Marc Hills
03-29-2004, 1:02 PM
Is it a gloat if I don’t talk about how much I paid?
I finally got my hands on a real honest to gosh mortising chisel: an antique 3/8” James Howorth tanged job.
First, to echo James Carmichael’s recent comments on this topic, the real McCoy is simply a monster. I mean, I just didn’t appreciate how massive a true mortise chisel would be. Compared to my bench chisels, it’s sort of like the difference between a pen knife and that shark dorsal fin of a Bowie that Sylvester Stallone wielded in the Rambo movies.
And just like the first time I set a decent bench plane to wood, I had that eureka moment chopping out a test mortise in some scrap wood. For anyone who can’t quite fathom how hand chopping mortises can be quick, accurate and fun, you just have to try this. Really. $40 or whatever for a Two Cherries is cheaper than a downhill lift ticket and will put a smile on your face just as quick. Oh, yea faithful, you tried to show me the light; but my eyes could not see! I wish I had bit the bullet months ago.
Having the blade thicker than it is wide, every mallet blow translates to an authoritative advance into the wood. Once you establish the first cuts for the edge cheeks of the mortise, each cross grain chop pops out an impressively large divot of wood. And the straight flanks of the blade register with the walls of the mortise, addressing my one remaining concern, how to keep my mortise straight as I worked deeper into the wood. Form meets function here in a brutally efficient way.
I offer my experience as another shove for any fence sitters who might be reading, and simply to share with people who can appreciate this. My wife has taken to rolling her eyes and giving me that increasingly worried look of the spouse of a drug addict.
So after preaching to the converted, a question: I’m right handed and I’ve gotten into the habit of holding the chisel with my left hand and wielding the mallet with my right. Should it be the other way around?
I finally got my hands on a real honest to gosh mortising chisel: an antique 3/8” James Howorth tanged job.
First, to echo James Carmichael’s recent comments on this topic, the real McCoy is simply a monster. I mean, I just didn’t appreciate how massive a true mortise chisel would be. Compared to my bench chisels, it’s sort of like the difference between a pen knife and that shark dorsal fin of a Bowie that Sylvester Stallone wielded in the Rambo movies.
And just like the first time I set a decent bench plane to wood, I had that eureka moment chopping out a test mortise in some scrap wood. For anyone who can’t quite fathom how hand chopping mortises can be quick, accurate and fun, you just have to try this. Really. $40 or whatever for a Two Cherries is cheaper than a downhill lift ticket and will put a smile on your face just as quick. Oh, yea faithful, you tried to show me the light; but my eyes could not see! I wish I had bit the bullet months ago.
Having the blade thicker than it is wide, every mallet blow translates to an authoritative advance into the wood. Once you establish the first cuts for the edge cheeks of the mortise, each cross grain chop pops out an impressively large divot of wood. And the straight flanks of the blade register with the walls of the mortise, addressing my one remaining concern, how to keep my mortise straight as I worked deeper into the wood. Form meets function here in a brutally efficient way.
I offer my experience as another shove for any fence sitters who might be reading, and simply to share with people who can appreciate this. My wife has taken to rolling her eyes and giving me that increasingly worried look of the spouse of a drug addict.
So after preaching to the converted, a question: I’m right handed and I’ve gotten into the habit of holding the chisel with my left hand and wielding the mallet with my right. Should it be the other way around?