How come my hand cut mortis holes are so sloppy?

[Alex Gauthier]

Looking for some specific technique pointers, I guess.

I'm trying to use bench chisels to cut them which works ok, I'm using a mortis gauge and marking knife to layout the holes first. I carefully start at one end, making a shallow cut and work my way across the length of the mortis cutting deeper until I get to the far end. I don't trim or clean the walls as I work but I tend to have pretty "fuzzy" holes and the final product isn't consistently wide. I'm using the width of my chisel to set the width of the mortis. Does this just boil down to practice or are there little tricks to make it go faster and more accurately?

[Nick Stokes]

Be very cognizant and careful with your chisel placement on the first strike, all the way down. Pay attention to the holding your chisel vertical as well as you make that first strike... if you are tilted, you will chop down under the line, which will leave a jagged edge.

One solution is to use a paul sellers style mortise guide. works great for maintaining vertical. Can also be used to substitute marking out the mortise if you want to be clever about it.

But absolutely with practice your mortises look cleaner. Good thing they're hidden. I would suggest chopping mortises first, so that if you bugger them up, you can just cut a fatter tenon, and trim to fit.

Don't believe the guys that tell your their mortises are always perfect, square, with smooth edges...

[Prashun Patel]

1. A mortise chisel with straight sides helps keep the walls smoother.
2. Yes, it boils down to practice. For all chisel work, I find it comes down to your ability to work up to a line, and antipating how far the chisel will move away from bevel with each strike. The sharper your chisel, and the more precise and deep your knife marks, the easier it becomes. However, once your eye and hands improve, it becomes quite straightforward.

PRACTICE!

[Alex Gauthier]

Hmm, I think I'm trying to do what you suggest. So I must just need to try harder, or pay closer attention. Luckily, I thought to cut the mortis first so there's that. Also, mine are meeting in the middle somewhat accurately which I'm grateful for.

I had to google the mortis guide you describe but that looks worth a shot as well so thanks for that tip!

[Brian Holcombe]

Bench chisels are not great for mortising. Use a mortise chisel.

In addition to that, lots of practice, I cut a good number of mortises before I could get to the point where I chop them by hand without much paring work, but it was worth it.

Don't bother with a guide or other gimmickry, just practice. When you know it's vertical by your eye you'll chop a mortise in a reasonable amount of time and make a nice looking mortise. If you need to rely on guides you'll find that the process takes forever and that the results are so so for any number of reasons...the guide moved, the chisel moved off the guide, etc, etc.

[Jim Koepke]

Hi Alex, what Nick says is correct.

My addition is to not start at the end. Start in a bit and save the ends for last. This keeps the ends crisp and free from the effects of levering out the waste.

As to the fuzziness of the side walls that is seen even if using a chisel made specifically for cutting a mortise (mortis or mortice depending on native spellings :) ).

Depending on what chisels you have at your command you can use the thickest flat sided chisel of the correct size to help a bit. Also you can start with a slightly smaller chisel and use a wide paring chisel to smooth the sides.

It is true a bench chisel can cut a mortise. The geometry of a mortise chisel (pig sticker) aids in keeping the chisel on path and lessens the fuzziness of the side walls.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Is your chisel sharp? Really sharp? If not or not sure then sharpen it. Have you tried to drill out much / most of the waste first or are you just chopping away? Bulk removal should be done with an auger or drill - it can really make the job easier. How much practice / experience have you had?Don't set your expectations too high until you are working to refine your technique, not just learn it. What type of wood are you chopping? Is this new and different than material you've had success with before? Some woods are much friendlier than others to work with. Are you chopping into face grain or edge grain or end grain? It can be a whole 'nother process depending on grain - you need to adapt to the situation at hand and this comes from experience.

[Bill McDermott]

Nick, For most mortises, the fuzzyness does not matter thanks to a shoulder that is fatter, allowing joint inspectors to flatter. Sorry.
Bench chisels twist and catch. Mortise chisels stay parallel, due to their thickness. That does help a lot.
The pound down and then thrust forward actions cut across the grain when the edge is slicing down and then with the grain as the face/sides of the chisel are shearing forward (or back). Mortise chisels make that easier and more effective than bench chisels.
For what it's worth, I know exactly what you are going through. Very same learning curve here. Practice does make a difference. A light, precision cut at the top, followed by surprisingly powerful blows once you are into it is not natural until after you have arrived there. They go faster and look better with practice. Try different woods. That also makes a big difference.
Chopping mortises is cool, eh?

[Simon MacGowen]

Bulk removal should be done with an auger or drill - it can really make the job easier. How much practice / experience have you had?.

As a teacher of mortise & tenon classes, I must disagree with the suggestion that drilling away the waste would help a beginner trying to do M&T joinery. It is more difficult for beginners to place their chisels on a partially drilled surface. Also, it is a myth that super sharp chisels are needed for mortising work. One would constantly try to sharp one's tool edge than spend time on chopping as the tool edge would dull quickly when working with hard wood, like oak or maple. Reasonably sharp is all that is needed.

For practice, start with a thinner scrap, say, 1/2" thick and then work your way up after you are happy with the practice results. If you get poor results with, say, a 2" block, go back and practice. If you learn mortising by trying to cut a through mortise on a 4" thick block, you are asking for frustrations.

Simon

[Alex Gauthier]

Good info above, thanks all. I guess I will try it with a mortis chisel even though I've been trying to do it the Paul Sellers way with just bench chisels. I have cut others in thinner material (with varying degrees of success). So far, everything I have cut holds together fine once glued and others were tight enough that glue seemed like overkill. I'm building a workbench at this point and the legs are indeed about 4" thick so it's a pretty large jump in thickness. I have all weekend to practice so hopefully then I'll have it reasonably dialed in. Then I can work on making straight cuts with a panel saw!


As a teacher of mortise & tenon classes, I must disagree with the suggestion that drilling away the waste would help a beginner trying to do M&T joinery. It is more difficult for beginners to place their chisels on a partially drilled surface. Also, it is a myth that super sharp chisels are needed for mortising work. One would constantly try to sharp one's tool edge than spend time on chopping as the tool edge would dull quickly when working with hard wood, like oak or maple. Reasonably sharp is all that is needed.

For practice, start with a thinner scrap, say, 1/2" thick and then work your way up after you are happy with the practice results. If you get poor results with, say, a 2" block, go back and practice. If you learn mortising by trying to cut a through mortise on a 4" thick block, you are asking for frustrations.

Simon

[William Fretwell]

I had two splendid mortising chisels before they were stolen. They do make the task easier, especially with a sharp corner. You do need to start carefully, cut down along the scribed lines on the long sides then chisel out from 3/4 or more of the mortise backwards. That gives you a steady method and stance for a large part of the mortise. A mortising chisel can twist in the mortise and guarantee the mortise will be too wide, hence starting carefully. With practice you will be surprised how hard you end up whacking the chisel after the mortise is started.
For very large mortises, beyond your mortise chisels, drilling out the waste can help speed things up, especially in difficult woods.

Keeping the sides parallel and straight takes practice, but when they are, you can trim the tenon to fit tightly. Practise with a good wood such as cherry, money well spent as you will learn faster.

[David Eisenhauer]

Everything they have said about going straight "freehand" and using a mortise chisel is good advice. Paul Sellers could probably build anything with a bench chisel and a #4, but I need all the advantage I can come up with. I chop mine with my body positioned behind the chisel on the long side of the mortise so that I can visually confirm/correct my "east/west" alignment and rely on feel to achieve a vertical "north/south" alignment. For whatever reason, I have always been fairly able to come up with "plumb" by feel. I concentrate on the initial positioning of the chisel tip to be square across the mortise, just kissing the mortise lines, take a smallish bite, and then easy strikes (mostly hammer weight) to the chisel that fall directly down to the top of the chisel. As I recall, two strikes usually does it before I hear the sound of a bottoming out chisel. In other words, I don't allow my hammer strikes to cause me to slightly twist or otherwise move the top of the chisel. I don't try to achieve maximum depth on each blow, just work on alignment and let the depth come as it will. The depth comes quicker than one might think at any rate. I can't recall having to pare sidewalls on typical furniture-sized mortises but do so if I have drilled out deeper/larger mortises as in a bench build. I don't drill out furniture sized mortises, but others may very well do so with great success. Sharp at 35* bevel works best for me. It will get easier fairly soon. Now sawing on the other hand................

[Nicholas Lawrence]

As a teacher of mortise & tenon classes, I must disagree with the suggestion that drilling away the waste would help a beginner trying to do M&T joinery. It is more difficult for beginners to place their chisels on a partially drilled surface. Also, it is a myth that super sharp chisels are needed for mortising work. One would constantly try to sharp one's tool edge than spend time on chopping as the tool edge would dull quickly when working with hard wood, like oak or maple. Reasonably sharp is all that is needed.
Simon

I don't teach beginners (or anybody else), but I get good results without drilling. Paul Sellers has a decent video on how to chop a mortise without drilling, and I found it to be pretty helpful. It took a couple of tries to get the method down, but once you figure it out, the work goes very quickly. I think he has it posted on his YouTube site, where you can watch it for free.

ETA: Here is the video I found helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_NXq7_TILA

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_NXq7_TILA)

[Paul Sidener]

There a lot of ways to chop a mortise. People use them because they all will work, some better than others. I agree with what others have said, use a mortise chisel and practice. This video might help you too. Jeff Miller is a furniture maker in Chicago, and has a good way to clean up the walls. I have seen him do this in his shop, when he hosted Lie Nielsen Tool Event. Sometimes the simple way is to add a step. His way works and doesn't add much time. It will give you the cleanest walls


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaZOFWB14-Y

[Joel Thomas Runyan]

Use a proper mortise chisel, as others have said; and strive to use the straightest grained stock available. If you are trying to cut a straight and square mortise in a piece that does not have straight and parallel grain, it will fight you, and has good reasons for doing so.

[Brian Holcombe]

https://youtu.be/hLjrX_RIRtY

[Brian Holcombe]

Important trick, wear a tailored shirt and don't drill :)

[John C Cox]

The wood itself makes a huge difference.

Some woods like oak and spruce are stringy and may require shaving the sides of the mortise with a stupid razor sharp tool to clean off the stringy mess to get a good fit.. Spruce is surprisingly hard to get a good clean cut.. The wood fibers are just so long and stringy... Others like mahogany and cherry seem less prone to fuzzing up.

I think the last thing is that unless it causes the joint to be way too tight (like at risk of splitting the mortise tight)- a little fuzz doesn't matter since it's all inside the joint and will likely never see the light of day again once you glue and clamp it all up. So long as the joint fits together properly - you are good to go.

The main caution about shaving the sides of the mortise is making a loose fit that leaves you a significantly weaker joint... I think I would rather have a hairy joint that's a better precision fit than a super razor clean but loose fitting, weak mortise.

[Trevor Goodwin]

It seems the main issue with drilling the mortise is dealing with the semicircles at the end that need to be pared. In constructing my sawing bench I couldn't be bothered bashing out the long and narrow mortises I needed on the legs so I went the drilling route. Here's what I did different: Based my slot around a forstner bit, the width (5/8" I think) matched the bit I had, and the length was an integer multiple of the size (eg. 4 x 5/8"). Drill through until the tip pokes through, then flip the piece and finish it to prevent blowout. The sides are dead easy to flatten, just pare the peaks away. The ends were left untouched, instead I rounded the corners on my tenons with a chisel and rasp. This was very quick, and it doesn't need to be perfect, I basically just eye-balled it.

I was happy with the results and they look nice. The rounding doesn't affect the friction fit, the tenon has heaps of contact on the flat sides and rounded ends. I secured the tenons with a single nail.

355299
355300

This probably isn't suitable for indoor furniture, but I'd definitely do it again for workshop stuff.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

It seems the main issue with drilling the mortise is dealing with the semicircles at the end that need to be pared.

It looks like a good bench.

As with so many things, I do not consider myself an expert, but have done a fair amount with hand tools. I have tried drilling and chopping, and prefer to chop. For me, the main reason not to drill is the need to fool around with the indentations left on the side. If you simply choose a chisel the width of the mortise you want (or make a mortise the width of a chisel you have) and chop, you will end up pretty much dead on in width, with reasonably flat and square sides.

The other reason I prefer not to drill is because once you get the technique down, chopping is quick and efficient and takes two tools (mallet, mortise chisel). If it is not a through mortise I like to use a smaller chisel to clean up the bottom of the mortise, although some people seem to do reasonably well with just the one. With drilling, you need the brace, bit in addition (or you have to set up the drill press if you have one of those).

Now I will note that when I fixed the handle on my antique try plane, I spent a few minutes studying the mortise, and it was clearly drilled out with forstner bits, and then cleaned up with a chisel. I presume then that if you are making hundreds of identical production pieces, it must save time to set up a fence and some stops on a drill press, and drill out the waste. I have not found that to be the case working alone doing a half dozen or dozen mortises.

Hopefully this doesn't turn into a "sharpening thread" because of course there is more than one way to skin the cat, and the most important thing is to end up with a good joint, and for most of us to enjoy the way we got there.

[Pat Barry]

http://www.wood-w.com/lessonsguides/lessonsguides-cut-a-mortise-in-minutes.html

[Pat Barry]

I merely post these to show there is an alternative to the the brute force methods espoused by others here:
http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/drawbored-mortise-tenon/
(http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/drawbored-mortise-tenon/)
another link (https://books.google.com/books?id=q3TCguNh20sC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=hole+drilling+mortising+techniques&source=bl&ots=stQrDktLt8&sig=ZAOQJ4pT_BbfiziYqGacX7cukIg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJiMiNib3SAhVJ2oMKHYxhBKI4ChDoAQgmMAI#v =onepage&q=hole%20drilling%20mortising%20techniques&f=false)


and Another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--4qvI2S0pc

[Pat Barry]

Two more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB0v5UY5x3w

http://www.amgron.clara.net/maynard40.html

[Brian Holcombe]

The single hole method is handy for through tenons.

If you are set on drilling mortises then use a hollow chisel mortiser and do the whole job at once. The length of time involved in drilling and paring is due to the fact that the side grain is connected at the ends, leaving you to shear the corners after each pass. It makes for a long process by comparison to single hoke or just chopping which doesn't take all that long.

[Graham Haydon]

Brian, excellent points in the thread. I will try to improve my tailoring, currently my mortises are good but I look like Stig of the dump during the process. That can't go on :)

[Brian Holcombe]

Nothing a visit to Savile Row can't cure, however there may be a terrible side effect very similar to that of purchasing boutique tools.

[Alex Gauthier]

Must the shirt be flannel like in basically ALL woodworking videos or could I potentially go with another type? I know there is a strong tradition in play and I risk ostracism but I find the flannel less flattering on my person.

I ordered a couple of LN mortis chisels though I'm not sure they will arrive before this bench is complete. I plan to continue to chop away with my bench chisels today since I have only 4 more to cut. It's funny watching Paul Sellers or others cut these through thick stock in nothing flat. Takes me about 30 min each but at least they are starting to improve. Cutting the tenons is proving a little harder than expected mainly because they are so big. 4" tall and 1/2" thick from 1 1/2" thick material. Part of the problem is that I don't really have a good panel saw and my back saws are big enough to cut the entire cheek, so I'm cutting them with a chisel and cleaning up with router plane instead.




Nothing a visit to Savile Row can't cure, however there may be a terrible side effect very similar to that of purchasing boutique tools.

[James Pallas]

Mortise chisel reasonably sharp with reasonably sharp sides. No drill. Attire is jeans and a chambray western shirt that has been worn and washed enough that you can read newspaper through it. If that doesn't do it you may need to resort to tailored attire and a tailed beast to get that machined made look.
Jim

[Brian Holcombe]

Hehe, I'm glad I could turn this into a thread about shirts (a thread of threads I suppose).

Practice is key, in cutting those tenons as well.

[Tom Vanzant]

In hot and humid Houston, short sleeve cotton shirts are the norm. I usually soak thru in a couple of hours, so two of them take turns on the clothesline. Our winter this year was only 30 hours long, so I wore long sleeves for about four days. And no, they were not red/black plaids!

[lowell holmes]

It is a cold, wet afternoon in Dickinson. For our Northern members, anything here in the 60's is cold.
Dickinson is in Galveston County, South of Houston.

[Brian Holcombe]

I'd be happy with about a 30 hour long winter, I'm quite tired with winter.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Here in metro ATL we've only had about 30 hours of winter so far, total- that was when we were supposed to get an overnight "snowstorm" that ended up being mostly rain and sleet and any snow was gone by noon the next day. Outside of that its been 60s and 70s. I'd say that's a great thing but I know it will just mean terrible mosquitoes and summer weather that feels like living in a dog's mouth. With no AC in the shop, I'm trying to enjoy this while it lasts.

Alex, if you're watching the Paul Seller's demonstration with the glass front, you should realize that a mortise is much easier to cut when the wood you're trying to remove is only held on one side instead of two. Aside from his familiarity with mortising, that's a reason he seems to go so fast in that video. It's useful for seeing what goes on inside the mortise, but not a realistic depiction of speed.

That aside, mortising is definitely a task that gets much faster with experience. It seems to be mostly about making a space for the waste to go- otherwise your mallet hits don't accomplish much. After reading about "riding the bevel" and using a flat bevel to assist that, I made a lot of progress. I'm not even entirely sure what approach I was using before, but it was more haphazard and I ended up wasting a lot of mallet hits. Not wasting hits is where the speed comes from, so far as I can tell.

[David Eisenhauer]

Short winter here in greater Austin as well, with cotton t shirts only reinforced by long sleeves about 30 hrs this winter it seems. Definitely have to rotate the headbands though if not the t shirts. Alex: Chopping mortises is one of those tasks for me that seem to fall into a rhythm or "groove" if that is a better term. Position, two-slaps, slight lever, position, etc. Next time I look up, it is time to pay closer attention to cleaning up one end, then the second end. For me, the time waster was repositioning the chisel for every move and that gets easier or more natural with experience.

[David Ryle]

Are the cutters of your mortise gauge sharp,if they are examine your marking technique, using too much pressure is a common problem laying out your mortises,light consistent pressure every time. It's not a bad idea to practice on some scrap. Also, check that the distance between the cutters of your gauge match the width of your chisel.

[Alex Gauthier]

I started with a poor mortis gauge from Crown Tools which while new was very frustrating to use. After one froze up to the point I couldn't budget the pins even tapping it with a hammer and punch, I went to Woodcraft to buy a replacement. I tried this one before i left the store and it was exactly the same!! So I ordered a Marples one online and like it much, much better. Easier to accurately se the pins too. That said, I discovered what you describe here via trial and error and the last ones I cut for this project came out a lot better.

I had different issues cutting the tenons which were cured by hauling out an old saw that was caked in a good layer of rust. Even in that condition it cut the cheeks a lot better than the brand new Veritas saw I had been trying to use. Can't wait to see what it will do as soon as I sharpen it!

I only have two tenons to cut and then I'll be finished with the joinery on this project and onto assembly (finally). I did order some mortis chisels as described earlier in the thread but I also started to gain a rhythm by my last couple mortises I cut with bench chisels. Once the tenons were cut, I had a lot of clean up to do in the mortis when fitting them however. Hoping mortis chisels will aid with this a little. Hopefully, I won't be cutting them in 4" thick crappy HD 4x4s again either.



Are the cutters of your mortise gauge sharp,if they are examine your marking technique, using too much pressure is a common problem laying out your mortises,light consistent pressure every time. It's not a bad idea to practice on some scrap. Also, check that the distance between the cutters of your gauge match the width of your chisel.