Mortice chisels

[D_W]

Again my focus would be on Follansbee who does use pigstickers and is generally thought to be something of an expert on old tools and methods of work, along with the styles and genres in which he works.

The comparison, if I may, is not between Seller's use of each chisel but Seller's use of a bench chisel vs. Follansbee's use of a pigsticker. I don't see how anybody could come away with any other impression than Sellers is better at mortising with his B/E chisel than Follansbee is with his pigsticker. If Follansbee can be accepted as an expert user of that style mortising chisel and Sellers his, then... ??? Could it be the chisels?

I didn't see the follansbee video, I'd have to go find it. Maybe Paul is just better at mortising. It's hard to tell because you can clearly see in paul's other videos without the window, the mortises don't proceed at the same speed. I'm not a big fan of the stuff like the window mortises, it's beginner magnet stuff. "ooh...look at this video with the window on the side". Just pick up a chisel and cut some mortises. try a couple of different types of chisels, decide what works well and if you manage to find a project where you have 25 or 50 or 100 mortises to cut, you'll probably find what works best pretty quickly.

The idea that we can come to some kind if global definitive conclusion because two people cut mortises with glass next to a piece of wood is kind of stupid. Especially if it conflicts with the tools that you actually have in hand. That's really stupid.

 

[Trafalgar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1bo6NVYCc0

Sellers seemed to have posted his video in response to Follansbee's and used the same methodology, the windows.

Follansbee's work looks labored to me, even though one side of the mortise is not having to be cut, the windowed side. The walls are not great at all.

He's taking less of a bite than Sellers did with his B/E chisel.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

* Activate Grump Mode*

Look fellas, it's all very well for our transatlantic cousins to call mortice chisels 'pigstickers' - it's a well-established colloquialism in North America. However, on this side of the Pond, they're 'mortice chisels', or 'oval-bolstered mortice chisels' if you want to be posh about it. That's to distinguish them from 'socket mortice chisels', 'sash mortice chisels', 'registered firmer chisels', 'firmer chisels' (which may or may not be 'registered' - i.e., have sides at exactly 90 degrees to the flat face), 'bevel-edged firmer chisels' - and so on.

All of those could be used to chop mortices. You could use a try plane for finish smoothing, or a smoothing plane to joint board edges. You could cut dovetails with a panel saw (may be pushing it a bit with a full rip), or crosscut rough stock with a dovetail saw (rather slowly) - but why would you if you have the tool made for the job to hand?

*Grump mode off*

Phew. Feel better now...

(Edit to add - OBM chisels were made in sizes from about 1/16" (which are fairly uncommon, and fetch good money from collectors) to about 3/4". The commonest sizes seem to be in the 1/4" to 1/2" range, which covers most furniture and building joinery applications. If all you intend to make is furniture from solid timber using trad. joinery, you may well only ever need one size - 1/4" or 5/16". Buy one of those, and only buy other sizes if jobs that need them arise. Nobody needs a 'set' of mortice chisels, except for show.

Many of the vintage ones, being hand-made, are not an 'exact' size - they may be 1/32" or more above or below a neat sixteenth-inch size. Doesn't matter - set mortice gauge to size of YOUR chisel, mark both mortice and tenon with the same gauge, and they'll fit.)

 

[D_W]

I just tracked down the follansbee video. I'm a bit baffled by several things:
* the method in general, never seen anything like it
* the chisel is impossibly blunt on the final bevel. I understand why a beginner might fall into that (believing that it will keep them away from sharpening stones), but not sure why peter's are set up like that. It takes but a minute to touch up the end of a chisel on oilstones, especially if you're only maintaining a tiny bevel

There's something strange about his bottom prying that might have something to do with riven lumber, but I still am not following why that demonstration would be relevant to this discussion. It's not up to snuff.

 

[D_W]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1bo6NVYCc0

Sellers seemed to have posted his video in response to Follansbee's and used the same methodology, the windows.

Follansbee's work looks labored to me, even though one side of the mortise is not having to be cut, the windowed side. The walls are not great at all.

He's taking less of a bite than Sellers did with his B/E chisel.

I think you're playing coy here suggesting the Follansbee video in the first place, this is the first time I watched the whole thing and the results at the end would suggest looking elsewhere. Who likes mortises that go past the marked line? I hope cutting the tenon is step 2 in this situation.

I'll bet sellers' chisel would've had some trouble advancing with that blunt bevel angle, too. I recall the window occurring before follansbee and thinking at the time "gahd...one person does a window, and now everyone selling books and videos and classes is going to do the same thing". The ghee whiz woodworking videos that show us something we can pretty easily figure out for ourselves. As you mentioned before, cut a dozen mortises and you pretty much are set up to make them competently. After that, you can just expect to get better and faster at it because you're....better and faster at it with more practice.

 

[D_W]

I have, by the way, tried a similar thing to what peter is doing in plane mortises. In theory, you could cut both ends of the mortise and pry the chip up between those cuts, especially in good quartersawn wood where the wood doesn't do unpredictable things.

In the end, it's just faster and a lot neater (which is also ultimately faster) just to mortise "the regular way" making progressive cuts.

 

[Trafalgar]

I like the central v method, but Follansbee didn't really execute it the way I've heard and read it explained elsewhere.

All things considered, not a terribly inspiring or inspired effort.

I believe that when the Follansbee video hit the airwaves that Sellers mentioned it in his blog and shortly thereafter his video was available. Seemed to be in response, but maybe not. Still doesn't devalue it as a comparison. I'm all about the lowest angle that works and maintains a semblance of an edge and maybe sometimes not even then. I still remember my high school physics, and I've walked straight up a hill before and then traversed it sideways. Lesson learned.

While I love Charles Hayward, I have to say there is the funniest photo in his book Woodworking Joints of a guy mortising what looks like a two inch long or so mortise with the biggest OBM chisel (hat tip to CC) I've ever seen. The thing is huge. Pornographic. And then to top it all off the mortise had already been mostly drilled out. I don't see how it could be done. The chisel was almost as wide front to back as the mortise was long, and then to deal with the little islands of material between the drilled out portions? Not me. A bridge too far.

 

[AJB Temple]

Whilst I agree with CheshireChappie that no one needs a "set" of mortice chisels, there are times when it is useful. For example: my original interest in woodworking was instrument making: acoustic and electric guitars. I got quite interested in violin making and did a course in Cremona on that, and it is pretty useful (not essential I admit) to have some small, fine but weighty chisels. On the other hand, these days I am trying to build some timber framing and ended up buying some old pig stickers (part of eBayjob lot) and a couple of big slicks. Horses for courses. Compared with what people are willing to spend on Festool gear, chisels, even fine ones, are pretty cheap and it does not harm to have a selection. Are they necessary - no. Are they nice to have and useful - yes. I do not make fine furniture (or very rarely) so the uses described in the videos do not apply to me. However, I have used mortice chisels for cutting out very accurate wells for bridges, inlays, neck sockets, etc. It just depends what you are doing.

 

[D_W]

I like the central v method, but Follansbee didn't really execute it the way I've heard and read it explained elsewhere.

All things considered, not a terribly inspiring or inspired effort.

I believe that when the Follansbee video hit the airwaves that Sellers mentioned it in his blog and shortly thereafter his video was available. Seemed to be in response, but maybe not. Still doesn't devalue it as a comparison. I'm all about the lowest angle that works and maintains a semblance of an edge and maybe sometimes not even then. I still remember my high school physics, and I've walked straight up a hill before and then traversed it sideways. Lesson learned.

While I love Charles Hayward, I have to say there is the funniest photo in his book Woodworking Joints of a guy mortising what looks like a two inch long or so mortise with the biggest OBM chisel (hat tip to CC) I've ever seen. The thing is huge. Pornographic. And then to top it all off the mortise had already been mostly drilled out. I don't see how it could be done. The chisel was almost as wide front to back as the mortise was long, and then to deal with the voids between the drilled out portions? Not me. A bridge too far.

I'm still sort of astounded by all of this. Mortising is a relatively simple operation, something we can all figure out how to do without ghee-whiz videos from youtube. There are videos and discussions suggesting drilling, and then using a chisel (in some way other than paring sides), which I don't understand at all.

I'd suspect the amount of my mortise chisels - which after breaking my japanese mortise chisel - are the ones in the picture I linked earlier - in the cut is similar to a bevel edge chisel. The penetration is about the same. Couldn't say within 5% if a bench chisel might not be faster, or if they're 5% faster than a bench chisel, but they remind me of the RI chisels as those worked with a small double bevel - no trouble with penetrating.

I'd make a claim about how they seem to big for small cabinet mortises, but I don't make mortises smaller than face frame style mortises, and they haven't been a detriment in those. Those are about 1 1/4 inches long and 3/4ths inch deep. Once in a great while there's a long one where there's no doors or drawers. You could cut them with anything. If you can't find the easiest or most pleasing way to cut them trying a couple of things if you have to actually make a lot of them, something is wrong.

(A quick look suggests frank klausz and roy underhill did a mortise with glass and that's where this started. If they got the gimmick from someone else, who knows? It's starting to seem like pro wrestling at this point...one wrestler gets a gimmick that's successful, then 5 people are using it).

I think I might have the woodworking joints book, If I do, I'll track down the picture. I sort of like that kind of stuff. I don't know who is in the picture and what they're doing, but certainly there have been examples of people who have done really fine work who do some individual things that are really strange and make no sense. They have the determination to do fine work, though, and the sense to get it done one way or another, so who am I to argue?

 

[Trafalgar]

A way to pass the time and blow off steam I suppose. Everybody needs a diversion but if it turns out to be a sanity check so much the better. There are some nuggets out there but without doubt the best place to tease it out is in your own shop.

That said, it takes an astonishingly small amount of twist cut into a mortise to ruin one's plans for a productive afternoon.

 

[D_W]

A way to pass the time and blow off steam I suppose. Everybody needs a diversion but if it turns out to be a sanity check so much the better. There are some nuggets out there but without doubt the best place to tease it out is in your own shop.

That said, it takes an astonishingly small amount of twist cut into a mortise to ruin one's plans for a productive afternoon.

Yeah, not fun -off the trail into the weeds to fix the situation. About as much fun as the mortises with crossing grain you were describing earlier. I'd rather sit on fluorescent light bulbs.

 

[Trafalgar]

Not fun when they end up in last place they ought to be. It's a screw up for sure.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Sorry to interrupt David and Charles, but if the OP reads this far I would recommend Narex mortise chisels if you are buying new, I have a couple and enjoy using them and find them better than using a bench chisel. They are trapezoid ground and sharpen nicely and are not too dear (check out Workshop Heaven). At work I tend to cut mortises with a domino and square the ends when necessary with a bench chisel, but at home in my shed I never use a machine and even cut deep through mortises only with chisels ( I find it easier to keep them square than a brace or drill).
Paddy

 

[iNewbie]

Here's the blog Seller made on Mortice chisels with the video reference:

https://paulsellers.com/2012/07/choppin ... els-video/

And his meandering on different chisels...

https://paulsellers.com/2014/02/many-chisel-choices/

 

[Trafalgar]

Makes perfect sense to me:

"As a boy in school I was shown this method and indeed we were trained that way, but once I left school and started to chop mortises in the everyday of life I found that lightweight chisels chopped more effectively, especially on the lighter work of furniture making and joinery rather than the heavy bank doors once common that had 3/4″ wide 5″ x 5″ deep twin and double mortises in mahogany and oak (that’s two or four mortises per corner sometimes on the bottom and middle rails). In my apprenticeship, most of the men chopped mortises with a Marples bevel-edged chisel. They used the ones shortened by wear, admittedly, but I used my then brand new Marples bluechips and have done so now for almost five decades. In all of those years using these and other makers, I have never bent a chisel once. Furthermore, I have trained 3,500 woodworkers, many raw beginners to the bench, and I have never found one chisel bent either."

The assertion that large OBM chisels were the chisels of choice for shops making house furniture just doesn't square with common sense. I bought one, based on all the buzz, and using it was a buzz-kill. They're too big, too heavy, too long. Just too, too. A rectangular in section, so-called sash mortise chisel, THIS I can believe is a furniture maker's tool. There's no real reason to make them with the parallelogram shape, though some firms do, the mortises just aren't that deep. On the somewhat rare occasions a large, deep, or through mortise is needed you just bore the fooker out and pare it clean. Done. Otherwise, if you're cutting and releasing the material, rather than just driving the chisel, then it won't get stuck. And if it does, occasionally, it's just barely. A mortise chisel for furniture doesn't need to be given "the welly," ever. It's like screaming and yelling across a job site, it's just not done unless maybe you just cut your arm off. Some guy beating on a chisel like he's imagining murdering his mother-in-law is not the way of the craftsman. That a halfway decent mortise results doesn't justify all the sturm and drang and artillery brought to bear. Lousy two cents. Off to play with the OES (Old English Sheepdog) since we're using initials today. I need to make sure he doesn't have a BM in the house.

Cheers!

 

[D_W]

I can't agree for no need for vertical taper. I have a socket mortise chisel, 1/4" that is square. It's stiff in a mortise 1" deep. it cuts a mortise too perfect and sticks in it. Not a fan.

I got it, the japanese chisels and OBM to compare (and at the time this whole hullaballoo kicked up, I had a set of blue chips, and tried them, too - right on target with what the video has).

At one point long ago, I had a bunch of the Iles OBMs, but I don't find them better than vintage ones and they are gone. I bought some at different times and noticed that the early chisels were a lot better finished than the later ones, and that was always an irk. I find the opposite, don't know why, but why question it? That is, I don't see them as ungainly large for small cabinet type mortises, and liked that you don't have to have a firm grip on them to keep them straight - holding tight on a bench chisel for a lot of mortises can be a pain.

Out of interest, I watched a couple of other videos over lunch that get attached to the sellers videos, and I'm sure that most of the budding woodworkers fiddle with routers and such, as videos showing the use of routers have a lot more traffic on them. How boring! The presenters with 3000 square feet of dust collection get downright militant if you suggest that it might be faster to cut them by hand if you only have a couple.

Besides, how would you make things like these with a router? (George had devised a way to cut the abutments on these with a broaching attachment on a bridgeport, but that kind of thing is beyond my interest, and wouldn't quite work for double iron planes - though I'm sure he could come up with something that would - still, it's easy to do by hand, quick and the chisel doesn't really matter).


Or even more simply, all of the delicate mortises on tables.

I started with power tools only. A friend of mine has a multirouter and all kinds of gadgets like that. When everything comes together, it's almost like working metal. When it doesn't, you're just left scratching your head saying "what just happened? where did it miss?"...though things like large break outs of material in less than ideal stock are easier to understand and quick to happen.

At any rate, I've had some large mortise chisels, and now those shown in the listing (they were about $80 for 4, not so bad, I think, and whatever the circumstances may be in the cut, they slip deep into the cut easily and make nice fast mortises)

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Here in blighty, at least the part I live, OBM chisels, or pig stickers, were simply called joiners mortice chisels. The clue to the fact that they were not designed for furniture makers.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

Hello,

Here in blighty, at least the part I live, OBM chisels, or pig stickers, were simply called joiners mortice chisels. The clue to the fact that they were not designed for furniture makers.

Mike.

Where I live they are just called mortice chisels and they were designed for all joinery including furniture.
There is also the sash mortice chisel - for window makers - various sizes but most typically 1/2" and slightly less in depth for small glazing bar mortices - of which millions must have been cut in the old days.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Jacob

I suspect that you chop mortices in the same manner as I do (straight down and remove waste later)? - see my earlier set of pictures. Care to comment on method?

Any others (than Charles and David, who have said a lot) with to comment on method, possibly with a view to linking method to chisel type.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jacob]

Either we are conversing at cross-purposes, or we work differently. The only time I "steer" a mortice chisel is when placing it in position at the surface. The chisel is aligned square to the mortice lines, and then struck straight down. I do not seek to steer it on its journey straight down, nor does it need to be steered.

The only chopping direction is straight down. I learned that this is the method advocated by Maynard. No attempt is made to lever out waste. The waste is being forced into the (drilled) hole on the right (obscured in the photo).

By the three-quarter point it is likely that you will be at full depth.

Continue to the end of the mortice …

… and then turn the chisel around and return.

About half way you can lever out the chips.

Continue to the end of the mortice and clean up.

There is no steering anywhere here.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Much as I was taught to do except I don't see the point of the drilled hole. A through mortice you don't need to lever anything out - most of it flies out as you go but when you are through a few chips might need poking out. Blind mortice ditto except you need to lever out the corners - with the round bevel against the side, and may need to clean out with a smaller chisel.

No need to clamp anything - best done lose on the bench top from the end so you are sighting down the length, or for mass production on saw horses with you sitting astride. Or on the trad mortice stool which I've never had the pleasure of.

I did actually do a lot of hand work when I started but hand mortices just for fun now. If you can call it fun!