Stupid hand cut mortise and tenon question

Re: Stupid hand cut mortise and tenon question

MikeW

>Hi Wilbur,

The walls will not have the same appearance as a routed or machine mortise--that's the nature of the beast. And different wood species will "finish off" cleaner than other species too.

One thing which can make for more "ragged" walls is whether the face edges of the mortise chisels are nice and crisp--they have an effect on the walls appearance. If they are nice and crisp, they shear the walls as the chisel is driven down and when the waste is levered.

Just as an aside, if I am doing a through mortise, I use an undersized mortise chisel and pare the sides to the gauged lines. But I don't bother on blind mortises that I expect to be to finished size off the chisel.

There is a camp or two which will say to always use an undersized chisel and pare. It is a valid method and does give nice crips walls. And it is also the quickest means when ones mortise chisel is narrower than the intended mortise.

Take care, Mike

Re: hand cut mortise and tenon question

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>Wilbur, I think you can expect your mortice walls to become gradually neater with experience. Part of the skill is knowing just the right amount to take with each bite. Straight grained stock will yield a nicer mortice and some woods cut cleaner than others. But like golf, you usually don't shoot "par for the course" the first time out.

A valid approach.

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Yes, paring is a valid approach, as are most approaches in woodworking. Whether it is more likely to produce a tight and perfect fit with the tenon is another issue. I suppose it can if you're (impersonal) one of those people who can trim just enough and no more. I'm not, so this approach leads to gluing veneer onto tenon cheeks and the like, then more trimming, then more veneer, ad nauseum; therefore I prefer a go-for-the-lines approach rather than a come close and fiddle.

Pam, who doesn't play golf this way :)

Re: A valid approach.

MikeW

>It's not bad if one leaves their layout lines clear enough so one doesn't have to reset their gauge to tweak each tenon to fit its own off-hole.

Assuming the mortise chisel has chopped a hole at the proper angle to the face it is going into, paring can be "controlled" in the sense of looking at the resultant shaving and judging whether the shaving is tapering in or out from the gauged lines. All very intuitive after the first screw-up.

I use to auger mortises and then pare to lay out lines and still do once in a while, especially on mortises for which I don't have the correct width chisel (larger than my largest chisel). This is also the approach when I use tenons on wide stock and I am using twin tenons with less than ideal thickness between them or just don't want to risk breaking the wood between them.

But...tis quicker for me to just bang out a mortise and not mess with it.

Take care, Mike

Re: Stupid hand cut mortise and tenon question

Jack Guzman from Maine

>Like Warren said,I find that my mortise walls got cleaner with practice. But your choice of mortise chisel is also a big factor. A chisel with sharp arrises?(the edges of the back side)will shear a nice clean mortise if you keep it straight.I almost never drill and I use a chisel the width of my intended mortise.It works for me so I can't see any reason to do it otherwise.---Jack

Stupid question...

Jack Guzman from Maine

>Oh yeah,I forgot,there are no stupid questions.This is how we help each other to learn this trade.I have asked my share of "stupid" questions.---Jack

Ragged walls = poorer fit?

wilbur

>Thanks for the info. I haven't cut the tenons yet for these mortises, but I'm assuming that I'll be able to get the tenons to fit decently. Should I assume that these ragged walls will result in a looser joint even if I get the same tightness of fit compared to the router method when I dry fit the pieces?

I'm not particularly worried for my project -- I figure I can always drawbore the joint.

Depends

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>The softer the wood the more easily compressionable; so if you were to cut the tenon a tad oversized, all should be well.

Did you use a Japanese mortise chisel for this job? Did you gauge the tenon to the chisel?

Pam

Re: Depends

wilbur

>Hi Pam,

I was trying to cut a deep 1" wide mortise in kiln dried SPF 2x material to receive stretchers for a small workbench I'm building. I used a 1" Western bench chisel that I reground to 30 degrees -- not ideal, I admit, but it did work. The reason I went this route was [1] I didn't have a 1" mortise chisel, and didn't want to buy one just for this project, and [b] it was a deep enough mortise that I couldn't use the router method. Actually, most of the mortises on this project I drilled and pared, but I did a couple of them completely by chopping to see what would happen.

As a matter of fact, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I've think I've been a bit shy about attempting a hand cut mortise mainly because the guy that taught the first woodworking course I took just over a year ago was a big advocate of doing things by hand -- except chopping mortises.

On a related note, I went to a Frank Klausz seminar recently where part of his seminar was demonstrating hand cut dovetails. For his mortise and tenon joinery he pointed out his mortising machine. I asked him, "Everyone talks about making dovetails by hand. When would you make a mortise and tenon joint by hand?" He replied, "Never." And this is coming from someone who made a video teaching how to make a mortise and tenon joints by hand.

I also remember seeing Ernie Conover giving a talk about hand vs. power techniques. He said that dovetails were good to do by hand because they were often customized to the project at hand because of the layout issues, and that they often made a decorative statement, but that mortise and tenon joints were better done with power tools because they were usually identical to one another, and repeatability was more important.

Thanks for the comment about soft wood and compression. Given that I'm using KD-SPF 2x material for this, I should be able to rely on compression to help me out with the tightness of the joints, in addition to the drawboring. I'll keep that in mind when I cut the tenons, which I haven't done yet.

I do have a 6 mm Japanese mortising chisel. Next time I need to make a mortise and tenon in hardwood, I'm definitely going to give this thing a try.

Wilbur

Re: Depends

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Certainly wouldn't want to contradict Klausz, not that I can even get very excited about disagreeing; although I don't think repeatability should ever be the primary goal of any hand made woodworking project. It has always been the goal of the industrial revolution. David Pye talks about it best, labelling it the "workmanship/craftsmanship of risk."

That said, when I made a craftsman style desk that had about 150 small mortises, I caved and bought an old foot powered mortiser (I had first used a little desk top machine in classes at Austin CC, very boring). As it turns out, I chopped the mortises by hand, didn't have the time or place to set up the Barnes baby, but it's a beaut. For some reason this task (small mortises) doesn't much bother me when building shoji, don't know why.

Perhaps it breaks down to using the proper chisels in the proper wood in the proper frame of mind. Mortising is a lot more enjoyable using Japanese chisels with those nice sharp arrises on the back.

For your workbench you may want to try a wedged through tenon instead of the drawbored, mainly because of the beating a workbench typically takes.

Pam

Re: Stupid hand cut mortise and tenon question

Charles

>You need to try two different chisels and make a decision about which you like best. You need to try one shaped like a parallelogram (Sorby, et al.) and one with perpendicular sides (Lie-Nielsen). The perpendicular sided chisels give a slightly cleaner wall but are slower, IMO. The L-N chisels are also a little dainty for my taste, but you might love them.

This is one of those circumstances where you have to spend a little money. I'll tell you this - chopping consistent mortices - with no twist (especially through mortices) is tough. In my case, it took more practice to learn to do these consistently than it did for dovetails. And the remedy for a twisted mortice is woodworking unpleasantness defined.

If you are making a light frame, say a door for a cabinet, it is shocking how little the mortices have to be off to put the whole thing in winding when knocked together. Sometimes the twist from one mortice to the next might somewhat cancel out. If it doesn't then you'll have a twisted mess on your hands with no easy fix.

Take your time chopping. I promise it takes more time to correct twisted mortices than it does to chop them well in the first place.