Twin mortise advise needed

[Gary Focht]

I am going to build a night stand with four drawers. I built one a couple of years ago and need to make the second one. The first was built basically as an experiment in pocket hole joinery. It looks good and has held up well. Sorry for the sideways picture.

399922

Now I want to build one with real, hand cut joinery. I've been practicing some on twin mortise/tenons to connect the drawer dividers to the legs, but am finding it awkward to cut a 1/4" wide by 3/4" long mortise. There is little room to lever chips out.

Is this best done by drilling out the waste instead of doing it all with a chisel?

Should I consider a different joint? Perhaps a stopped sliding dovetail?

[Mark Rainey]

Go ahead and use a 1/4 inch mortising chisel. It will be a bit delicate, but just try to avoid chopping the ends until last. You can lever out a lot of chips with a bevel edge chisel or a pocket knife - but be careful the knife doesn't close on you. Mark

[Jim Koepke]

Now I want to build one with real, hand cut joinery. I've been practicing some on twin mortise/tenons to connect the drawer dividers to the legs, but am finding it awkward to cut a 1/4" wide by 3/4" long mortise. There is little room to lever chips out.

For removing the waste what is called a lock mortise chisel or a swan neck chisel is very helpful. For a small 1/4" mortise a 1/8" wide lock mortise would work.

On ebay the smaller ones are sometimes listed with carving chisels alone or in sets. They show up often in my saved search for > buck brothers chisels <.

jtk

[James Pallas]

I often make small twin mortises many only an eight wide. I have found what works best for me is to start in the middle, I don’t normally do this on larger mortises. I keep the bevel positioned toward the center and the chisel vertical. The bevel will usually cut the chips free making them easy to get out. When you get to the end you are already vertical. Small chips and a couple of passes works well. This works for me I’m sure others do it differently. I tried drilling and found it lacking. Jim is correct about a swan neck being of some help at times.
Jim

[Warren Mickley]

This is a case where a sash mortise chisel would be much better than a heavy joiners mortise chisel. The joiners mortise chisel, now often called "pigsticker" or "English oval bolster mortise chisel", was developed in the late 19th century, at a time when most furniture was made in factories by machine. Some have said that the sash mortise chisels are designed for shallow work, but where they excel is in deep short mortises where clearance is an issue. That is why they are much better for a cabinetmaker. We often do deep mortises.

I would say that work on your technique will be rewarded; if you can make these mortises skillfully with a chisel your longer mortises will go more smoothly also.

[Gary Focht]

I have tried both a Narex mortise chisel and a bench chisel. I’m going to keep practicing. I got a decently tight joint, but am bruising the ends/sides trying to remove the chips.

Thanks for all the help.

[Brian Holcombe]

I don’t usually lever out the chips, just spin the chisel 180 and chop them again. The chips then begin to lose their integrity and can be vacuum or knocked out.

I haven't found drilling to be helpful, it seems counter intuitive but it usually ends up taking about the same or more time with drilling.

[chris carter]

. I got a decently tight joint, but am bruising the ends/sides trying to remove the chips.
That's what the shoulders are for.

[Gary Focht]

That's what the shoulders are for.

True, but based off of pictures I've seen it looks like the twin tenons tend to run the full height of the divider typically. Probably to maximize glue surface on such a small, 3/4" high tenon. Of course no one will see it if I don't get a perfect joint since the drawers will cover it up.

[James Pallas]

Gary, Sounds like your digging instead of chopping. Brian said it above. Chop those chips loose so you can lift them out. I usually use my index finger behind the chisel to bear against, that should be enough on those small mortises. Sneak up on the ends like you do to a dovetail base line. Don't dig only chop and lift.
Jim

[Brian Holcombe]

I put a full shoulder on most joints anymore, it hides the line created when the wood shrinks in the winter.

[James Pallas]

Again I agree with Brian. I usually put shoulders on tenons. On small ones maybe a sixteenth. It’s not going to weaken it much. Think sash mortises, they take a fair amount of abuse.
Jim

[Warren Mickley]

A few more notes. 7/8 is traditional for drawer dividers and would give a little more room, a little more strength. And one technique I have used for removing chips: chop straight down a little off the line, then reverse the bevel so that the bevel surface is now now straight down in the same hole. Hit the chisel lightly so that it is still in loose material and then lever the loose waste out. starting from this angle allows a larger arc for the chisel to lever. For this type of work you want a single flat bevel and for the heel of the bevel to be down inside the mortise. double bevels do not work very well for mortising.

I took a flashlight and looked inside a 200 year old slant lid desk with this construction this morning. The tenons are the full thickness of the dividers. The mortise gauge lines extend well beyond the mortise and there is some scarring at the mortise ends, everything in plain view. I had not looked inside for thirty, forty years or more.

The great thing about this desk is not the care the craftsman took in hiding mortises, but the care he took in stock selection and placement. The care he took in his line inlay and cock beading.both of which help the figured wood in this desk look more refined. The care he took in planing the figured wood. If you are looking to see if the back of the drawer is finished, the drawer front might be rather ho-hum.

[Charles Guest]

I am going to build a night stand with four drawers. I built one a couple of years ago and need to make the second one. The first was built basically as an experiment in pocket hole joinery. It looks good and has held up well. Sorry for the sideways picture.

399922

Now I want to build one with real, hand cut joinery. I've been practicing some on twin mortise/tenons to connect the drawer dividers to the legs, but am finding it awkward to cut a 1/4" wide by 3/4" long mortise. There is little room to lever chips out.

Is this best done by drilling out the waste instead of doing it all with a chisel?

Should I consider a different joint? Perhaps a stopped sliding dovetail?

Great spot to use a 1/4" bevel-edged chisel. Most 1/4" chisels sold these days, unless you have a premium brand, are more like straight-edged firmers which people have used to chop mortises for hundreds of years. Even a sash mortise chisel can feel a little cramped in the size mortises you're contemplating. Cut practice joints with the chisels you have to decide what works best. A hole is a hole. It just needs to be straight with reasonably clean walls. Use what works best for you. I like a butt-chisel length chisel for the kind of mortises you need to cut. But that's a personal thing.

[Dave Anderson NH]

A couple of pictures sure would be nice Warren. Hint Hint

[Gary Focht]

I took a flashlight and looked inside a 200 year old slant lid desk with this construction this morning. The tenons are the full thickness of the dividers. The mortise gauge lines extend well beyond the mortise and there is some scarring at the mortise ends, everything in plain view. I had not looked inside for thirty, forty years or more.

The great thing about this desk is not the care the craftsman took in hiding mortises, but the care he took in stock selection and placement. The care he took in his line inlay and cock beading.both of which help the figured wood in this desk look more refined. The care he took in planing the figured wood. If you are looking to see if the back of the drawer is finished, the drawer front might be rather ho-hum.

Glad to know I'm ready to chop the unseen mortises on furniture :-)

Warren, can you recommend a good book on furniture construction? I couldn't find anything I liked at my local library.

Thanks, Gary

[Charles Guest]

Glad to know I'm ready to chop the unseen mortises on furniture :-)

Warren, can you recommend a good book on furniture construction? I couldn't find anything I liked at my local library.

Thanks, Gary

Some builders build better than others, and this has been true throughout the ages. Please don't think for a moment that colonial/provincial practices of a certain time and place set some sort of [relatively poor] standard that all followed. All joinery was not hacked out, other major shortcuts taken, sawcuts over-run, nor all secondary surfaces left untreated or barely treated so on and so forth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIRTAPxGoRY&t= (their videos are addictive)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bhu7HjIGAk (watch all four installments of this and prepare to have your mind blown)

[Brian Holcombe]

That's certainly true, I inspected a cabinet from 18th century Philadelphia and it was very tight and the joints were tidy.

I do certainly agree with Warren in that having a cabinet that is elegant is much more important than having one without visible signs of hand work.

[Charles Guest]

It would be impossible to build something by hand and not have the subtle signs of hand work present, but the operative word is subtle. We're talking about stuff beyond dough bins and jelly cupboards of course.

[Brian Holcombe]

It would be impossible to build something by hand and not have the subtle signs of hand work present, but the operative word is subtle. We're talking about stuff beyond dough bins and jelly cupboards of course.

I'm not in disagreement, I will expand on my comments:

For me, it depends on what I'm doing.

In my originally designed work I take efforts to hide it now because most contemporary furniture work is made with machinery and so I take extra effort to avoid perceived flaws from the making and also from wood being wood (gapping during the winter months). Contemporary hand made work is typically compared against work made in a factory, so minor things are considered flaws. For example, If you look at a wishbone chair made by Carl Hansen...it's is perfect in every way, the wood is perfect the joinery is super tight, there are no chip outs, knife marks, flaws in the finish or distinguishable differences from one to the next. That is a high bar for a person making one-off work or short runs.

When I'm doing Japanese traditional work (shoji), the presence of the maker is far more acceptable, it's much more akin to 18th century restoration work. The effect of someone having made it by hand using hand tools is appreciated. So minor over strikes with the marking gauge, knife marks, etc are not flaws.

What you're in comparison to is what is often the determining factor.

[Charles Guest]

I appreciate what you're saying, and don't necessarily disagree with the thrust of it. The only problem is how much is too much? That leaves one contemplating the degree to which they might overrun a gauge mark (or leave unobliterated) which seems a little ridiculous to me. I suppose an honest and purely accidental amount, here or there, is what one is after but once you're aware of it then it becomes a "thing" that has to be considered - perhaps no longer honest nor accidental. Hard to put out of mind, thus the tail might end up wagging the dog. It may be that the Japanese have an understood standard for such things, it wouldn't surprise me, but doesn't impress me either. The Western tradition has all the challenge I could ever handle.

I fear, though, that this is getting a little too philosophical and esoteric for the OP for which I take the blame. I sense he would be thrilled at the prospect of only having to worry about gauge mark overrun or other tools marks when the instant problem is the question of the proper tool for cutting short mortises.

Maybe he's absorbed in the Chippendale and Doucette and Wolfe videos, not a bad place to be -- especially the latter. These days one hears a lot of personal anecdotes about wood being planed free of tear-out but in the videos can see it actually being done by Scott Wolfe on expensive and complex projects and project pieces for paying clients - what the movements look like, what the shavings look like, plane handling, brands used, etc., etc.

[Chris Fournier]

I agree with Brian that drilling isn't really that much of an advantage if it is at all. I prefer to use the mortise chisels as I find that they register the work well, better than paring in my case.

[Brian Holcombe]

I appreciate what you're saying, and don't necessarily disagree with the thrust of it. The only problem is how much is too much? That leaves one contemplating the degree to which they might overrun a gauge mark (or leave unobliterated) which seems a little ridiculous to me. I suppose an honest and purely accidental amount, here or there, is what one is after but once you're aware of it then it becomes a "thing" that has to be considered - perhaps no longer honest nor accidental. Hard to put out of mind, thus the tail might end up wagging the dog. It may be that the Japanese have an understood standard for such things, it wouldn't surprise me, but doesn't impress me either. The Western tradition has all the challenge I could ever handle.

My basic approach is that if the joinery shows on the outside of the piece then hide the marks, if it doesn’t then keep them tight. Knife marks are useful but they also provide a spot for finishes to absorb in more and are then highlighted, they also provide a spot for tiny chip outs around certain joinery.

Strangely, I like seeing them at the dovetails.


Here is the theory in practice.

https://brianholcombewoodworker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/img_2224.jpg

I could live without the minor overstrikes on the mortises, but maybe some think it’s better because it shows signs if life.

The discussion is off on the weeds but still relevant to the topic.

[Charles Guest]

Looks good. The wedges will certainly help tighten up a through mortise if the end lines moved a little when they were chopped. I've always operated under the theory that there for that as much as anything else -- to close up little gaps that happen more often than not, and of course required if mortise is intentionally flared.

Crisp woodworking though I'm not the biggest fan of the genre, species, joinery as decoration, etc. It's hot right now though.

I can't see any gauge marks, but my eyesight started deteriorating substantially when I passed 70. I do see what looks like a grain line that ran right at the mortise wall on the top mortise. Looks like that was handled as best it could be, but there may have been a little collapse when you chopped that out or drove the wedge in which may be what you're referring to. The right wedge looks a skosh longer to my eye, and it may be filling in the collapse, but that doesn't mean much -- the "to my eye" part of it that is.

I have no idea how a Japanese master craftsman would judge the execution. I think it's terrific, but I'm a lousy judge of the style. If you sold it, and got your price, that goes a long way toward validation.

[chris carter]

True, but based off of pictures I've seen it looks like the twin tenons tend to run the full height of the divider typically. Probably to maximize glue surface on such a small, 3/4" high tenon. Of course no one will see it if I don't get a perfect joint since the drawers will cover it up.

I just did a federal style end table completed a couple weeks ago. I did a double tenon for the lower front rail and did a shoulder all the way around. I'll let you know if it falls apart due to the shoulder :) But seriously, a tiny shoulder will not make much difference. And it's already a double tenon so there is "double" the glue area already. I used my regular 1/4" bevel edge bench chisel. I tried both with and without drilling and found drilling didn't help. As someone else mentioned, I also resorted to chopping in (like a regular mortise) and then twisting the chisel to sever the fibers. That worked the best. Then I'd turn the piece over and top out all the waste.

As for a good book, I just received this for Xmas and it's awesome for seeing the internal structure of various pieces of furniture. Don't let the title fool you, it's mostly furniture.
https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Cabinetmaking-Construct-Publishing-Subassemblies/dp/1565233697/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1543176696&sr=8-2&keywords=Bill+Hylton%27s+%22Illustrated+Cabinetmak ing

[Brian Holcombe]

Looks good. The wedges will certainly help tighten up a through mortise if the end lines moved a little when they were chopped. I've always operated under the theory that there for that as much as anything else -- to close up little gaps that happen more often than not, and of course required if mortise is intentionally flared.

Crisp woodworking though I'm not the biggest fan of the genre, species, joinery as decoration, etc. It's hot right now though.

I can't see any gauge marks, but my eyesight started deteriorating substantially when I passed 70. I do see what looks like a grain line that ran right at the mortise wall on the top mortise. Looks like that was handled as best it could be, but there may have been a little collapse when you chopped that out or drove the wedge in which may be what you're referring to. The right wedge looks a skosh longer to my eye, and it may be filling in the collapse, but that doesn't mean much -- the "to my eye" part of it that is.

I have no idea how a Japanese master craftsman would judge the execution. I think it's terrific, but I'm a lousy judge of the style. If you sold it, and got your price, that goes a long way toward validation.

This is a commissioned piece. I'm not looking for validation so much, just to continue the discussion with photos. What your seeing is perhaps due to the photo quality more than anything since there is no collapse but I can see why you might think there is (dark spot). When I layout a through mortise with wedges like this I mark out the mortise first, then mark out the amount I want to taper it to accommodate the wedges. I over-struck on the right bottom corner of the top mortise. I'd rather them not there but I consider it acceptable for handmade work.

If I had made this for myself I probably would have eliminated the through tenons and used a draw-bored version instead. They offer a hint of joinery rather than something very obvious and they're fairly easily demountable.

[Warren Mickley]

Gary, here are pictures of a drawer rail (15/16 wide) on a table I made in 1986. The tenons are the full height of the rail. This drawer has seen heavy use. I am quite sure nobody has looked inside in the last thirty years. The mortises are rather neat, but I can't see how a little less care would have caused a problem.

400017400018

[Gary Focht]

Thanks everyone. I did a practice mortise last night while waiting for my wife to get ready for a New Year's Eve party and it was much improved. I'm going to practice some more and once I start on the piece I will try to make the mortises as neat as possible, but won't fret over imperfection as they will not show. As long as the joints are tight and functional, I'll be happy.

[Charles Guest]

This is a commissioned piece. I'm not looking for validation so much, just to continue the discussion with photos. What your seeing is perhaps due to the photo quality more than anything since there is no collapse but I can see why you might think there is (dark spot). When I layout a through mortise with wedges like this I mark out the mortise first, then mark out the amount I want to taper it to accommodate the wedges. I over-struck on the right bottom corner of the top mortise. I'd rather them not there but I consider it acceptable for handmade work.

If I had made this for myself I probably would have eliminated the through tenons and used a draw-bored version instead. They offer a hint of joinery rather than something very obvious and they're fairly easily demountable.

All in a day's work. I hate the buggers, and most of the styles that go with them, but if that's what the client wants. We probably shouldn't kid ourselves for this is at best barely intermediate level hand-wrought woodworking. The market for 18th to early 19th century reproductions was officially dead at least thirty years ago. One has to adapt.

But once you can cut a reasonably creditable joint, any joint, how do you ever go back to cutting lousy joints whether they show or not? How do you unlearn how to cut a mortise and tenon joint that fits and is crisp? Excluding increasingly rare outright flubs, then rhetorical questions mostly. Occam's Razor suggests that lousy joints on a piece of furniture were cut by somebody who never learned to cut them properly in the first place. That's the simplest explanation. Other explanations/justifications always seem to miss the mark to me.

400035

[Brian Holcombe]

I have that debate with every piece I design and build, I do like to show some joinery but try to avoid turning it into a show of joinery. I'm not building reproductions (with exception to shoji, I suppose) so there is no template, I'm just going on what looks good to me instinctively.

In modern day much joinery has been replaced with dowels or floating tenons or nothing at all, so I think it is important to show some of it on contemporary work.

Anywho, that's neat work, so we're almost identical in how much over-strike we're showing.

Warren, thanks for sharing some photos. Nice work!

[Charles Guest]

Chalk it up to a wedge a millimeter and a half thicker likely resolving it all.

[lowell holmes]

I always define the limits, all four sides, of a mortise with a marking gauge and will retrace the long grain with a knife.
I find that the mortises are crisp that way. I chop them with a sharp chisel.
I have even ground the sides of an old beater chisel if I needed a different width from standard chisel widths.

[Bob Leistner]

British mortise chisels were sold in 1/16" increments. I was taught that the reason was to use a chisel one size under the intended size and clean up the sides with a wide paring chisel. Makes it easier to keep them tight and neat looking.

[Charles Guest]

British mortise chisels were sold in 1/16" increments. I was taught that the reason was to use a chisel one size under the intended size and clean up the sides with a wide paring chisel. Makes it easier to keep them tight and neat looking.

Somewhat true, but you can just set the gauge a little wide and accomplish the same thing for the sidewalls of a mortise. It's the ends that give you fits, and the gauge setting has nothing to do with these. Or, just drill and pare and set the gauge to the resulting hole in order to mark the tenon. A machine-made mortise is nothing but a drill and pare operation but all in one swoop. You can do it in two swoops with hand tools if it suits you.

Some old-timers finger gauged the tenons with a pencil after offering the workpiece to be tenoned to the finished mortise (chopped or drilled and pared) and making appropriate marks. Mortise walls were marked with two settings from a regular marking gauge off the true face, end walls knifed against a try square. Mortise gauges were considered a luxury many shops chose not to afford as would have been several sets of mortise chisels graduated in sixteenths - completely out of the question. Some shops would have never chopped a mortise during the entire period of their existence. They were all drilled and pared as every shop had hand drills of some sort and bench chisels. It's still a viable option, as is simply using a bench firmer.

I've drilled and pared my share in those times when making a lot of noise wasn't an option or I didn't want to spoil the quiet. It's an admittedly basic skill though one worth having in your repertoire.