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
This is hypnotic to watch.
The way he keeps saying "perpendicular" in a northern accent is very calming.
This guy is like a machine in his precision.
I'll have to try this method - I use a similar method (starting at one end and proceeding across), except instead of increasing the depth with each chip to finish at the final depth, I proceed at a constant depth of cut, which means three or four passes instead of two.
I'll likely stick with my mortise chisels, however; I'd have to either buy another set to dedicate to chopping, or spend a lot more time sharpening when I want to do fine work, like paring.
Not breaking the glass is a testament to his precise perpendicularity when chopping and levering with his chisel - serious skill.
I have a new subscription . I just finished watching his first three workbench videos and the guy is a good teacher. I have always wanted to make a laminated bench.
Did the audio only being left channel bug anybody else? Can you fix that sort of thing once you already have a video uploaded?