AJB Temple
Finely figured
I am making a couple of timber frames shortly, and have about 120 mortises to cut in green oak beams of either 175 x 175 or 150 x 150 cross section. Some of these are sunken mortises. The tenons are no problem.
These mortises need to be done on the assembly site where the buildings will be erected - which is about 60m away from my workshop. Some of the timbers are 6 metres long and I can't even get them in the workshop. Anyway, I don't have a big mortising machine.
I know the ideal answer is a chain mortiser. However, a Mafell one is £2,500 and a Makita is around £1200 (with a flimsy plastic chain guard), which is quite a big chunk of change for a machine I doubt I will ever use again.
So I am just wondering if there is something I am not aware of that will be reliably quicker than a big bit in a drill, followed by chisel and hammer work. I know some people are confident doing this kind of thing using a chainsaw, and I do have chainsaws, but I am not confident doing plunge cuts with them.
It being green oak I don't need to be incredibly accurate, but I am doing this on my own and I do need to get the frame built without too much messing about! Any ideas?
These mortises need to be done on the assembly site where the buildings will be erected - which is about 60m away from my workshop. Some of the timbers are 6 metres long and I can't even get them in the workshop. Anyway, I don't have a big mortising machine.
I know the ideal answer is a chain mortiser. However, a Mafell one is £2,500 and a Makita is around £1200 (with a flimsy plastic chain guard), which is quite a big chunk of change for a machine I doubt I will ever use again.
So I am just wondering if there is something I am not aware of that will be reliably quicker than a big bit in a drill, followed by chisel and hammer work. I know some people are confident doing this kind of thing using a chainsaw, and I do have chainsaws, but I am not confident doing plunge cuts with them.
It being green oak I don't need to be incredibly accurate, but I am doing this on my own and I do need to get the frame built without too much messing about! Any ideas?