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Thread: Through mortise and tenons

  1. #1
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    Through mortise and tenons

    I just spent over an hour painstakingly laying out 8 mortises for the workbench I am building. After checking over things several times I am confident I got everything laid out as accurately as I am capable of. However, I’ve never done through mortise and tenon joints and the only mortise and tenon joinery I’ve done is on a much smaller scale. On a positive note, I really enjoyed using my Veritas dual marking gauge for the first time.

    I’ve done lots of reading/watching YouTube, etc. and feel like I understand the concept but I’m rather nervous about it. I don’t have any mortise chisels so my options are the Paul Sellers method (not terribly appealing) or drilling out the mortises (half way from each side) with a bit smaller than the size of the mortise (3/4”) and pairing the remaining waste to the marking gauge lines.

    Any thoughts/tips/sage wisdom?

    Thanks!

  2. #2
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    It can be helpful to clamp a piece of scrap to the work as a guide for keeping the drill square.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  3. #3
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    I've cut mortises by drilling first and by just chopping with a bench chisel the size of the mortise width. In my experience I prefer chopping to drilling, I use a guide to keep my chisel cutting a straight mortise. Keeping the chisel sharp is the trick to making this as easy as it can be.

  4. Quote Originally Posted by Jeff L Jump View Post
    I've cut mortises by drilling first and by just chopping with a bench chisel the size of the mortise width. In my experience I prefer chopping to drilling, I use a guide to keep my chisel cutting a straight mortise. Keeping the chisel sharp is the trick to making this as easy as it can be.
    Ya sharp is the key. A sharp chisel will cut the wood fibres as opposed to bending and crushing them. And, if you don't have mortice chisels that's no problem; just don't try driving a regular chisel like an ol pig sticker. Also, cut from both sides and meet in the middle. Even if you're a slight bit out this help to correct that.

  5. #5
    My advice is to start out with the drill and pare method.

    One benefit of this method on through mortises is that if you use a drill press/fence with good set up, your holes will be perfectly line up, and confirm that that your layout for the final lines is correct.

  6. #6
    All of the above, and obviously, practice on some scrap :-)

    Slight relief cut toward middle of mortise.

    Don't mess with the show side until the last.

    Dont' worry too much about the inside the shoulder on the stretcher will hide any flaws.

  7. #7
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    I agree with Jeff.

  8. #8
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    I don’t have any mortise chisels so my options are the Paul Sellers method (not terribly appealing)
    People were likely using non-mortise chisels to cut mortises centuries before Sellers was born. My first chisel was bought at a flea market for 50¢, a Stanley plastic handled #60. The first thing it was used to do after a crude attempt at sharpening was to see if it could cut a square hole through a piece of oak. It did. This was before my learning much of anything about working wood or even knowing about mortise chisels.

    So Brian, you have studied your quarry, now is the time to do one or two for practice and then to jump in.

    You will likely be impressed with how well you pull it off.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  9. #9
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    One other thing to add to the good advise offered by all up above - this is a workbench as opposed to piece of furniture. The through M&T, while required to be structurally sound, can suffer slightly in appearance and not cause major problems. If you decide to chop them, rather than drilling them, you should find that it is not nearly as difficult to maintain the straight line as you chop down than you think it will. Halfway from each side as described above, and, yes a bench chisel can also do the work. For me, the corners of the mortise usually require the most follow up clean out, with sometimes a sidewall "shave" to clean off the "whiskers" after first trying to insert the tenon.
    David

  10. #10
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    Brian, Why don't you try doing the mortices both ways to see which way you prefer. If you take your time I'm sure they will be fine.

  11. #11
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    A through mortise is much easier than doing a standard mortise where you are limited by the "stop" area.....You'll do fine,
    Jerry

  12. #12
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    Good advice above.

    I've never regretted finally getting started on an intimidating part of a project.

    Send some pics if time allows.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Eaton View Post
    I just spent over an hour painstakingly laying out 8 mortises for the workbench I am building. After checking over things several times I am confident I got everything laid out as accurately as I am capable of. However, I’ve never done through mortise and tenon joints and the only mortise and tenon joinery I’ve done is on a much smaller scale. On a positive note, I really enjoyed using my Veritas dual marking gauge for the first time.

    I’ve done lots of reading/watching YouTube, etc. and feel like I understand the concept but I’m rather nervous about it. I don’t have any mortise chisels so my options are the Paul Sellers method (not terribly appealing) or drilling out the mortises (half way from each side) with a bit smaller than the size of the mortise (3/4”) and pairing the remaining waste to the marking gauge lines.

    Any thoughts/tips/sage wisdom?

    Thanks!
    Am I correct in assuming that you have a _deeply_scribed_ outline on either end of the mortise? If not, make that happen, with a marking knife. Go deep. Accurate layout is important here. From inside the mortise, in the waste part IOW, chisel down at a shallow angle to emphasize where the edge is. On one side and then the other, drill out most of the waste, small drill bit on the corners and then a larger drill bit otherwise. The wedge-like surface on the waste part will be your guide. The interior of your mortise will be a slight hourglass, but you can pare away at that.

    A decent "pigsticker" mortising chisel of the correct size is a good thing to have, and this exercise will teach you just how good it is. A mortising machine would be even better, but the bench top machines are borderline when it comes to 3/4" mortises, any bigger and we're talking about timber framing and they're out of their league (depending on the wood of course.) In that case you'd probably be doing the above anyway, unless you wanted to go out and buy a chain mortiser.

  14. #14
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    Thanks for the advice! I ended up doing 4 using the Sellers method and the remaining 4 I drilled and paired. I feel like I was better able to maintain crisp lines with the drill and pair method but it was a fun experience learning the chisel method. That being said, it was very tedious to knock 8 of those out in one day!1

  15. #15
    Glad to hear things worked out for you, Brian. I hope you can get a real mortise chisel some day. The great advantage of a mortise chisel is not so much that it is stronger, but that the thicker body makes the chisel sort of self jigging and gives a neater and cleaner result.

    Someone mentioned people not using mortise chisels before Sellers was born. I don't think people were that stupid then. Mortise chisels predate the iron age. And bevel edged chisels and mortising machines both got going in the late 19th century.

    In general, we use a mortise chisel for mortises under 1/2 inch and we bore and chop mortises over 1 inch. In between it is a matter of preference or what one is most accustomed to. One technique which I use for wider mortises is to make a narrow mortise 1/4 or 5/16 at each edge, then chop out the stuff in the middle. If you had had a mortise chisel I might have recommended this for your mortises.

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