Mortise Practice
I went to the local homecenter to get some 2×4's build the base structure of my lathe stand out of, I didn't have a lot of luck with 2×4s the bundle was still wrapped up with 4-5 loose ones on top and the loose ones where not ones I'd pay money for. After some digging I found some decent 2×10's so I grabbed 3 (remembering I needed 3 2×4's) since these where 10' long as well, I had them cut in half so they would fit in the back of my mini cooper.
When I get 2 by stock, I basically treat it as if it's 6/4 rough stock and I still go through the jointing and planing process to make sure I get some good flat boards.
After milling the boards down to 1 1/4'' thick (the final thickness I wanted) ripped them into 2 1/2'' strips. During this process I quickly realised I had way more lumber than I needed, and cut the strips I needed, plus several extras to get my mortising technique down.
One thing I like about having the add-on fence to my miter gauge that is flush with the saw blade, it makes measuring a snap. After I cut the first peice to length I just set it on top of the next peice to be cut and flush the left side with the end of the board, and the right side with the edge of the fence. Remove the first peice then make the cut. This produced some great results for makeing sure the parts where the same length.
At first my intention was to make the tennon 3/4'' thick, on the 1 1/4'' thick peice of wood, this leaves 1/4'' around for the mortise. I quickly found that this wasn't enough for chisel work and and mortise did not survive. Fortunatly this was on one of my practice peices.
I shrunk the tennon down to 1/2'' which gives 3/8'' around the mortise, this worked out much better, chiseling out the mortise was an interesting experience. I can certianly see why people invest in a mortising machine. If I was a pro that would be a no brainer, I may even consider it myself if I had a project that had a ton of mortises in it (I've heard people mention projects that can contain 50+ mortise and tennon joints whew that's a lot of mortises to cut)
For the record, these aren't 100% by hand, I took a 1/2'' forsner bit and my drill press to clear out most of the material, and I use the chisel to square everything up.
It took several tweaks and adjustments on my tablesaw to make the tennon (using a dado stack to cut the tennon). And the first one I ended up making too loose, so I lowered the blade just a nudge, but I guess it was too much because it was pretty tight fit, and next thing I know .. I split the wood.
Tomorrow I have some more tennon practice and then hopefully I'll make the base frame for my lathe stand.
I went to the local homecenter to get some 2×4's build the base structure of my lathe stand out of, I didn't have a lot of luck with 2×4s the bundle was still wrapped up with 4-5 loose ones on top and the loose ones where not ones I'd pay money for. After some digging I found some decent 2×10's so I grabbed 3 (remembering I needed 3 2×4's) since these where 10' long as well, I had them cut in half so they would fit in the back of my mini cooper.
When I get 2 by stock, I basically treat it as if it's 6/4 rough stock and I still go through the jointing and planing process to make sure I get some good flat boards.
After milling the boards down to 1 1/4'' thick (the final thickness I wanted) ripped them into 2 1/2'' strips. During this process I quickly realised I had way more lumber than I needed, and cut the strips I needed, plus several extras to get my mortising technique down.
One thing I like about having the add-on fence to my miter gauge that is flush with the saw blade, it makes measuring a snap. After I cut the first peice to length I just set it on top of the next peice to be cut and flush the left side with the end of the board, and the right side with the edge of the fence. Remove the first peice then make the cut. This produced some great results for makeing sure the parts where the same length.
At first my intention was to make the tennon 3/4'' thick, on the 1 1/4'' thick peice of wood, this leaves 1/4'' around for the mortise. I quickly found that this wasn't enough for chisel work and and mortise did not survive. Fortunatly this was on one of my practice peices.
I shrunk the tennon down to 1/2'' which gives 3/8'' around the mortise, this worked out much better, chiseling out the mortise was an interesting experience. I can certianly see why people invest in a mortising machine. If I was a pro that would be a no brainer, I may even consider it myself if I had a project that had a ton of mortises in it (I've heard people mention projects that can contain 50+ mortise and tennon joints whew that's a lot of mortises to cut)
For the record, these aren't 100% by hand, I took a 1/2'' forsner bit and my drill press to clear out most of the material, and I use the chisel to square everything up.
It took several tweaks and adjustments on my tablesaw to make the tennon (using a dado stack to cut the tennon). And the first one I ended up making too loose, so I lowered the blade just a nudge, but I guess it was too much because it was pretty tight fit, and next thing I know .. I split the wood.
Tomorrow I have some more tennon practice and then hopefully I'll make the base frame for my lathe stand.