How to make a square mortise with a drill press and a forstner bit!

hi I'm James Hamilton from stumpy Nub's woodworking journal and today I'm going to show you what may be the easiest way to cut a mortise if you're a woodworker you need to know how to create mortise and tenon joinery it's the key to long-lasting furniture there are lots of videos out there about cutting the ten and a half of the joint I'll link to one in the notes below this video just click on show more if you're on YouTube but today we're gonna focus on the mortise half of the joint and we're gonna do it with a Forstner bit why a forester bit because it's fast it's easy there are no special jigs to set up frankly it's the best way to cut some quick mortises so you can just move on with your project the first step is layout let's say I want to attach a stretcher three inches from the end of a lake so I position the two project parts on the bench making sure I'm three inches from the legs end and I use a square to mark where both sides of the structure will be located now I obviously don't want my mortise to be the full width of my stretching so I'm gonna come in about a half inch from each side those lines indicate the length of my mortise the width will be determined by the size of my Forstner bit so I need to mark a little single line right down the center of where the mortise will be to find that Center I set my combination square close to the center by I as much as I can judge it and I make a mark from each side of the workpiece if those marks fall at the same point I found the center otherwise I split the difference and I try again this is a quick way to find the center without having to measure once I locate the center I strike my final layout line if I have more than one leg to mortise I can now mark all the other work pieces while I still have my combination square set up time to head to the drill press I stop using cheap Forstner bits years ago I saved up and I got the best ones on the market which I think are made by a family-run company in Austria called fish they are the only company that still forges their Forstner bits the old-fashioned way I really think that's amazing and the quality is - you see what I mean as we continue the key to creating a good mortise with a Forstner bit is you have to bore a series of holes in a nice straight line if you have a fence on your drill press table that'll make the job a lot easier you can even just clamp but would down as a temporary fence if you plan on aligning your holes by eye then I suggest you use a knife or an awl to turn your centerline into a little groove so that your bits point can slip into it that'll make it a lot easier to align all the holes to create a nice straight mortise I also recommend you lock the drill press table down really well so that it won't swivel from side to side even if you carefully set up your fence if that swivels on the column a little bit it's gonna mess your settings up and don't forget to set the depth stop or the first hole close to the end of the mortise you know if you hit your mark perfectly in fact I sometimes intentionally bore just a little bit inside the line you'll see why in a minute after boring the first hole move to the other end of the mortise and bore that hole next now you can remove the waste in the center by boring overlapping holes to do this you have to have a good Forstner bit it has to be sharp and the guide room has to be well designed so that it will bore straight down and not drift into the open space in the hole next to it the point of the bit also has to be in contact with the wood at all times right on your line that's why we board holes at the two ends of the mortise first now when I get down to the last narrow little bit of material I can still put the point of the bit on some of the wood I wouldn't be able to do that if the last little bit of material was on the end of the mortise back at the bench it's time to clean things up a wide chisel is best for the long sides and don't try to chop right at the edge of the holes first trim those little inner ribs back a little bit at a time the reason for this is you want to make sure that your hole remains perpendicular to the face of the workpiece you know that the Forstner bit holes are perpendicular because you used a drill press now if you trim the remaining waist back just a little bit at a time you can see what you're doing and tell when you get to the outer edge of those perpendicular holes that way you'll be sure that you don't chop down at an angle with your chisel and make your mortise crooked on the ends a narrow chisel is needed remember we didn't bore our holes right up to the lines because I didn't want to risk overshooting them sometimes that's difficult to see exactly where the edge of the forcing of it will land as you lower into the wood so I held back from the lines a little bit and now I can easily pair back to them with my chisel that's all there is to it now that I have my mortise I can cut a tenon on the mating workpiece to fit there's a reason we do those mortises first a tenon can be cut to any size but a mortise is far easier to size to the tools you have on hand like your Forstner bit if I cut my tendon first I might not have a Forstner bit that perfectly matched the Tenon's thickness but if I cut my mortise first with that Forstner bit I can easily adjust the thickness of my tenon to fit inside much easier than it would have been to accurately widen amoris speaking of Tenon's what if you cut one of those with a force or a bit - that sounds like a subject for a future video for more great tips tricks and tutorials designed to make you a better woodworker check out stumping up its woodworking journal you can read and subscribe for free at stuffy nubs dot-com

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 449,349

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, forstner bits, drill press, mortise and tenon, joinery

Id: -ZppBIHzXzU

Length: 5min 41sec (341 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 08 2018