I recently saw a YouTube video put
together by Peter Follansbee, Lie-Nielsen
and Roy Underhill I think was the
originator of the idea to chop a mortise
behind glass so people could see the
progressive steps in the traditional way
and the traditional way is to start in the
middle of the mortise and then angle in
from both sides and chop down but I
want to show you something that somewhat
challenges the tradition of it, to show
you a method that I use, it works with
either the heavy duty mortise chisel or
the lightweight bevel edge chisel and
this does challenge the tradition
of this but there are other chisels in
between, registered chisels, there are
different types but I've used a bevel
edge chisel and as long as you're
careful not to bend it the chisel will
chop mortises very speedily but I
wanted to do both methods with
the traditional mortise chisel first and
show you this method and how I would
work a mortise and I've done this for
nearly 50 years so I just want to
present it to you as an alternative
to the traditional so I'm starting right
on my cut line here, and I make one
swift blow, go with the second one and I
lever each time, notice my chisel
is perpendicular and my bevel is
traveling in the direction I'm going at
the moment watch so now I go in and I
lever and I keep levering this is a very
effective way of chopping a mortise
I go all the way I'm levering against
the bevel and I'm going down one and a
quarter inches this is a 3/8 chisel about
ten millimeters there's a lot of weight
in this chisel, noticed at the bevel that
we're cutting here is the same as the
bevel of the chisel I just go
perpendicular I'm right on the edge I'm
about a sixteenth from the edge so I can
lever then when I've got this far I go
with my chisel to follow the angle a
little bit less then remove that waste
you can just lever away like this
just keep going until your perpendicular
when you're chopping a mortise generally
you sharpen your chisel with a bevel on
of about 35 degrees on the cutting edge
now notice here the bevel of my chisel
is perpendicular so I lever
against the bevel this time
I'm getting close to this edge I don't
want to lever on that top rim it's
not good practice to do that, I can lever
I still have three sixteenth of an
inch there I'm going to go right in on
this edge now lever away and then I'm
going to go perpendicular with the flat
face so I'm just down to my line there
and then I'm going to go with a thinner
chisel just to clean out that waste wood
to build up inside you can see that with
each chop it goes progressively deeper
now with this chisel I ended up with a rise
in the middle I was trying to operate as
equally with the chisel as I could
little bit tight down in the bottom there
separating the fibers, I find the big
chisels awkward even though I'm quite
used to them I still find them awkward
there I think we're pretty close to the
bottom of the hole, corner just needs
cleaning out so that's my mortise done
with the the 3/8 mortise chisel you
complete, so now we'll do the one with
the bevel edge chisel and take a look at
this one and see I'm going to do exactly
the same way I'm not going to change the
method, the method is key to successful
chopping of mortise holes, this one
penetrates much more easily
and progressively deepens the cut this
is just a cheap old chisel all, it's a
Record chisel I've used these for all my
working life
so you can see I lever but the waste
wood just ejects just so easily with a
flick of the wrist, once I've gone down
this far I have to actually hold the
chisel back from cutting too deep, now very
traditional hand cutting of mortises but
there's a slight challenge here to the
to the tradition, because you can
actually chop mortises with a bevel edge
chisel, as long as you've cultivated the
sensitivity you need so you don't bend
the chisel you can bend them, I've never,
I've trained three and a half thousand
woodworkers with this method and I've
never known one of them yet bend their
chisel because they became sensitive
well, back here now watch this
perpendicular aspect of my bevel goes
down right down to the bottom then I
move across just,
so I'm pretty much to depth now, it's
really pretty effortless you do this and
if you take less, I'm taking
about an eighth here, if you take about an
eighth it just goes very quickly, see the
advantage is that leverage right at the
bottom of the mortise hole so I go with
a thinner chisel again just to clean out
the waste and I think we are pretty
close to the bottom of the mortise there
from both sides, now both methods work
and they work perfectly I think this is
the way I would chop a mortise
so that's our wattage holes cut I'm
surprised this feels very smooth in this
side and this is not as even with the
traditional mortise chisel so I got a
more even finish with this so I just
recommend that you try this method set
yourself up just like I did without the
glass and cut your own mortise and see
what you feel but follow the method
exactly and see see how it goes for you