Power hinge mortising

[Jim Dunn]

Gonna post on this side of creek rather than that other side because it has to do with electrons and such. Should I, being a realtive newbie to this whole woodworking stuff, be able to mortice a hinge with a chisel? Seem to have a whole lot of trouble getting the bottoms flat. Now I know I can use my router and make the bottoms of the mortices flat then square up the corners with a chisel but it seem to me I should eventually be able to do it both ways.

Now that said, how does everybody else do it:confused: Pro or amateur. I'm sure practice makes perferct but in the issue of saving time, and not having the hinge rock to and fro, what's the best way to do this?

[Jim Becker]

I tend to use the router with a jig (I often use the same hinges...) to do the majority of the work and then clean it up by hand with a corner chisel thingie and a regular chisel for fine tuning. Sometimes I do them by hand all the way if it's something one-off or in a place not really doable with a power tool. I don't think I'd ever pick just one way to deal with hinge mortising or anything else, for that matter...to manny opportunities to learn new things and inject variety in the work!

[Jamie Buxton]

This is like most Neanderthal questions. Clearly craftsmen before power tools did this stuff regularly. Some of them got pretty good at it. Some of them bodgered things; speed and making a living were issues for them too. If you're determined, and you get plenty of practice, you can eventually make a hinge mortise which is flat bottomed and exactly the correct depth and without tear-out. However, in this case, power tools help you get to the desired result quicker. What do you want to spend your time doing?

[Jim Dunn]

Well Jamie my wife suggests we need about an extra 10 cords of wood to use all the kindling up Iv'e made so far :).

Honestly I'm just working on the shop rather than in the shop. Learing as I go. Figured if I treated all projects like a piece of furniture then when I started to build a nice piece most of my prior experience would help.

For example wrapped trim around a downdraft table using a Porter Cable dovetail jig. Made the mistake of cutting a piece short by the length of the pins on both ends.

Lesson learned and I hope not to be repeated. (Now if I can rember where I put my pencil I'll be happy.)

[Greg Mann]

That's easy to fix. Just make a shorter downdraft table. We've all been there in some form or another.

Greg

[Mark Singer]

If I just have a few to do....I do them by hand with a knife and chisels...I posted a tip on mortising hardware recently. If there are many, I make a jig. It is not that difficult to keep the bottom flat.

[Jim Dunn]

Mark, thanks for replying! But a question is that a jig for a router or for hand chisels?
And, by the way, was it a thread in the hand tool forum?