Mortising Survey

I'm just beginning to make M&T joints, and I've seen at least 3-4 general ways to mill mortices:

Dedicated Mortising Machine Router Router plus corner cleanout By hand, using chisels

What kind do *you* use, and why?

Reply to
Vince Heuring
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On 15 Sep 2003, Vince Heuring spake unto rec.woodworking:

=> By hand, using chisels

A number of reasons. It's quick, fun, and very satisfying. Thwacking a mortise chisel with a mallet and prying out the waste is gratifying, hands- on woodworking, and not difficult with a bit of practice. I get consistent results, and a bit of exercise in the bargain.

Scott

Reply to
Scott Cramer

Dedicated Mortising Machine (cheapest I could find on Ebay)

Having taken up WW only 6 - 7 months ago after a 25+ year gap, I can achieve near perfect fitting M&T joints with very little if any skill. Also it's a lot quicker than by hand.

I did try using a router at first, but as I don't have a proper router table I didn't get very good results.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Walters

Does drill press and forstner bit followed by chisels fall into any of the above? I've only done two mortises so far, but that's how I did it. That was Norm's way before he got the attachment for his drill press, and then the dedicated mortiser.

Dan

Reply to
Dan

By hand with a little help from a drill press. I ususally rmove as much material as I can with a drill bit and then hand chisel the rest.

Remove the 'remove' in my address to e:mail me.

Reply to
SteveC1280

I had the Jet - quicker, positive placement for exactness, and I was doing a lot of work. The production flew by.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Mc Namara

Drill holes with a hand drill and brad points, finish with chisels.

Cause I'm a) beginner at M&T joints and b) too broke to buy a router, drill press and mortice attachment or any other fancy gadget (even though there's a clearout down the road on a Bosch 1617EVS @ $100 off... whimper...)

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

Router with edge guide and home-made jigs.

Very quick, clean, and consistent mortices.

With saw-cut or routed tenons I square the mortices because I've messed up too many shoulders while rounding tenons. With loose tenons the tenon stock is rounded to match the mortice ends.

For my first project with dozens of small spindles I'll be looking for a dedicated morticer.

Reply to
Jay Knepper

Dedicated Mortising Machine for me :) Just a little quicker, and very valuable when time is a rare commodity!

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Dean Bielanowski Editor, Online Tool Reviews

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Reply to
Woody

you forgot horizontal router table (or boring machine)...

Reply to
Chris Merrill

Big old Powermatic #10 standup mortiser for cabinet work. Why -- because I like big old machines and they work great. Portable Makita chain mortiser for timber frame work, followed by cleanup with a sharp chisel. Why -- because there are alot of mortises in the average timber frame. I also occassionally do them with one of my antique hand powered Millers Falls mortisers if there aren't too many.

Reply to
My Old Tools

WHERE???

I want another.

Thanks, Barry

Reply to
B a r r y B u r k e J r .

Hand router, pix and text at:

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*******************************************************************> I'm just beginning to make M&T joints, and I've seen at least 3-4

Reply to
Routerman P. Warner

Mississauga, ON. Canadian Tire - they seem to be dumping Bosch from the stores and only selling online. The stores are stocked with cheap brands. That's C$, not US$ so it's more like US$73 off.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 13:54:43 -0600, Vince Heuring scribbled

Lessee:

Made open mortices (bridle joints) on the table saw for many years. One pass with a dado blade, with the work piece held vertically. Why: did not have the tools to make them otherwise.

Also made mortices by laminating three pieces of wood, with the middle one the width of the mortice and a gap of the appropriate length. Cleaned the glue out of the corners with a chisel. Why: It was usually on a thick pieces of wood. Made sense in the applications I used (e.g. base for a plant stand).

On the posts & beams in my solarium: hand drill (with home made guide) & cleaned up with chisel. Why: no router or mortiser or drill press mortising attachment could make them deep enough. Could not justify $2,000 chain mortiser for ~20 mortises, although I would have loved to get one.

On greenhouse windows, got a delta mortising attachment for my drill press. Why: I needed a mortice in the middle of the stile, so open mortices done on the table saw (what I had been using up to that point) could not work. Couldn't afford (or couldn't really justify) buying a plunge router at that time.

On solarium windows, plunge router with long 1/2" bit & a home-made jig. Why: wanted a plunge router and nice, accurate clean-sided mortices. Rounded most of the tenon over with a roundover bit in the router table, and finished the end of the tenon (close to the shoulder) with a Lee Valley flush plane (#05P20.01). Why: experimented with many methods including squaring the mortice corners with a regular chisel and a corner chisel, and rounding over the tenons with a rasp, sandpaper, sander, router table with regular chisel for the clean-up. This was the fastest method.

Given a choice in the future, I would use the last method. Why: accurate, clean mortice cheeks and, consequently, a presumably better glue joint.

But, next, I gotta try doing them by hand, but I have to get good mortising chisels first.

Note that the mortice/mortise spelling choices are quite deliberate. I use mortice for the noun & mortise for the verb, on the advice/advise model. I would like to propose that we wreckers make that the official spelling so we have one more reason to bug newbies about their spelling.

Luigi Replace "no" with "yk" twice in reply address for real email address

Reply to
Luigi Zanasi

Floating tenons. Beadlock. Quick...easy.....accurate.

TomL

Reply to
TomL

What about pronunciation? Do you use a "mor-tize-ing" chisel to cut a "mor-tis"? :) Please "ad-vize".

Martin

Reply to
Martin Frankel

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 11:14:04 -0700, Martin Frankel scribbled

I would like to advice you that in English, unlike most other languages (with the notable exception of French), pronounciation has very little to do with the way a word is spelled. So my advise is pronounce it the way you want. :-)

Note that mortice/mortise is one of the many exceptions to one of the few clear clues to pronounciation that English has, i.e. that an "e" following a consonant indicates that the preceding vowel has a long sound.

Luigi Replace "no" with "yk" twice in reply address for real email address

Reply to
Luigi Zanasi

I second that. Why? Best method with the tools I own and I don't have a mortising chisel so it is "almost" hand cut.

-Chris

Reply to
Chris

I use my DW625 which has offset router base. I figure out if you fit a 12mm stright bit and router the tenon piece with one side of the base riding on a stright edge and turn to another side of the base for routing the other tenon face, you will get a perfect 12mm width tenon. Use the same bit and edge guide to route mortise and I have a perfect machine fit joint and the tenon shoulder is level on all sides. The good thing come with this method is that you only set up the stright edge once and do the tenons like production run. Since the workpiece is clamp down, I can route in the wrong direction which eliminates chip out.

yy

Reply to
may

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