How do *you* hand chop mortises? (looking for advice)

[Matt Woodworth]

Friends,

Last night I was hand chopping mortises for the first time. It came out pretty well but it took a very long time to make a small mortise. A good guess would be 30-40 minutes.

This is how I did it.

1) Use a mortising gauge to mark out the edges.
2) Make a series of straight cuts with a chisel and mallet.
3) Run the edge of the chisel across the mortise to remove the waste.
4) Make a series of straight cuts with a chisel and mallet.
5) Remove the waste any way you can. :)
6) Go to step 4.

I think step 5 is where I'm falling short. At first I was able to remove waste by chopping across the mortise with a chisel. However, soon it gets too deep and I'm chopping then removing the waste with an awl.

I suspect the two places I can really make up time is in placing the chisel faster and in removing the waste after the chops faster. Any advice?

BTW, if you're interested in the project I'm building you can see it here: A child sized table (http://www.just4fun.org/woodworking/projects/childs_table/). The pictures of the mortises are toward the bottom.

[Bob Smalser]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?threadid=5918&highlight=chopping+mortises

[James Carmichael]

Was just going to recommend Bob's excellent post. I haven't gotten around to trying it yet as I'm still shopping a mortising chisel (looking for a Swan).

The Garret Hack book also has what looks like some good directions on hand-mortising.

[Matt Woodworth]

Bob's post is the second place where I've seen that's it's ok to lever out the waste. Can anybody, including Bob, confirm this? You're saying that it's ok to use a mortise chisel to pry out the waste?

I think that trying to remove waste without prying it out may be one of the things that is making me so slow.

[Alan Turner]

Matt,
You bet, that is the way that it is done. This is one of the reasons that mortise chisels are sharpened at 30-35 degrees. Also, have you ever seen a lock mortise chisel? It has a curved neck, for getting out the waste in a very deep mortise, such as for a mortise box lock, which is over 3" deep. Pry away.
Alan

[Roger Myers]

Matt,
sure is ok to lever out the waste (assuming you are using a mortise chisel)...be careful not to mess up the mating surfaces for the tenon shoulders too much...assuming you are using a tenon with 4 shoulders, it will cover some "levering damage", but I prefer to try and keep the corners crisp...still, even with this care, mortises go fast...
Bob emphasizes, but I will add more emphasis...*sharp chisels*
I have a tailed mortiser which I will use for larger jobs, but for just a few, or for an "all neander project", hand chopping shouldn't be more than 5 to 10 minutes per mortise...
Also perfectly acceptable to use a brace to drill a series of holes with either an auger or spoon bit and then clean up the mortise, but I find that takes me longer and doesn't result in as clean a mortise...
Roger

[Matt Woodworth]

Also perfectly acceptable to use a brace to drill a series of holes with either an auger or spoon bit and then clean up the mortise, but I find that takes me longer and doesn't result in as clean a mortise...

Agreed, I have more experience using a brace and bit (see my bed (http://www.just4fun.org/woodworking/projects/cherry_bed/index.htm)) but a handful of people told me that they can chop them faster so I figured I'd learn the technique and judge for myself. I'll give it another try tonight.

[Steven Wilson]

Set marking guage to width of mortise chisel
Mark out mortise scoring the sides fairly deeply
Start choping out the mortise, prying as you go.
At the end of the mortise, turn around and start going back.
Clean up the sides, use a swan neck chisel to clean out and your done.

Takes only a couple of minutes per mortise which is fine for tables and such but bites for doing a ton of mortises.

[Matt Woodworth]

Update: I couldn't sleep tonight so I decided to go to the shop and take the lessons I learned here and on an identical woodnet thread and give them a try. I couldn't believe how much faster it was. I timed myself, 3 1/2 minutes. That's 1/10th the amount of time it took me for the first one.

The big difference was that I stopped using my mortising chisels as if they were delicate. I whacked them harder with the mallet and I used them to pry out the waste. Once I got it into my head that they weren't meant to be used with kid gloves then I really started moving. I'm hoping to get even faster as I gather experience.

Thanks everybody.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Update: I couldn't sleep tonight so I decided to go to the shop and take the lessons I learned here and on an identical woodnet thread and give them a try. I couldn't believe how much faster it was. I timed myself, 3 1/2 minutes. That's 1/10th the amount of time it took me for the first one.

The big difference was that I stopped using my mortising chisels as if they were delicate. I whacked them harder with the mallet and I used them to pry out the waste. Once I got it into my head that they weren't meant to be used with kid gloves then I really started moving. I'm hoping to get even faster as I gather experience.

Thanks everybody.

One other item to note when chopping near the ends of a board. When doing a stile for a door or the top of a leg for a table leave the wood an inch or two longer than the height of the piece so you don't blow out the end of the part or crack the wood. Alternately you can use a clamp on the sides to prevent blowout. This is the way the old timers did it.

[Alan Turner]

Matt,
Maybe it was covered elsewhere, but one thing I do is to leave between 1/8" and 1/4" of stock on each end until full depth is achieved, and then carefully pare, with a mallet, to the end lines. This way your lever action will not affect the actaul ends of the mortise.
Happy chopping. Excellent agression relief is available to those who neander through a mortise.
Alan

[Scott Quesnelle]

Take a look at this site:
http://www.amgron.clara.net/mortise/mortisingindex.htm

Has decent pictures of the process and overall a very good site even if its not very flashy.

Only other trick I haven't seen mentioned yet is to not have a flat bevel on your mortice chisel, instead go convex. Can't find the message, but a few people have tried this and it definately helps 'pop' the chips out.

I have stayed with a flat bevel only because it is easier to sharpen.

Scott Quesnelle

[Pete Lamberty]

Hi Matt, Although I don't agree with all that has been said, I want to remind you how white glue works. It is not a gap filler. It requires the two faces of wood to match together, smooth surface to smooth surface. Think of how smooth two jointed boards are when they are going to be edge glued together. I can't say that I have ever chopped a mortice as smooth as that but you can get the idea of what I mean. Also the fit is important. The tenon should fit snugly into the mortice. This means that you do not need to bang it into place with a mallet, but it also shouldn't fall apart when you pick up the assembly with the tenon piece vertical to the horizon.