Found an interesting thing this weekend. Six years ago my wife and I renovated a home built in 1898. I kept all of the excess woodwork and one door from this renovation. I've been storing this door for the last six years waiting to find a use for it. This weekend I decided to cut it down to 48" tall for a small closet under our basement stairs. In the process of cutting it down, I was surprised to find each rail was mortised into the stiles 2-1/2 inches.
What's got me confused is the method used to cut the mortise. Does anyone know what kind of tool would have been used to cut mortises 100 years ago? Based on the machine marks it looks like some type of chain mortiser but I have to say I've never seen anything like this in today's tool catalogs.
Wes