a likely size and try it. Or I can loan you one if you like. It is like dovetails, in that after a little practice, it's easier and quicker than a machine set up, and much more satisfying. I would start on the walnut though - I always have trouble chopping cherry.

Good luck, David

Re: Mortising chisel

Alan Hamilton

>Asher,

Economically, I doubt mortise chisels make sense for anyone these days. If you do many hundreds of mortises each year, it makes dollars and cents to make them the quickest way possible. If you do only a few mortises it wouldn't pay very much to speed things up. But, of course, economics isn't the only reason to use one tool or another.

If, like me, you do wood working as a hobby, the economics of one method, one tool over another hardly enters into the equation. I chose the tools I want to use for reasons far removed from a cost:benefit analysis. You are the only judge of these intangibles.

One thing for sure, though, there's no way in hades that I would buy any more Sorby chisels--mortise or any other kind. I have the great misfortune to own two or three Sorby chisels and they are uniformly horrible. On all my Sorby chisels the steel is WAY too soft, so soft they bend over just being in the same room with a bit of hardwood.

Alan

Re: paring v firmer v sash mortise v mortise

Dave Mount, northeastern MN

>Asher--

As others have said, the biggest variable is whether you're chopping from scratch or drilling out most of the waste.

When you mention just limping along with a "regular" chisel, I'm not sure exactly what kind of chisel you mean. Because paring and butt chisels have beveled sides, they are not nearly was good for cleaning out the corners of mortises that were drilled initially. This is because when you chop down into the waste in the corner, the side bevel pushes the chisel away. Firmer, sash mortise, and regular mortise chisels have straight (flat and sqare to the face) sides, and therefore stay put better when you start hammering down. They force the waste wood to break loose along the grain, rather then letting the chisel slip out the side. For cleaning up the sides of the mortise, this is more a paring operation and most any chisel will do -- in fact, wide paring or firmer chisels are my preference for this. Wide chisels make it easier to get a straight side to the mortise. For speed, I often drill out the waste first, use a paring chisel to clean the leftovers from the sides, then run a mortising chisel down the ends to square them up.

If you're going to chop them entirely by hand, you really need a firmer chisel at a minimum, and preferably a mortise chisel. Sash mortise chisels (as I understand the terminology anyway) are more or less the same as regular mortise chisels except they're not built quite as heavy duty. That said, I got some Marples sash mortise chisels in 1/4 and 5/16 that are tough enough to take most anything I'll put them through. You can hand chop a mortise with a firmer chisel, but you can't pound too hard, take too big a bite, or lever back hard on them. The thick shank and correspondingly long bevel of real mortise chisels help you break the chunks of waste wood out much easier than the shorter bevel of a firmer, not to mention that you can hit them harder.

On that topic, rather than plunking $50 for the chisel your looking at, you might want to peruse eBay. Seems like a lot of folks are selling out new Marples chisels right now (presumably from wholesale lots arising from Irwin's buyout of them), including mortising chisels. I picked up a 1/4, 5/16, and 3/8 off there for $10 a throw, including shipping. The yellow and red plastic handles aren't much aesthetically, but they're very serviceable chisels. With the money you save, you can afford a swan-neck chisel to clean out the bottom of the mortises, which you'll want if you're chopping by hand. Lee Valley has a 1/4" swan neck for about $25, which is a good price if the chisel is of any quality (and that I don't know).

With regard to the confusing description of the Woodcraft mortise chisels, I suspect this is code for those not being heavy duty mortise chisels.

Good luck.

Dave

Re: Are they mortise chisels?

Doug LIttlejohn

>They are 'real' mortise chisels, not paring, I have a set of them.

THey are 'very' heavy, stought and will make the job much easier whichever methode you use. If you drill out the bulk, these will make it much quicker as the sides will register to the width and help with clean sides.

Do you need them??,,well that is a personal choice. I have a Shop Fox Hollow Mortiser Chiseler and I still bought a set of the Sorby Mortise chisels. When you only have to do a couple ata a time, it's much quicker to either just drill out the hole and then finish it off or just chop it all out when you fell like being more Neander.

To me, they were worth it, I'll never have to buy any to replace them with and when I need the beef, I'll have it.

YMMV

Re: Mortising chisel

Doug LIttlejohn

>Sorry you had such a bad experience with your Sorby's. For some reason, they apparently do not make them all out of the same steel.

Reviews have been hard on their regular chisels and yet those that have reviewed and/or bought the mortise chisels, have been mostly very happy with them.

Go figure, how they could screw things up like that is a mystery to me, but I only have their mortise chisels and am very happy with them.

My other chisels range from Marples BlueChips to old Buck's, Nootendaghit, Butcher, Busch and other old ones I can't ID, but all hold an edge real well (well mostly, the Marples are so-so).

Sherwood

Buck Brothers

David Miller from Iowa

>I bought a very nice, very long, very old set of Buck Brothers paring chisels and paid a bundle for them. My Dad, who owned a hradware store, thought I was nuts - he felt that Buck Bros stuff was the scum of the tool world. However, they are the best set of chisels I have ever held. Just suggesting that the brand thing is transient over time. Kinda like being burned by an AMF Harley.

Re: Mortising chisel *LINK*

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>Many good thought there but mine is a little different I would wait as LN is coming out with chisels they have already made some. Who cares how practical it is to chop them by hand it's flat out fun. I usually use the bit and brace when feeling primitive. I must warn you next thing you'll be ordering steel and eyeing up making some. Have a look at that website it's fun stuff.


http://www.paragoncode.com/toolmaking/mortise_chisels/

Do some reading ; also, my experience

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>You should do some reading and, if your local library is hip enough to have WW videos, peruse those. Cutting a mortise with a mortise chisel is somewhat different than other methods, because you use the sides to register against the mortise sides AND to pry out a controlled, properly shaped chip. You might do some searching here, too; I believe it's Adam Cherubini who's posted a long discussion of his method of mortising using a mortising chisel.

I own a garage sale 1/4" mortise chisel, with which I've done a limited number of mortises, and I can testify that my control is much, much greater for this particular operation than with any "regular" (by which I assume you mean bench, probably bevel-edged bench) chisel.

I watched Ian Kirby once knock out a through mortise in a piece of oak (IIRC) in about 45 seconds. Granted, he's a long time professional and therefore faster than thee and mee, but it demonstrated for me how to use the tool.

Re: Are they mortise chisels?

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, Florida

>OK, just some screwy text in the listing, then.

Between my far-sighted eyes, and this old laptop, I could not make out the details in the picture very well.

Marples Sash Mortise Chisels

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Which Marples sash mortise chisels do you have? I picked up a few (highly-discounted) of the red/yellow plastic-handled ones at a close-out, but I have not done anything with them yet.

sooo...

John Truxell-Svenson (jvs)

>...Jim; this happen to anyone you know?    : )

Re: Marples Sash Mortise Chisels

Dave Mount, northeastern MN

>I have the 1/4" and 5/16" in the "splitproof" yellow and red plastic handles, and a 3/8" in the hooped, wood handled variety with the metal button on the end of the handle. My only complaint thus far is that the metal button on the top of the 3/8" is dome-shaped and is denting the face of my osage orange shop mallets.

There was a flurry of NIB Marples mortise chisels on eBay a month or two ago at very low prices. Amusingly, they were selling then at $1-$2 apiece plus $9 shipping, and many went by the boards without a bid. Recently a guy who bought a bunch of them when they were selling indivudally put up a lot of three that went for something like $80. If I tried that, you can bet I'd end up losing big.

Dave

Re: paring v firmer v sash mortise v mortise

Tim of San Leandro

>"With the money you save, you can afford a swan-neck chisel to clean out the bottom of the mortises, which you'll want if you're chopping by hand. "

Dave,

Any particular reason you want to clean the bottom of the mortise? I've never done so....and with the very few repairs I've done of old furniture, neither did my predecessors. Just asking for your view on it...I am no expert.

Tim

Re: cleaning mortise bottoms

Dave Mount, northeastern MN

>That's an interesting question -- I've always done it semi-reflexively and never gave it much thought. To be clear, I don't shave the bottom of the mortise smooth or anything, but I do use the swan neck routinely to clear away the waste and bust loose any pieces that aren't free enough to fall out if I just turn the piece over and shake it out.

YMMV,

Dave

Re: tenon endgrain to mortise long grain...

Tim of San Leandro

>glue joint has little, if any real strength. I also don't worry much about the mortise endgrain to tenon long grain fit on joints with a shoulder covering that area (so I'm pretty aggressive levering waste at the ends of the mortise)....I only worry about gettting a really good fit between the long grain to long grain surfaces....which, IME makes for much faster joint cutting. So far, my joints are holding up but the longest one is only about 9 months or so old.

Tim

Re: tenon endgrain to mortise long grain...

Dave Mount, northeastern MN

>Tim--

I don't clean the bottom to get a glue joint and, as I said, I don't even make it smooth. I just find the swan-neck handy for prying off big chunks that don't fall out on their own, and any other clean up that's needed. Since it works parallel to the grain instead of perpendicular, I find it works easier. Just my preference I guess.

Dave

Got it. Understand.

Tim of San Leandro

>