Amazing how well they actually work to make mortices.Originally Posted by Mike Henderson
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Amazing how well they actually work to make mortices.
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Out of curiosity, were the oldest english and american mortice chisels always with an oval handle such as the Pig Sticker model ?
I haven’t seen much of this kind of handle in France, octagon is more common.
My set is a Coulaux, probably made around 1850.
s-l1600.jpg
Contributor
Fantastic condition for 170 years old. Someone has oiled them regularly! Two of the handles look like oval octagonal, forced by the shape of the blade.
You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!
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Octagonal handles were used in England for centuries. I think they are preferable.
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William and Warren, Many thanks.
Two of my handles are split but they are originally octagonal faceted indeed.
For a few years I read about these english Pig Sticker models like the one Lowell Holmes was showing in the original post, so I was wondering, thank you for your answer.
Last edited by Axel de Pugey; 12-23-2019 at 10:07 AM.
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I had much the same experience: not a great introduction to D2.
IMG_3270_zpsdd954202.jpg
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I have a hard time understanding a snapped chisel tip but especially on a pig sticker unless there is evidence of a fault in the iron. Me thinks you may have taken the advise to give the chisel a hard whack a little too literally. I find lighter taps and listening to the chisel and hammer is faster and makes a better mortise than going all Conan on it. But most important is to have someplace for the chip to go. Of course YMMV.
ken
Contributor
+1
Lie Nielsen and Paul Sellers have videos out there on youtube where a mortise is cut behind glass. Most of the cutting can be done with relatively modest taps, and if you are using the bevel to your advantage the vast majority of the chips are broken free without any prying.
Contributor
Hi Nicholas
I fear that these videos create an unrepresentative picture of morticing. For a start, the glass (in Sellers’ case) creates a very firm guide to drive bench chisels deeply. I think that this is not that easy to avoid the chisel twisting when unsupported. Secondly (recalling the other behind-glass video), the wood used looked so soft. I just wanted to break away without much resistance. I wonder how they would fare with harder and more interlocked wood? Would they do it differently?
Earlier I had hoped to get some responses from others about different morticing methods and whether the chisels they used were set up to support this. As I understand, there is no single way to make this joint. Just preferred ways. I wish others here would state this, and why - that is educational.
Regards from Vienna
Derek
[OP]
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Derek, What are you doing in Vienna. Nosey people want to know.
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Lowell, everyone has to be somewhere.
Merry Christmas!
Derek
Last edited by Derek Cohen; 12-26-2019 at 2:10 AM. Reason: dyslexia
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If you want to hit your chisels with sledgehammers and use them like wrecking bars feel free. I am trying to help the people who are breaking theirs. I have found a number of areas where a lighter touch and less muscle produced better results in my work. The videos helped me understand how to use the bevel of the chisel to better advantage. Your mileage apparently varies.
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No where have I suggested wacking a mortice chisel “with a sledgehammer”. How do you arrive at this? Quite the reverse, I have been asking for input to better understand the process of using a mortice chisel.
Regards from Vienna
Derek
Contributor
My chisels are only hit with wooden mallets, thank you.
Okay, here is my go at this.
My mortising chisels are a motley crew:
Mortise Anything.jpg
From the left is a 1" heavy chisel with no mark used for large mortises like on a mallet. Next is a 1/2" marked Thos Ibbotson & Co. The third is 3/8" and marked Newbould. Fourth is a 5/16" bearing a mark of James Cam. The last straight mortise chisel is a 1/4" Narex. The two swan neck or lock mortise chisels are a 1/8" Buck Bros and a 1/4" Henry Taylor.
The Newbould and the James Cam were my first mortise chisels purchased on ebay. Here is the image of them from ebay:
James Cam & Newbould Mortise Chisels.jpg
And an excerpt from the description:
The current handles are from my earliest attempts at making chisel handles.The wider chisel has a cutting edge of 3/8" and is stamped NEWBOULD, a mark used by Samuel Newbould. He is listed as an "edgetool maker" on Sheffield Moor in the Directory of Sheffield for 1787. This example has two early features. The bolster where the blade enters the handle is not the integral, faceted one that is usual; instead, there is a disk that the blade passes through and a very heavy, hand forged ferrule behind it (see photo). The disk is like that on a Samurai sword. The other early feature is that the chisel has a steel edge welded to an iron backbone, much like early axes. The steel will hold an edge much longer than iron, but wrought iron is tougher and less brittle for the body of a tool. The line between the steel and iron can be seen along the edge of the NEWBOULD blade (see photo). The chisel is about 9½ inches in length. The length from the tip to the beginning of the exposed wood in the handle is about 7 inches.
The second chisel is lightly stamped JAMES CAM, who started in Sheffield in 1781, according to Goodman’s book on British plane-makers. He is listed in the 1787 Directory as a "filesmith" working on "Norfolk-street," but he branched out to edge tools. This chisel has a 5/16" cutting edge and the more usual Sheffield faceted bolster.
As with other joinery, making a mortise & tenon joint starts with the layout. The M&T joint begins with setting a mortise gauge to the chisel:
Set The Gauge.jpg
The conventional wisdom for M&T joints is to make the motise or tenon 1/3 of the thickness of the wood. The wood used here is 1-1/2" so the 1/2" chisel is used.
Making the mortise first works for me, others may want to make the tenon first. To me, it is easier to adjust the tenon to fit than to adjust a mortise to fit. It is really a pain to make a mortise smaller.
The gauge is used to mark out the area to be mortised and a square is used to mark the ends. My starting point is in the center:
First Hit.jpg
When marking out joinery, it is a good idea to mark your faces so everything is oriented to be measured from matching faces.
The chisel is hit without hesitation but one is not trying to knock it through the work. For the next hit, the chisel is turned around and hit again:
Second Hit.jpg
This is repeated turning the chisel after each blow and moving the chisel's bevel slightly toward the end of the mortise. This will cause a vee to form. As the bevel rides down the previous cut it will penetrate deeper into the work:
Digging Deeper.jpg
As the work progresses the waste will start to form large flakes from the bevel pushing against the slope and the chisel back pushing against the waste. The bevel works as a wedge. The mortise progresses deeper as the chisel is turned and moved from end to end. This is done until the bevel gets close to were the mortise is to stop. This helps to prevent mashing the end when levering out the waste. The slopes can then be chopped vertically a little at a time back to the marked ends.
Cleaning out the bottom or levering out the waste in a tight spot is facilitated by using a lock mortise or a swan neck chisel:
Using the Lock Mortise Chisel.jpg
For me a lock mortise chisel smaller than the motise chisel is easier to use than one that is the same size as the mortise chisel.
The finished mortise:
He Ain't Fuzzy, He's my Mortise.jpg
The mortise doesn't need to be pretty. It will be covered by the shoulders on the piece with the tenon.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Derek,
I agree we need a thread on technique. I think where the talk of heavy blows on the chisel comes from is because of the posts on snapping the tips of chisels while mortising. If there is not a forging fault in the chisel it had to be driven in too deep and/or there was no place for the chip to go. That goes back to your original post on mortise technique.
BTW, thanks Jim for posting your process.
ken
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