Mortising Chisels vs Bench Chisels

hey y'all i'm james wright and welcome to the shop today i want to talk about the difference between regular bench chisels and mortising chisels are pig stickers they are a fun tool that is more or less designed for creating mortises but how about a bench chisel can you create a mortise with a bench tizzle let's dive in and take a look [Music] so first off what's the big difference between a traditional bench chisel and a mortising chisel they both are basically the same thing and that there are chisel there a point where two surfaces of metal come together to just barely touch and because that you have a sharp edge here just like glue the bench you have a sharp edge right here so both of them can do the similar work whatever you do with a bench chisel you can do with the morning chisel whatever you do with the mornings a chisel you can do with a chisel they'll both function the same way the big differences are and how they function with a bench tizzle the tang is much much thinner so you don't see a lot of material in here and that can lead to a little bit of vibration if you're really pounding on this whereas with a mortise you chisel you can see this is really really thick I mean it is taller than the width of the blade itself this is a quarter-inch chisel but it's almost three quarters of an inch tall here so when I Drive into this I'm gonna have a lot more force there this is going to be a very sturdy thing it's not going to vibrate in the cut and that makes it feel a lot better another slight problem with the normal bench chisel is if I put it into a mortise and I try to lever out the chips there's a tendency to try and twist more and you could easily bend the chisel or break it and that is a it's a bad thing to do whereas with a mortising chisel levering out the chips there's there's pretty much no way I could bend this this is so thick that the amount of force I'd have to put down to bend or break this shank would just be incredible you are gonna get people from both camps that say the only chisel you should use when cutting mortise is a mortising just looks designed for that so use the tool to design for the job you want to do and there other people have said no a bench to the wall still cut a mortise there's really no reason to have more than one tool so why not just cut it with a mortise chisel and there are prominent people in both categories Paul Sellars for one he basically just uses bench tools and does them to great effect and if you've known anything about Paul Sellars there aren't too many more masters in the crafts in him and so if he says that's good enough it's good enough but then you'll come across others that say no a mortising chisel as a traditional tool designed for cutting horses this is this is what it's designed to do so why not use a tool for or the work in the work it's intended to be used both arguments have their merit but neither argument is right and neither argument as well if you don't have the money to get a mortising chisel then just use your bench chisels if you have some extra money lying around and you find a good deal on some mortising chisels then get a good mortise in chisel now when you go to buy bench chisels I usually tell people get a set of bench chisels this is a round quarter-inch I think it's three millimeters actually up to one inch which is actually a 24 millimeter I use millimeter chisels it really doesn't matter if they're standard or millimeter because I'm gonna be cutting something to fit something else the shape and size of the cut I'm making generally doesn't matter I can always adjust to fit with one of these chisels now when it comes to mortising chisels on the other hand I usually tell people only buy them one at a time rarely do you need a full set of mortising chisels from eighth inch up to one inch or whatever I have a quarter inch mortising chisel and I have an eighth inch more distinct chisel I don't have a half inch because I rarely need to make 1/2 inch and usually I say a quarter inch is pretty much all you're gonna need most mortises out there are a quarter inch if you're working with 3/4 inch material a quarter inch more dressing chisel is all you need or 1/8 inch mortising chisel it doesn't really matter what size it's as long as it's something around that range if you're gonna get another one then you may want to get a half inch if you're doing some larger material but I rarely need anything that large so when buying mortising chisels just buy one at a time do not buy a full set of mortising chisels you're just going to be wasting your time on a couple chisels that you may never use so let's actually get into their function normally what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab the chisel that I want to use to cut my mortise and I'm going to use it and Mark out on either side the width of the chisel once I put a mark on here then I can set up my mortise engage to those marks and lay out my mortise engage to whatever size I have that's why I say it really doesn't matter if you're going to be using standard or metric because you can always adjust the cut to fit whatever mortising chisel you have or whatever bench chisel you have so now I've set this up where my lines are right on there and these two lines I know are exactly the same width as my chisel so when I cut in here it doesn't matter what I'm doing I'm always going to be getting the right cut and the same thing works with a bench too as opposed to a mortising gisle I would just set that on here and do the same thing to lay out the lines on that grab a mortise in Gage and set these up to match those new lines and away we go now I have a mortise engage set up to match this chisel so let's get into some of the actual functional differences between them with a standard bench chisel it's gonna dive in a good ways then I can progress it back in the direction of the bevel and each time I'm just gonna go down a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper until I'm down at the depth I'm looking for it works really well where the mortising chisel I'm gonna do the exact same thing set it in go down to depth and with this I just feel like there's a little bit more force into it and I have no problem actually putting them a little bit farther apart with the bench chisel I tend to put them about a sixteenth of an inch apart and my cuts whereas with this one I put them a little farther away almost up to an eighth of an inch I want to be careful of that in some hardwoods I don't want to be splitting off more than I need and just get aggressive for the COS sake of being aggressive but I find that the mortising chisel progresses yeah it's a little bit faster than the bench chisel but that's more or less a personal difference the big difference comes when it's time to lever out the chips so I can get this in here and with a regular bench tool I need to be very very careful I don't put too much pressure on it otherwise I'll bend the shank when I bend out the chips with a mortising chisel I don't have to worry about that too much there's enough strength in this that if I'll ever out the chips it's going to go very very quickly and I don't have to worry about bending the shaft because it's thick enough once I get that down in there aways I can really use this as a lever to clean out the bottom of the mortise one of the things you do have to be careful of is because this is so much thicker there's a tendency to actually cut this at a narrower point and I've seen some of these mortising chisels where the tip of this is at 20 or even as little as 15 degrees a very very sharp point the nice thing about that is when I drive it down in that thing will dive immediately and become a very very efficient cutter but with it being so thin if I want to lever anything out I'm probably going to run the risk of breaking the tip off on the chisel with a bench tizzle because it's so thin you generally don't have anything steeper than 25 degrees sometimes they're even at like 30 or 31 degrees actually I sharpen mine at somewhere around 30 degrees so I don't worry as much about breaking off the tip but again I'm gonna be worrying about levering because I don't want to actually bend the shank on this so what angle should you actually sharpen your mortising chisel - usually I like to sharpen them to somewhere around 25 to 30 degrees fairly similar to my bench chisels that angle just worked pretty well but everyone's gonna tell you something a little different so find the angle that works for you another problem that often comes up with mortising chisels is that they tend to be very narrow chisels particularly and due to their length and that causes a lot of people to either have them with a bit of a taper on there so that the tip of the chisel is skewed or it causes them to be a bit warped in the way they're cutting some people like to put a compound angle on here and that they will have a main angle of like 30 degrees and the last little bit they'll just sharpen that at 25 degrees so the last bit of sharpening they lift up the heel and sharpen that down I like to do it just one go put it on the diamond plate set at an angle find that angle grind it down grind it down grind it down clean it off and then take it over to the strop and that's about all I do for my chisel if you find yourself skewing one way or the other that's usually because you're putting too much pressure on it so if I have a point developing on this side here and this side is working back I want to think about putting more pressure on this side of the chisel almost thinking about pushing it down this way and that will cause me to grind off more material on the side that it's sticking out so just think about putting more pressure on one side of the chisel or the other most people tend to have a problem of putting too much pressure on one side usually the side away from them and that will cause you to grind more on that side over time so you just want to think about putting more pressure on the side you want to take more off and grind it down with a good mortising chisel on average quarter-inch mortises I'm probably only going to sharpen it every three or four mortises but just with that it's like 10-15 strokes each and then 30 or so strokes on the strop and I'm good to go I really don't take that much more time and sharpening this than that 1 2 3 strop and I'm good to go as long as they haven't chipped it or done anything it with a damage to the tip and surprisingly enough that is the exact same way our sharp bench chisels put them on here one two three strap and we're good to go they really don't take that much work as long as you keep on top of them and you haven't rubbed them in too much or dulled the tip out too much it's a very very quick process and you're back to going don't worry about the secondary bevel just sharpen them and go another fun use from mortising chisel is if you ever need to create a groove having that longer sole on the mortise which is Alexi really nice for freehand cutting grooves just start them in and you can actually cut in a groove really nice and quickly just freehand with a mortise and chisel and this is actually a really fun technique once you get it down very enjoyable and very quick you don't to set up anything you just go to town so anytime you're doing like a stopped groove or dado grabbing a more discreet result makes it a really quick work and especially with that longer sole on here it makes it far easier to control so you're not gonna be diving in or out or sliding it easily you can actually write it right along that long bevel now the next question everyone gets me is where do you buy mortising chisels and there are a few places you can buy them online I'll actually leave a link to one down below and you can buy them usually they come in sets and so you're spending a lot more money buying other chisels that you may or may not use the way I like to buy them as at tool meets and tool suppliers and if you would like to find one around you have a website set up to help you with that hand tool finder com I'll leave a link to that down below as well and as a site we're actually at a map set up of all the places I know of around the entire world to buy hand tools if you find something that's not on that map please let me know I will add it to it as well as antique stores stores that are devoted to hand tools tool meats and other things around the world and then if that's still not enough I have a list of several dozen online sellers that are reputable that devote themselves to selling antique tools and anytime I'm looking for some particular tool I go through one of the one or two there websites or I'll contact one of them and say hey I'm looking for this particular part can you help me on with that and then on top of all that if you still can't find it there is a listing of all of the collecting associations I know of so these are groups of people who devote their time to collecting antique hand tools and can sometimes be the greatest resources you can ever come across and finding and knowing more about your hand tools so definitely take a look at that website phenomenal amount of information there so I do have to say if you like videos like this and you would like to actually see more about me talking and actually demonstrating the tools removing most of these talking videos over to the second channel would buy right too and that is where all of the talking and instructional videos are going to be and this channel is gonna be more dedicated to the fun-loving music background just general build videos if you want to watch both great but a lot of people just like watching one type or the other I'll separate them too so it makes it a little bit easier for some people so that will probably be happening in the next month or two or I will completely separate the two channels so keep an eye out for that yeah that's about it mortising chisels versus bench chisels there really is no right or wrong if I'm doing a mortise and I have the quarter inch chisel on hand I'm probably gonna use a mortise and chisel because I generally prefer it a little bit more but for the longest time I just had a bunch of bench chisels because I didn't want to spend the money on mortising tools bench chisels work just as fine this is more one of those feeling things if you like the feel of a tool and you are in it for that that beautiful feeling of a nice curl and everything's happy then get a mortising chisel because they do feel better but a bench chisels gonna do the same work everyone's a little different there is no right or wrong in the work as long as you are being safe have fun and enjoy your shop so I think that's about it for today I hope you like this with a bit of information I'd love to hear your thoughts if there's something particular you have or any information you'd like to leave let me know down below also if you can share and like and subscribe to the channel that really does help out thanks so much and until next time have a wonderful day okay it's time to start an argument what's the difference between a mortising chisel on a pig-sticker

Channel: Wood By Wright

Views: 16,826

Rating: 4.9656162 out of 5

Keywords: pig sticker, chisel, hand tool woodworking, woodwright's shop, hand tools woodworking, paul sellers, Wood By Wright, traditional woodworking, woodworking tools, woodworking, Handtools, Hand tool, Hand Tools, Hand plane, Hardwood, Hardwoods, mortise chisel, roy underhill, Bench chisel, pigsticker, what is a, how to, vs, How to sharpen, tool, woodshop

Id: FwbkMjGpmnQ

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2019