LN mortice chisel - handle issue

[Paul Sellers]

Which other tools?

Why is it not a good idea?

Why do yo think the mortise chosel geometry is the way it is? To lever out the waste

There are the swan neck tools designed for levering out chunks of wood, sculpting the bottom. There are also 3 Japanese tools that you can see at the Hida site. Go to http://www.hidatool.com/shop/shop.html and choose Woodworking Chisels, scroll down about 1/3 of the page to the Takahashi and Fujihiro cleanup chisels.

It's not a good idea, except for the oval handled bolster version, for exactly the reason for this thread. With socketed handles, they can break. Also, you put great pressure on the edge (the oval handled bolsters I've seen have sort of rounded edges that are strong). With Japanese chisels it's simply the best way to trash edges.

Which mortise chisels geometry are you talking about? The trapezoid shape is, I think, more to cleanly cut the mortise without having the sides get in the way. The arrises on Japanese chisels are very sharp, cut like a dream. I once had several square mortise chisels that did a great job of splitting the wood.

Pam

Hi Pam,
You are right about swan neck chisels being used to clear out the bottom of mortises, but swan neck chisels were used for the very deep mortises associated with the installation of mortise locks after face or rim locks became obsolete. I am sure some used them for levering regular mortises but in reality the whole system of mortising is a series of actions whereby the person strikes the mortise chisel in it's perpendicular position to the wood and then immediately levers in quick succession with the same chisel as he or she traverses the mortise hole from one side to the other, which actually deepens with each subsequent mallet-lever, mallet-lever action until the mortise is rough-cut. He then turns the chisel around and repeats the same mallet-levering action in the opposite direction which actually levels the depth of the hole. It's not scientific at all. Swan neck chisels were not generally available in all width sizes and actually the most common sizes were between 1/2" and 5/8" which was fine if the holes were bigger but useless of course if smaller.
Also, it is not normal for any chisel handle to break. I think that this incident was an exception and not the norm. I cannot ever remember breaking a chisel handle in forty three years of working with wood every single day. Socketed chisels are no more likely to break than any other and I would also add that sensitivity doesn't happen by accident, you have to cultivate it. It may well have been some other failure rather than design. Most people, no matter what they are doing, lever with chisels, chisels of every different kind.

Paul Sellers

 

[MarcW]

...
Also, it is not normal for any chisel handle to break. I think that this incident was an exception and not the norm. I cannot ever remember breaking a chisel handle in forty three years of working with wood every single day. Socketed chisels are no more likely to break than any other and I would also add that sensitivity doesn't happen by accident, you have to cultivate it. It may well have been some other failure rather than design. Most people, no matter what they are doing, lever with chisels, chisels of every different kind.

Paul Sellers

Ouch Paul,

That was a smart rap over the knuckles. I already gave in and quasi apologized - if not I do now - having used the wrong tool for my bashing and levering technique.

Some weeks ago a woodworker friend called to tell me, he had splitted two LN socket chisel's handles... I already said that my shop made pearwood handle broke off. Maybe there was a defect in the wood. Look at the picture you'll see two knots. At any rate I make or made responsable nobody except me for the broken handle. My query was to know what to do - The answer was I used the wrong technique for this tool which is quite a good one. So I will buy another Sorby sash mortice chisel or a registered mortice chisel and will put me on the waiting list for an Iles obm chisel.

I do not like to be told I have to cultivate my sensitivity. This is a nice place to talk wood and above all tools but it is not gentle to offend woodworkers. You see I'm quite sensitive.

Please, please don't continue with the "don't lever with the mortise chisel" theories. After forty years of levering mortises with chisels of every type including those finely made by L-N and Ashly Isles; sash, mortise and bevel edged included, I have never yet bent a chisel though of course I easily could. Surely the leverage is all about sensitivity to the tool and the wood. What kind of world would be living in if all of those thousands of woodworkers had never been allowed to lever on their chisels in the cutting of multiple millions of chisel-cut and chisel-levered mortises?

And what I do not understand now: Do you lever or don't you? On the first page of the thread you tell to do so and now you tell le contraire? What now?

What a day, cheers :?

 

[Paul Sellers]

Sorry Marc,
I wasn't addressing you, I was simply saying the as we grow we hopefully become increasingly more sensitive and aware of how and when to lever and how much. I may not have broken a chisel handle but I have certainly done my share of damage in other areas. All areas of woodworking become intuitive the more we do them and so we grow in sensitivity to where the real enjoyment comes.
I have enjoyed these postings because I believe they were helpful to others and to me also. I am so glad the questions came up and thank you for posting. Levering is unquestioningly a must in all areas of woodworking. That's what it's all about. I certainly know beyond any doubt ,and I think I said it, that wood is often unpredictable and has faults that can certainly cause a handle to split.
I had decided with my last post that this issue was complete and so I hope that we have all ended up closer to one another by the dialogue and that we have grown in our woodworking knowledge.

Thanks for everything

Paul Sellers

 

[pam niedermayer]

...I am sure some used them for levering regular mortises but in reality the whole system of mortising is a series of actions whereby the person strikes the mortise chisel in it's perpendicular position to the wood and then immediately levers in quick succession with the same chisel as he or she traverses the mortise hole from one side to the other, which actually deepens with each subsequent mallet-lever, mallet-lever action until the mortise is rough-cut. He then turns the chisel around and repeats the same mallet-levering action in the opposite direction which actually levels the depth of the hole.

I'm a devotee of Jeff Gorman's alternative method whereby one starts in the middle of the mortise-to-be, chops a couple of times with the bevel aimed at the end so the chopping action clears out chopped wood, then turns the chisel around and chops some more. When one works this way, there's little to no pressure on the chisel when one levers. It's not really a levering, more of a flipping. Only when one gets to the end does one turn the chisel around so the back faces the edge. I think this is often called "following the bevel."

Yes, I've got Jeff's old page that illustrates this process, clear as glass; but you'll have to ask him to repost it on his website or something.

Pam

 

[Woody Alan]

I had decided with my last post that this issue was complete

Hmmm not quite got the hang of this yet?


Sorry couldn't resist... appreciate your comments on this forum and do hope you continue to hang around here and give the benefit of your experience, but don't expect to get off too light

Alan

 

[Digit]

Are these modern Sash Mortise chisels made of softer metal backed by hardened steel by the way?

Roy.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Sorry Pam, but I have to join the chorus of those that disagree with you on the use of a mortice chisel.

If I can't leather the hell out of a mortise chisel by heavy whacking and levering it's about as much use to me as an ashtray on a motorbike.

I admit that I don't use a mortice chisel every day for paying work, preferring to set up the machines to do multiple mortices, but for a one-off I can mark it and 'brutalise' it out quicker by hand than I can set up a machine to do it.

I expect, for instance, to mark and execute a mortice by hand in something fairly hard like oak or maple that's 2" long X 3/8" wide X 1-1/2" deep in about five or seven minutes. I don't know if that's fast or slow but that's about how long it normally takes me. Slainte.

 

[Digit]

It's a damn site faster than me! I never seem to get them correct so I use a home made Mortise jig and a modified router. With this set up I can cut Mortises about 3 inches deep and as wide and long as you like.
I recently made some veranda rails in oak requiring 120 mortises and tenons. The tenons were cut on my table saw with, again, a home made jig, far quicker and more accurately than I can cut them by hand.

Roy.

 

[woodbloke]

Richard has it...I was always taught to wack a mortice chisel hard, that's what they're designed for. The first little trench ought to be about 2 or 3mm deep just to register the outline of the mortice and after that, I work from the centre towards each end, reversing the blade each time so that the chip has a void to collapse into. The waste is levered out down to the full depth (about 2mm longer than the tenon) and each cut is maybe chopping out 2mm at a time. What is important is that the chopping stops about 2mm from the line at each end or else the levering action will damage the top surface. The last two cuts are made with the chisel on the line at each end and are chopped vertically to the full depth... the waste is then levered forwards into the mortice and I usually break up the chips with a small screwdriver and blow them out of the hole (making sure that eyes are closed :wink As Richard says, the whole process shouldn't take more than a few minutes, if it does, then you ain't belting the tool hard enough - Rob

 

[pam niedermayer]

Rob, that's pretty much the way I chop mortises, too, ala Jeff Gorman, haven't a clue from whom he got it. However, there's more than enough room for other methods; and several people who's judgement I trust have reported that they've gotten excellent results from hand levering.

Hi, Richard, how's it going?

Pam

 

[Paul Sellers]

Keeping it simple is what's always hard:

Strike, lever, strike and strike again and lever out the waste.

Doesn't matter where you start, but when you do make haste

Some say it's in the middle start and some say left to right

It doesn't really matter much but it shouldn't take all night

It's good to banter back and forth and maybe it's a matter of taste

But I find that nothing can compare with levering out the waste

Paul Sellers

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Hi, Richard, how's it going? Pam

Pretty darned good, Pam. It's Hogmanay, and I plan to drink too much between now and midnight.

I guess I'll be leathering hell out of the booze too, as well as my mortice chisels---- on another day, ha, ha-- ha, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[bswiseman]

Here's a few pics of my attempt (please don't laugh!) at mortising for my workbench frame in pine (or spruce?). Didn't want to use my Sorby's and didn't have a proper mortise chisel so I used a Stanley 3/4" made in China from a set of three for under 10 USD. Not a pleasure to use but actually seemed to hold up to the "Strike, lever, strike and strike again and lever out the waste". I am concerned that since they are trough mortises they will not "show" very well. I should have been more careful with gauging as some lines were a bit squiggly. Are the mortise sides usually this rough or does a proper mortise chisel help or is it me?

Also, anyone compared the British Ashley Iles mortise chisels with Lie-Nielsen?

Many Thanks,

Stephen

 

[Paul Sellers]

Hi Stephen,

I find it best to concentrate the chops close together, especially working in pine. That tears the side walls less and defines the hole to more concise tolerances, especially in the opening cuts where it matters the most because they are most visible. I don't worry as much when making a workbench as I do in making furniture where I use hardwoods like oak, ash, cherry or walnut, which all chop much more cleanly in general.

When you first use the mortise gauge I find that students put lots of pressure downwards so that both pins score at the same time whereas tey should be pressing the stock laterally against the side of the wood and make two or three passes until the gauge lines become mor visible. The guage lines shouldn't generally go too deep because that effectively widens the hole by creating a trough wider than the pin points which looks like a gap but is only surface deep. try applying most of the pressure laterally and I think it will work better for you. Also, the downside of gauge lines in pine as opposed to harder woods with more consistent grain density, is that the pins more readily penetrate too deeply and then the pins follow the grain's direction, which is often hard to correct.

Apart from old mortise chisels, I have only used the Ray Iles chisels which are just perfect. I'd like to try the L-N some day.

Regards,

Paul

 

[bswiseman]

Thanks Paul! I did much better marking out the tenons.
Stephen