Mortise Chisels

[Pedro Reyes]

Dear all,

Sorry for posting on a subject that has been done ad nauseam. I did a search and still could not find specific answers to these questions. I am trying to buy my set (3) of mortise chisels and I'm struggling with the options, feedback and experiences also welcomed. I had pretty much decided on the 2 Cherries but with the new Ray Illes ones coming out I am now more confused.

Ragrading Mortise chisels:

1.- How important do you consider them having a taper from tip to handle?

2.- How important do you consider the section (rectangular vs Trapezoidal)? Are there any good chisels out there (besides the Ray Illes) with trapezoidal sections?

Any and all feedback welcomed. Thanks.

Pedro

[Tom Saurer]

Someone posted a link to some mortise chisels that looked good.

I have some basic Crown chisels that work pretty good. I got them at a good price also, but I can't remember where. Do a Yahoo! search on crown mortise chisels and you should find it.

The biggest thing that I look for is a stout blade and handle, because they take some punishment!

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Pedro, I like mortise chisels to be square because they just seem easier to guide along the mortise that way. I've only used tapered chisels so I can't help you there.

[James Carmichael]

Bob Smalser had a post several months ago documenting chisel types, I believe he took issue with someone's comment that most mortising chisels had a beveled back (is that what you mean by "trapezoidal"?) I would think a square back would be better, for strength and helping cut square sides on very deep mortises.

I don't think is the taper is very important on modern sash-mortise chisels used in furniture-making, at least I haven't used enough to notice a difference. I imagine the taper on the original pigstickers transferred more of the energy from the mallet blow to the tip and drove it deeper when chopping extremely deep mortises for ship building and the like.

[John Keeling]

The taper also helps you when you want to get it out after driving it in deep. I had trouble with my sash mortise chisels in cedar, they went in deep but they were a fight to get out. All that friction!

I love my 100+ yr old pig-stickers, I wouldn't trade them for a set of LN's.

My 2cents

John, NY

[Bob Smalser]

Bob Smalser had a post several months ago documenting chisel types, I believe he took issue with someone's comment that most mortising chisels had a beveled back (is that what you mean by "trapezoidal"?) I would think a square back would be better, for strength and helping cut square sides on very deep mortises.

I've owned and used both types for all manner of mortises and frankly, I don't think it makes a whit of difference if the blade is tapered front to back or not. Given a choice between two mortise chisels, I'd pick the longer and heavier brand. Longer means easy to hold plumb, and heavy means more stability so you can hit it harder. I also recommend you turn a large carving mallet and weight the end with lead to get the most out of your mortise chisels.

Lotsa old mortise and framing chisels are badly dinged up where somebody used a framing hammer to beat it out after they got it stuck. Use a 4-blow chip-out technique without over reaching and getting it stuck shouldn't be a problem. If all your angled blows deep in the mortise are done bevel-down, you'd have to hit it with a 6lb hammer to get it stuck.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...hlight=mortise

FWW mag is trying to decide this week where to do the photo shoot for that chisel article. They commissioned and paid for an extensive, 6-page article based on that old posting but want a "good looking, finished" shop to shoot the action pics in. That lets out me and my associates out here in pole barns, sheds and boat shelters. Guess ya can't do "fine woodworking" on sawhorses in a boat tent.

[James Carmichael]

FWW mag is trying to decide this week where to do the photo shoot for that chisel article. They commissioned and paid for an extensive, 6-page article based on that old posting but want a "good looking, finished" shop to shoot the action pics in. That lets out me and my associates out here in pole barns, sheds and boat shelters.

FWW is going to publish it? Great! Even though I already have just about all of your articles that were posted here, I'll be looking for it and buy a copy.

FWIW, my "shop" wouldn't be suitable for a photo shoot either, unless they wanted to use it as the "before" picture in a shop-makeover story.

[Bob Smalser]

Could be a whole year before it comes out.

My concern with all these mags revolves around the 200 bucks a page and 25-50 bucks a photo...half with the first draft and half upon publishing, which is pretty standard.

I have 4 articles accepted right now by various mags and several more in the mill. Forums tell me what the demand is and all I have to do is take the camera to work and fight for the computer at night to write them up. After the posting I did on chisels at some forumite's request, it only took me 6 hours to finish the larger article FWW wanted, and the editor had it 12 hours after he asked for it. My future postings will have to be in less detail, however, as several have been refused based on some of the details having been "already published."

[Joel Moskowitz]

I'm the guy who convinced Ray Iles to start making real mortise chisels. As JC says above "I love my 100+ yr old pig-stickers" I feel the same way. The trapziodal nature of the blades is from front to back. The front being about .010 narrower than the back cutting edge. It makes is much easier to really go quickly. and you can be a little sloppier on positioning. However I think the oval handles are the real key because they just automatically guide the hand. The mortise in the picture below was chopped 3/8" deep in one pass in less than 40 seconds (and it's pretty clean). Always clamp the work on top of the bench because if you really push the tools the way they are supposed to you will at best just lose a lot of the force of the chisel, at worst break your vise. Yesterday I was working with an experieced wood writer who started out mortising in his vise and then switched to clamping benchtop and suddenly was able to see the increased power you get.

An interesting question is why English Mortise chisels were never manufactured here (as far as I know). I think the reason is that before 1840-50 when all mortising was done by hand these are the standard mortise chisel you find in every toolbox in the US. All imported from England. by the time the American tool industry got all fired up (1850 - onward but really after about 1865) mortising was mostly done by machine. Most Amercian tool catalogs do list the English Mortise chisels but they were not as popular. Also after the 1860's more and more of the American tool tradition was for Continental (non- English) style tools and in the rest of Europe you would get heavy sash mortise chisels.
here's a picture if you aren't sure what I am talking about:

<img src="http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/prodimg/ms/big/MS-MORTXX_big.gif">

[Pam Niedermayer]

I, too, prefer the trapezoidal shape, got tremendous splitting when I tried some huge, square versions. Now, I could wrap every piece in a clamp to avoid this problem, but that's a bit of a pain.

I also like the continental pig stickers, but use Japanese chisels usually, which I hit with regular Japanese hammers. The pig stickers I hit with a mallet or not at all.

Pam

[Marc Hills]

Well Bob, while it certainly will be our loss if you have to be more vague in your posts in order to preserve the "publishability" of your material, I for one am very happy that you're finally getting the recognition and exposure you deserve. It was your second article about a year ago (the one about rehabbing old chisels, I think) when I decided that you really ought to get paid for all that knowledge and writing.

Interesting that FWW balked at shooting the photos at your location. I guess crusty old bodgers and boatwrights should be heard, but not seen.

[Bob Smalser]

An interesting question is why English Mortise chisels were never manufactured here (as far as I know). I think the reason is that before 1840-50 when all mortising was done by hand these are the standard mortise chisel you find in every toolbox in the US.

All imported from England. by the time the American tool industry got all fired up (1850 - onward but really after about 1865) mortising was mostly done by machine. Most Amercian tool catalogs do list the English Mortise chisels but they were not as popular. Also after the 1860's more and more of the American tool tradition was for Continental (non- English) style tools and in the rest of Europe you would get heavy sash mortise chisels.

Interesting....but it doesn't explain these...all American made for factory work, not toolboxes...and not copies of anything made in Europe:



I'd say it's a bit of a reach to say "most" mortising was done by machine circa 1865. That assumes the medium and small millwork operations had the capital of the biggies, and that era was positively rife with Mom and Pop operations compared to the Depression era, let alone today. Plus I know shipyards...which were an extensive US industry at least as large as window factories....did their mortises mostly by hand because of the size/complexity/nonconformity of the workpieces.

Those old chain mortisers were expensive, and maintenance intensive....and I suspect even the middlin-size shops that had it set up for their most common stock output and still did considerable mortising by hand.

Folks today forget all about the shipyards, which were just as big and important in 19th-Century Europe, too. I always understood that what you are calling a "heavy duty sash mortise chisel" in your catalog was a "registered" or "Shipwright" chisel originating with the trade guilds of Europe fro shipyard use. They are a tad heavy for those 8th and quarter-inch mortises in window sashes.

[Joel Moskowitz]

You raise a couple of points. Let's look at them.
the Buck Brothers catalog of 1890 describes the chisels (both socket firmer and socket mortise) as:
"The blades of these Sockets are solid cast steel, and the barrels are heavier than the socket firmer barrels. They are very desireable for coach-makers, boat-builders, or for light mortising. The socket Mortises are solid cast steel blades, and are fit for the heaviest kind of work."

The Marples catalog 1909 shows about 4 variations styles of the English Mortise chisel.
and described the sockets chisels above as "staulking" chisels

the 1888 Wm. P Walter's Sons catalog quotes the buck brothers catalog except they say ".. are adapted for the heavier kind of work."what is also interesting is that in the index they do not include the Buck brother mortise chisels at all and the entry under mortise chisels in the index points to a page of mortising machine bits.

The 1897 Chas STrelinger catalog does'n index any socket mortise chisels but does include imported WArd & Payne English mortise chisels which they call" Duck's Bill Mortise chisel"

what these entries tell me is that Buck BRothers took a millrwrights design and tried to beef it up to be used for Mortising. However the retailers of the time didn't buy that argument much and in general devoted much much more pages to helping customers buy mortising machines. IT also shows you how less important hand mortising equipment was compared to machine equipment.
Chain mortisers were very expensive, what was offered was many models of primative mortisers much like what we use today in a drill press but without the drilling core.

The chisels you like were favored in the boat building industry but certainly from a cabinetmaking perspective they were not favored.

As I said in a previous post before 1850 all the American cabinetmakers who tools we have seem to have used English MOrtise chisels for heavy work.

A registered chisel is any chisel with square, parrelel sides - usable for light mortising but knowhere need as useful or as easy to use as a real English Mortise chisel. Sash Mortise chisels and registered chisels are always listed as seperate entities in tool catalogs. "Shipwright's chisels" are something different entirely. THese days many retailers sell registered chisels as "mortise chisels" but they aren't - they don't work as well as real sash mortise chisels even. but they are less expensive and these days are really not used for regular cabinetwork. for occasional mortising they might be a cost effective way of proceeding.

The geometry of registered chisels is also different from sash mortise chisels.

[Bob Smalser]

I don't dispute that cabinetmakers here used English chisels, it's just that as tough as they are, I'da have expected more of them to survive than one sees at old tool auctions....if they were that prevalent. I've seen plenty of old American framers and mortise chisels grafted onto after they were ground down...but never a Pigsticker.

Buck may have had more catalogs survive than the smaller makers, but these large mortise chisels were often made by specialists like New Haven Edge. Swan and Witherby are the only large companies I've found that made them....I don't believe Buck ever did. Dixon, Dickerson and Fulton also made them.

And hollow chisel mortisers have been around for almost as long as chain mortisers....but they were and are an even bigger pain in the butt to maintain...and although they were ballyhooed in advertisements, I'd surmise they and chain mortisers combined only produced a small fraction of all mortises cut in any given late-19th Century year.

[Joel Moskowitz]

[QUOTE=Bob Smalser]I don't dispute that cabinetmakers here used English chisels, it's just that as tough as they are, I'da have expected more of them to survive than one sees at old tool auctions....if they were that prevalent.

Very few pre-1850 chisels of any sort survive in the wild. and after that cabinetry switched to factories and machines started to take over.
If you use chisels a lot they wear out. Even in the UK pre-1850 tools are pretty rare. THe tools that survive are the ones that weren't used much - or have replaceable cutting edges like metal planes.

After the civil war what you mostly find is carpenter's tools of all sorts - which are different. The higher end catalogs of the US in the latter part of the 19th century do list English tools as part of the listing. but certainly demand was very small compared to construction tools and speicalled tools for things like shipwrighting.

"Buck may have had more catalogs survive than the smaller makers, but these large mortise chisels were often made by specialists like New Haven Edge. Swan and Witherby are the only large companies I've found that made them....I don't believe Buck ever did. - "

Buck #48

"Dixon, Dickerson and Fulton also made them."

Also Witherby and others. I think the reason you find them so plentiful is that I think they were most popular in shipyards.

"I'd surmise they and chain mortisers combined only produced a small fraction of all mortises cut in any given late-19th Century year."

Surely you must be joking? by the late 19th century in the US most (I'd even guess at 90%) of the furniture sold in the US was made in large factories and sold by large companies including Montgomery Ward and Sears. not to mention the huge chains of department stores. All of that furniture was almost entirely machine made and assembled by hand. This was not the case in England at the same time which may explain why English mortise chisels were still available in such a selection at such a late date.

In another context I am in the middle of reading a 1850's report about manufacturing in the US by a group of English travellers under contract to the Royal goverment. (incliding whitworth as part of the party) what they were shocked by is how little hand work of any sort they saw. THey marveled at how the Americans were automating everything unlike the British industries which relied on handwork.