I bought a 9.5mm mortise chisel set and am learning to hand cut shallow square mortises to place plugs of a contrasting wood.
If I pre-drill using the included 9.5mm mortising bit it is very difficult to align the square mortise chisel perfectly and avoid a little smily face sticky out one side of the mortise.
- Clamping a small metal square to one side of the hole seems to help with horizontal and vertical alignment of the mortise.
- Using a slightly smaller drill (8mm) helps avoid the smileys, but creates more hand chiseling to clear the mortice.
Any other tips or trick y'all have learned?
I might end up driving a couple hours to Rockler and buying a Jet bench top mortiser...
Sharpening the cheap chisel I bought may help.
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