Hey all,
I was watching a bench build video and the builder (Paul Sellers) says to set the mortise gauge pins just a hair proud of the chisel. This is for the cross rails into the legs, which is done with a through tenon.
Anyway, Paul doesn’t explain why to set the pins a little wider than the chisel. I get that the tenon will be marked with the same gauge setting so it shouldn’t matter. However it seems to me that having the gauge lines wider than the chisel will make chopping the mortise a pain in the butt. For example, where do you put the chisel: somewhere in between the gauge lines or up against one line or the other and try to be consistent as you move along chopping??
Someone told me that this is common practice for through tenons, i.e., setting the pins a little wider than the chisel, in order to have the tenon a little fat to prevent any gaps where the tenon protrudes.
Is this true or is this making things unnecessarily complicated?
Thanks!!